Dipping a toe into the realm of super-pike

Pike fishermen are a breed apart. I didn’t realise this until recently, when I spent an entire day on the edge of an almost-frozen loch in the Scottish Borders. An ice-cold gale came bowling down the glen like a pack of wolves and our small stand seemed as if it had been built in a wind tunnel designed to purge every last kilojoule of human energy from the face of planet Earth.

Trapped motionless on the shore, there was no option but to wait it out and, as my companions laughed and poured more black coffee from a flask, I resigned myself to hypothermia. Several of these men had come up in a specially kitted-out Transit van from County Durham and it was their plan to remain on