My approach to piking has always been to use deadbaits, I guess mainly as it's most similar to carp fishing in that you set traps and then generally have to sit and wait. So lure fishing was going to be a whole different experience: light rods, tiny lures, casting, casting, casting, constantly moving...

To be honest, it was going to be a bit of a leap of faith! I know that people do catch pike using lures on the river (Jim has caught loads!) but until you've got one on the bank yourself, there's an element of disbelief about it... Why would a pike turn it's nose up at a nice stinky sardines in favour of a wiggling bit of plastic?!

As all my gear is basically carp tackle the 1st task was to get a rod. Luckily for me, a quick search on Gumtree resulted in a sweet 6ft telescoping spinning rod for all of £10 - perfect! Once I'd picked that up, it was a case of spooling up an old float reel with 40lb braid and I was good to go.

Jim very kindly kitted me out with some lures: we started with 5g Fox soft plastic lures and had some 2 gram Fox micro lures for hunting down perch if the pike weren't having it (although Jim did point out that pike will happily take a micro...). They looked so small in comparison to the deadbaits I use, even sprats were bigger that these things!

The venue for the day was to be the River Avon at Keynsham with the plan being to start at the lock and cover as much water as possible. It was a freezing cold start and the bridge and lock looked fantastic with the vapour raising off the water... However after a couple of hours casting covering the lock, the main river and the wash just past the weir we decided to head up the River Chew that runs through Keynsham Memorial Park, just in case some perch were around...

Although we saw fish in the park stretch it was a likely looking spot next to the weir that produced my 1st bite! Luckily for me, this tiny perch saved me from a blank.

We did walk back to the lock at Keynsham and I proceeded to lose several perch on micro fry lures... But the day did wet my appetite for lure fishing and if a tiny perch brought a smile to my face, imagine what a 10lb pike will feel like ;)

After a tough month of so fishing today felt very, very different. There was a bit of warm in the sun, for once there wasn't any wind and I was straight into some fish at the first spot I tried. 'Toga Point' has always been good to me and today was no different, with a couple of fish a piece on both the lure and worm rod. These winter fish are in such great condition, I'm guessing due to feeding up for winter and spawning and although the takes aren't as blistering as they are in the warmer months the weights are quite something.

I spent a good hour or so at toga point, working either side of the weed bed that comes out from the point and I was literally having the best time. But eventually the bites dried up so I decided to head up the lake to 'Fence Bay' and again, I was immediately into fish. This was quite something, getting this amount of action around the edges after so many weeks of having to fish deeper open water was just amazing.

Sadly the famous 'Kurwongbah wind' had kicked in so after a couple more smallish fish I decided to head up to 'Kangaroo Point' where a very strong breeze was blowing me rapidly from left to right. It was worth battling though as there were fish holding up in the bay and if I could get the kayak position right I could drift right across them and get multiple hits. It really is one of my favourite spots on the lake and I managed yet more decent sized bass.

This was turning out to be quite a session! After an hour or so battling the wind at 'Kangaroo Point' it was time to move on again. The plan was to paddle over to the bay in front of the big house and let the wind blow me slowly down the lake. I'd not had much from this spot so it was a real surprise when the lure ripped off on the 2nd cast!

That was the only bite from that spot and the wind rapidly pushed me down into a new spot around the corner from 'Stag Bay'. I managed a number of small bass from this new spot and learnt a thing or two about the area. Plenty of weed as normal for Kurwongbah but there were some great clear spots. Defo an area that requires more investigation...

Having so much consistent action in each spot had meant time was marching on so I decided to have one more go at 'Fence Bay' (which produced yet more fish!) and another go at 'Toga Point' (which also produced yet more fish!) before making my way back to the landing stage.

Just an amazing day on the water! I was made up, one of the best sessions so far at Lake Kurwongbah with a handful off big fish and loads of backup smaller ones - happy days.

I was blessed with lovely flat calm conditions this time which was a welcome relief as its been windy as all hell of late which makes kayak fishing a real challenge!

