All About Coarse Angling managed to get some funding to run an event through Sportivate and contacted the Pike Angling Club to see if they would like to have an event to promote their side of the sport. Funnily enough they nearly took my hand off...so a few weeks later we were sat on the side of Northlands Lake in Basildon with 24 helpers and 80+ youngsters wanting to learn how to fish for the ultimate freshwater predator.

Basildon Angling Centre had given us permission to use the lakes for the weekend and the Council had kindly closed the lakes so we had sole use.

Saturday morning everyone was running around setting up gazebo’s, tables, banners and getting tackle ready for the start of the first event of its type to ever be held in the UK for Pike Angling.

Anna was getting the registration desk organised and was going to be looking after everyone for the weekend, making sure the youngsters were where they were meant to be and that the coaches got a cuppa now and then.

Sean Ellis, head honcho for the Essex PAC, had done a sterling job getting a lot of helpers for the event including Steve Rowley, editor of Esox Magazine, John Goble, river record holder and Ed Turner, top pro angler. Their experience and expertise was going to be crucial to the successful running of the event.

When everyone had turned up we had a quick health & safety meeting then got everyone placed with a coach for their session. Some were going to be using live and dead baits while others were going to be using lures for their first session, then for their second session they were going to reverse this. That way everyone covered all aspects of the sport.

Rikki Cooper was looking after 2 lads and they were soon into fish, with both lads catching very quickly. In fact Rikki was ripping the lake apart and all his students on the day caught fish, as did Steve Rowley fishing 3 swims up from Rikki. These 2 were top guys for the day, taking 17 fish between them.

48 Pike were caught over the first day, a superb number of fish. Best of the day was a closely fought affair with it changing hands 3 times in an hour. Best fish ended up at 12lb 10oz, 12lb 9oz, 12lb 8oz and 12lb 2oz. 2 x 12lbers for both coaches so honours were even, though we did get the “my fish weighed more than yours” syndrome!!!

On the Sunday we awoke to a very different day. It had rained hard overnight and it was cold, dark and grey, a very miserable start to the day that didn’t look like it was going to improve a lot.

It didn’t....it poured with rain for most of the day, making it a difficult day with the fishing. The youngsters stuck with it though and loved every minute of it though.

The fish were not so forthcoming in these conditions and the catch rate was well down on the Saturdays magnificent numbers. This didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s’ spirits though and they all got stuck in.

Eventually the rain won though and we had to call it a day an hour early due to the cold and everyone being soaked. So we adjourned to the cafe to have hot drinks and for prizes to be given out.

I would like to thank the companies who sponsored the event; Sportivate, The ADB, Basildon Angling Centre, Nash Peg One, Angling Baits Direct & Tubeology.

Over 40 Pike were caught on Saturday and 11 on the Sunday, most people caught a fish. I think it was a very successful event and I look forward to running more of them in the future