Never trust a poet (with unknown angling credentials)

[Vole]

With high hopes, buoyed by a half-remembered bit of verse about the North-East wind making pike lunge hungrily, I set out to a club pike match yesterday.
Two pike were caught.

The verse was googled this morning, and turned out to be this:

"Jovial wind of winter
Turn us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
Every plunging pike."

- From Charles Kingsley's "Ode to the North-East Wind".

Further googling reveals Kingsley to have been a kind, Christian, bigotted, Odinistic, racist bundle of contradictions... not the best source of advice, piscatorial or moral.

Maybe I should re-read Ted Hughes' "Pike" next time; or possibly not.

[Stathamender]

With high hopes, buoyed by a half-remembered bit of verse about the North-East wind making pike lunge hungrily, I set out to a club pike match yesterday.
Two pike were caught.

Maybe I should re-read Ted Hughes' "Pike" next time; or possibly not.

Or listen to him read it himself: https://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/pike.

[Dave Burr]

I think I once met 'Crisp'

[Vole]

[Vole]

Stathamender, many thanks for that link, it was grand! He really did manage to cature both pike and pool, didn't he?
Well worth several listens!

[Troydog]

Great stuff Vole, I enjoyed the poem, never mind the source!!