The day started well, with my first hit (but sadly not a fish...) on a soft plastic. I've been watching a lot of videos from Pukka1963 on YouTube and he's been cleaning up of late with plastics, namely the Gulp 'grubs' so it it was defo worth giving them a go. After that encouraging initial hit, I was really expecting some more action on the plastics but it was actually the worms and Rapal Rap-V blades that once again produced all the fish. I'll defo be returning to soft plastics sometime soon but it's hard to ignore such a winning combo.

I had to work hard for every bite and didn't score anything of any massive size but what amazed me was the amount of fish around the edges rather than out in deeper water. It's hard to believe, but maybe the winter pattern is over?!

The weather was looking on point all week and although Friday was set to be sunny it was going to be pretty windy around mid morning. I haven't yet figured out how much the wind affects the fishing at Lake Kurwongbah asbwater temperature and current all play their part. But aside from that it can make keeping stationary in the kayak a complete nightmare! The main challenge is remembering the spot you got a bite from so you can revisit it for another go as if there's one bass, the chances are there'll be more hanging around. I'm wondering if some home made h-block markers are the go?!

So I decided to arrive early and make the most of the calm conditions and weirdly, I couldn't buy a bite! The water was like a mill pond, the sun low in the sky, it all looked perfect but either there weren't any bass around or they just weren't interested - which really surprised me as in past sessions they'd got onto the worms literally in minutes. It's situations like this that a sounder would be an invaluable bit of kit...

And then as if someone had flicked a switch.. the wind sprung up! A lot earlier than BOM had predicated too, before I knew it the kayak was spinning in circles and I was finding it impossible to stay put. Having done 20 minutes at 'Toga Point' I'd had enough so I headed on down to 'Stag Bay' thinking there had to be some fish there. Sure enough, I managed to pick two small ones up on the lure allowing it to sink almost to the bottom before retrieving. But what really surprised me was that there was absolutely no interest at all on the worms.

Again, I'm not sure if there weren't fish around, or my presentation was off but something was up. I wasn't even getting any interest from the dreaded eels! One thing was that the wind was blowing to the south east, whereas on previous weeks where the wind had go up it'd been to the north west. It certainly wasn't a cool wind, I was plenty warm in the sunshine but maybe the chop on the water and the current direction had pushed the fish into new areas?

I stuck it out for a while, letting the wind drift me from the bay out into open water, thinking that being stealthy would trick the fish but no further joy. It was weird, the lake was fishing completely differently and I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. After an hour of spinning in circles I headed around the corner further down the lake (still no name!) and tried the open water and despite picking up another small bass on the lure, I really wasn't 'feeling it'...

And by this point, I'm not going to lie, the wind was really, really beginning to piss me off!

It wasn't worth fighting it, so I let the wind blow me down the side of the lake towards the old boat ramp, casting as I went to see if anything was around. And then amazingly, I stumbled upon some decent fish! They seemed to be sitting in open water just outside a weed bed just off the point in front of the boat ramp and if I could get a lure in that spot, I could nab a bite. It wasn't easy as I needed to cast directly into the wind and constantly reposition the kayak but picking off some bites had completely turned my mood around. It was hard work but worth it for a couple of decent bass from a new area.

The bites did dry up, more than likely due to my splashing due to constantly having to reposition myself so a new plan was needed. I'd watched a video during the week from 'Skulldrag Industries' where a guy had great success fishing down by the dam wall and as it's an area that I'd not fished before, I decided it was worth a go. The other reason was I wondered if it would be out of the wind as despite it being a wide expanse of water, it would be sheltered by the curve of the lake and the trees.

But no dice - the wind was, if anything, worse by the dam wall! I gave it a go for a while but to be honest my heart really wasn't in it... I also realised that my kit wasn't up to the task, if I was going to stand a chance of catching a bass here I'd need something that swam a lot deeper or give trawling a go (which isn't really my thing...).

So another tough day... Rewarding, but tough. Winter bassing is a new challenge, I thought I'd cracked it with the worms but maybe I need to employ some different tactics or investment in a sounder to give me the edge in locating these Kurwongbah bass?!

