Blogging life’s journey: November 2025

How I ended up on BBC Midlands Today and a session on a lake in pursuit of pike 

As a result of yesterday’s angling session in the rain, I ended up being the featured image on BBC Midlands Today’s weather forecast slot, at the end of the news. How did that happen? Well, courtesy of a random photograph, taken by Justin Kelly, all is revealed in the video below. 

Click above or watch directly on YouTube

Today’s angling outing was entirely different to my early morning canal perch trip, when I visited a lake at lunchtime to pursue pike with sprats. We’re back to stormy weather tomorrow but, for now, I enjoyed the good conditions. It also enabled my gear and clothing to dry out. 

It was my usual two-rod approach, with the fish on the bottom and a float to indicate when a predator picked up the bait. I do love this style of fishing for pike, unfortunately on this occasion though, I didn’t even get a flicker on the float. 

Unless you’re fishing a match, of course, we’re not in competition with our fellow anglers. However, especially when you have struggled, it’s always interesting to see how others have done. I fished for 3.5 hours and the other three anglers, who had been there considerably longer, didn’t have a single bite between them either. 

As I said to one of them, as we made our way to the car park, at least we all blanked. It’s easier to take, than when you end up without a single fish, and everyone else has had a red-letter day. As far as I’m concerned anyway, this type of fishing is always more of a challenge than a canal session with maggots. 

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