Swapping stripes for teeth

It's been a long time since I fished for pike.
Too long.
I blame the perch.

My recent preoccupation with all things spined and stripy has meant that an entire Autumn and Winter has passed without me wetting a line in pursuit of pike, and with Spring, one hopes, just around the corner it was "now or never" if that state of affairs was to be altered. I rang Pete and we hastily convened a Saturday morning appointment with the Grand Union Canal with old esox as the intended quarry.

The early morning air was chill, although the forecast promised a morning that would get milder as it progressed, which thankfully turned out to be the case. We tackled up alongside each other in an area of the canal that has proved productive for us in the past, and set about the task of catching livebaits (itself a diverting and pleasant pastime) with which to tempt any marauding green and copper hued water wolves who might be lurking in the vicinity with hungry stomachs and malevolent intent.

Catching the livebait presented a greater challenge than is often the case, but without too much effort expended we had enough small roach, perch and bleak to begin the more earnest task of snaring a passing predator. Our pike floats bobbed pleasingly on the water's surface as the, doubtless, less than pleased baits performed their underwater task. I was giving a debut to a vintage glass fibre carp rod made 30 or 40 years ago by the no longer with us but (by me, at least) much lamented ET Barlow & Son, rodbuilders of Thames Ditton, whose signature Vortex range was adorned with a cartoon perch logo. The aforementioned fish-bothering stick was paired with an ancient but reliable Mitchell 300 which proudly wears the noble scars and paint chips earned through years of hard use.

Pete's livebait had barely entered the water before it was snaffled by a lively jack which was soon suffering the indignity of being held aloft to enable it to snarl for the camera before being returned to its everyday business of harassing fish smaller than itself.

Thereafter things took a more familiar turn, with watching and waiting the order of the day. The lack of activity was not to the detriment of enjoyment, and conversation and coffee flowed as the sun broke through the clouds, and the grey winter's sky took on an altogether more Spring-like aspect. Pete had appointed himself "cigar monitor" for the day, and two plumes of aromatic smoke were soon drifting towards the heavens as we willed our floats into disappearance.

In the event my float, livebait and a passing pike contrived to fulfil one of the classic cliches beloved of anglers: the last gasp, last cast "blank saver". With the morning almost up, and lists of chores awaiting each of us in our respective domestic lives the float bobbed, ducked, disappeared and pulled away with determination. I closed the bail arm of the Mitchell, wound down and struck and brought to the net a pike of extremely modest proportions. No matter that it was one of the smallest jacks I've had the fortune to make the acquaintance of, I was delighted not only to have plucked victory from the jaws of angling defeat, but also to have "christened" the rod with such a plucky pup of a pike.

I returned the pike carefully to the water, and we watched it lie up sulkily for a full minute or two, exuding surly indignation at  the insult to its pride caused by being briefly plucked from its aqueous home, the fish bringing to mind DH Lawrence's pike: 

"A slim pike with smart fins and grey striped suit,

 A young cub of a pike,

 Slouching along away below, half out of sight,

 Like a lout on an obscure pavement."

... and then, with a flick of her tail she was gone, frozen in time in my memory as a disgruntled embodiment of defiance and fragility, aggression and vulnerability.
Pike desire sated, I reckon I've got one more perch session in me before the cycle of the seasons turns my thoughts to olive flanked tench and chubby crucians.
Obsession ..... what obsession?