Although the last session had been prolific with the worms, one hang up I had was the hook holds - the bass seemed to really swallow the hook resulting in some deep hooking and although I managed to get all the hooks out without any damage, it made me wonder if there was an alternative that would result in better hooking. After some searching, I remembered that 'drop shotting' was a perfect technique for predators but would it work for bass and would the hook holds be better?

I've used the drop shotting set up a couple of times in the UK for perch with limited success, the main problem being access - it never felt like I was fishing vertically enough for it to be effective. But in this scenario I was fishing from a kayak directly over fish - you can't get much more vertical than that!

There seems to be a load of different ways out there to set up the rig but I went for around a metre or so of fluorocarbon leader and a size 8 baitholder hook tied with the following knot:

The great thing about this knot is that it's incredibly easy to tie and makes sure that the hook sticks out at a 90 degree angle from the line. This gives the bait a fantastic presentation and pushes the hook away from the line meaning it's virtually tangle free.

But would the bass go for it?!

As todays session was going to be short (I was off on a motorcamping adventure later in the day and the weather was also set to turn around 12ish...) I wasted no time in heading straight up the lake to 'Toga Point' only this time, I was determined to fish further out in the deep water. The wind however had other ideas... I knew it was going to be windy this morning but far out, could I keep the kayak still for longer than 30 seconds?! It didn't matter how far out from the bank I paddled, within 2 casts I was literally meters away from the edge...

Not that it mattered as on the 3rd or so cast the drop shot worm rod hooped round and it was fish on! Amazingly, this one really took off and it was quite a tussle getting it in - but what a fish! And most importantly, hooked right on the lip - the plan had worked, the drop shot presentation resulted in a good hook hold and the bass were clearly on the worms like a shot.

I was convinced there'd be more fish around but finding the spot where I'd picked up the last one was a virtual impossibility... The wind was literally spinning me in circles. I did persevere and was rewarded with another bass, this time on the lure but after 20 minutes or so I'd had enough and it was time to move on.

My plan was to follow the same route as last time so I headed straight across the lake with the aim of drifting down the margin into 'Stag Bay'. Sadly on this occasion the wind literally hurled me along and after a minute or so's drift, I was in the bay and pretty much into the bank. Not ideal, but I stuck with it as it's such a perfect spot!

It was pretty quiet though, right up until the drop shot worm rod twitched and I struck into what I though was going to be another massive bass. So it was a real surprise when a huge eel surfaced next to the kayak! Far out, eels are amazing creatures but an absolute nightmare if you're not sure what to do with them - and this thing was a beast, I defo did not want it to end up in the kayak with me...

After a lot of messing around I managed to wear it out sufficiently to get a pair of forceps on the hook and free the slimy wriggling thing. Luckily for me, it was hooked very lightly on the lip (the drop shot rig really was working!) and after an incredibly powerful flick of it's tail, I got the hook out and it was on it's merry way. Not surprisingly, the rig was a complete mess: slime all up the leader, the hook mangled and split shot gone... So a fresh rig was tied and I set about trying to find the fish again.

I guess when fishing with worms there's always the risk of hooking an eel! Blugh, they are foul!

By this time the predicted weather had begun to close in and looking up the lake I could see a wall of water slowly marching towards me... I had a few more casts, doing my wrap up on the video just as the rain started and amazingly got a fish on the lure rod whilst I was talking! Only a small one, but it's always good to finish on a fish.

The rain hammered down but was short lived but the wind would just not let up. I spent another 20 minutes drifting down the central deep water and managed to pick up another couple of fish on the lure and on with the worms but by this point it was getting on to around 11am and I really needed to head for home if I was going to have enough time to get the bike together.

They say one decent fish can make a session and that first bass had certainly made my day - what a donkey! And I was made up that the drop shot rig had worked so well, despite the tough conditions.

I will be back this coming Friday (when the weather is supposed to be better!), armed again with a pot of worms, the 'elvis' v-blade and who knows... Maybe I'll find some more monsters?! But no eels thank you...