All Quiet on the Eastern Fen

 

The big wide world beyond the Fenland scene in which I'd inserted myself was going more than a little bit crazy. The established order of things was rapidly being turned upside down, and between the two of them a narcissistic US President with an over-inflated ego and no real understanding of international diplomacy and a Russian dictator with aggressive imperialistic designs were making a mess of things and bringing us closer to a global war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. But on the Sixteen Foot drain as I screwed my eyes up against the wind and stared at my pike float, for a few hours the world shrunk, its problems temporarily forgotten, and I was happy to surrender the totality of my concentration to the, ultimately unsuccesful, attempt to add to my (admittedly meager) tally of Fenland pike. 

I make an annual pilgrimage (an apt description considering the company with whom I make it) to the Fens with a small bunch of fellow members of the Christian Anglers group, a club that now numbers around 120 fisherfolk whose common bonds are fishing and faith, and on this occasion the group included both my son and one of my brothers. 

To say that the Fenland drains can be inhospitable and less than easy to fish is to dabble in understatement, but this yearly event is one that proves all of the cliches and truisms of angling to be accurate: there really is more to fishing than catching fish, and while we descend on the drain knowing that only a few of us will catch we make the journey equally confident that such knowledge doesn't bother us. 

It was probably slightly less than an hour after setting up that the first pike of the day was landed, a jack of perhaps five pounds making its way angrily into my brother Andy's landing net. We all took this to be an encouraging sign, although experience told us that the Sixteen Foot drain was likely to be capricious and (as with swallows and summers) one pike is no guarantee of whatever may or may not ensue.

The morning wore on, and as lunchtime (bacon rolls, cooked by one of our number and shared by all,  always form a part of this particular get-together) grew closer, Matt struck into a pike which it soon became clear was significantly bigger than the day's first fish. A short tussle resulted in him displaying what would be the best fish of the day, a mean and magnificent looking female of fourteen pounds and six ounces. 

Morning gave way to afternoon and as the sky turned cloudier and the wind grew colder, Ray, who runs this stretch of water, appeared with warm sausage rolls to keep morale and spirits high. John, fishing at the far end of the row of anglers managed a brace of early afternoon jacks to complete the day's catching. 

Most of those fishing had travelled reasonable distances to do so, and with a darkening sky taking on a more threatening demeanour, we gathered to present Matt with the trophy for the day's largest specimen, to say our goodbyes, and to offer a brief prayer of thanks for what had been a thoroughly enjoyable day and another one for our friend and club member Roy, in advance of his imminent surgery.

Maybe next year will see me renew my own personal bankside acquaintance with the gloriously green and mottled pike of the Fens but, while I have only limited confidence that this may prove to be the case, I have no such hesitation in my certainty that next year's event will be as rich and full of pleasure as all its predecessors have been. As our friends in the Flyfishers Club would have it: "Piscator non solum piscatur."

Year's end perching

It's a strange thing, middle age. I'm acutely aware that I have fewer years to fish than when I began my love affair with this most enthralling of pastimes as a child, and that there will most likely come a time in the future when I'm no longer able to fish. There may even come a time when I no longer remember that I once loved to fish. All of which embues every session with significance, and creates in me a sense that it is something akin to a duty to enjoy every moment that I spend on the bank. Even those in the depths of winter when the fishing is hard and the weather hostile, and the fireside provides seductive temptation. Perhaps, especially those. 

This morning was one such morning and the air was chill when my friend Roger drew up outside the house to drive us to the lake which would become the focus of our attention and aspirations for the next few hours. The target species, inevitably, was our winter go-to of perch. There was a time when my winters were dominated by pike, but now it's thoughts of the stripes, spines, bright red fins and cavernous mouths of specimen perch that draw me away from the warmth and comfort of the house. 

This year has seen my least succesful pursuit of perch since I started fishing seriously for them six or seven years ago. In that time I've landed a pleasing number of two pound plus fish, but my three sessions prior to this morning had resulted in just small perch, the very largest of which would probably only have weighed somewhere around the three quarters of a pound mark. I was in serious need of perchy redemption and fully cognisant of the fact that this would be my last shot at it before the year's end and with Storm Darragh due to make its presence known in Leicestershire by mid afternoon, we only had a few hours in which to attempt to entice our striped-sided quarry.

Unfortunately, in keeping with recent form, the perch failed to make an appearance, with the exception of two minute perch that would be designated as "wasps" in the vernacular of the modern dropshotting fraternity, both of which fell to Roger's rod. Bites of any kind were rare, and swapping between lobworms and maggots only produced four small roach for me. By the time we packed up the early afternoon sun was shining weakly in the wolf's coat grey sky, and Roger had also managed just four fish, although the highlight of the session came in the form of a decent sized ide that took a fancy to Roger's float-fished double red maggot and which put up a respectable fight before succombing to the welcoming folds of the landing net.

It had been a frustrating session in what has proved to be a frustrating end to my fishing year, but despite the exasperation of disappointing results (or, more precisely,  a disappointing lack of results!) the failure has been more than ameliorated by the sheer pleasure of the act of angling itself. A day spent in the quiet of the countryside in the presence of a friend, attempting to solve the puzzle whose resolution is a fish on the bank is its own reward even on those occasions when the puzzle "wins." 

Here's to an upturn in fortunes in 2025!

Falling off my perch

For many men the mid-life is a time of crushing disapointment and dangerous risk. For me it has been neither. While others may mourn the loss of their looks (I had none to lose) or their hair (mine was curly and I didn't particularly like it), I was pretty unperturbed by the whole thing. I didn't have a crazy fling with a younger woman (such things are poorly thought of in my line of work) and I was happy to sail past my silver wedding anniversary and into whatever the future holds with the girl I married when she was only 22. Unlike some of weaker disposition, I was also succesful in declining the enticement of the shining chrome and throaty roar of a Harley Davidson. In fact, the nearest I got to a mid-life crisis was splashing out on a few split cane fishing rods and vintage reels. The one thing I really do miss, however, from my younger days is the seemingly endless amount of freetime one has, freetime that is generally wasted in one's youth. As Anno Domini continues to do its work of depreciation on me, more than the physical vigour of youth it's that spare time that I yearn for. Perhaps when I move out of middle age and into old age proper and retirement I'll experience a recrudesence of the experience of posessing unallocated time, time which- of course- I will immediately allocate to fishing. But for now in my current season of life, every fishing session is precious, and possible only by the rescheduling of the duties that make up a work and domestic life. Fishing with good friends, doubly so.

It had been over a month since I last fished, and with the longest day passed and summer now only a fading  memory, I had been looking forward to the annual Christian Anglers charity perch match. Autumn is, by far, my favourite of the seasons in which to angle. Shakespeare may have felt that there was no finer comparison for the subject of his admiration than a "summer's day", but the poets who really knew where things are at leant much more in an Autumnward direction, from Keats and his "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" to Robert Frost's wistful musings on the impermanence of the season's golden hue. It's not just the visual beauty that makes the year's penultimate season uppermost in my affections, but also the fact that, while immersed in its beauty, I prioritise fishing for the most striking of our coarse fish, the prickly and pugnacious, boldly-striped and  crimson-finned perch and this was to be my first foray in search of perch this Autumn/Winter.   The second week of November may, technically, place us more in Winter than Autumn, but to my mind for as long a the trees remain bedecked in golds, scarlets and russets and until the branches turn bare, it's still Autumn.

My rod and reel selection (for perch fishing at anyrate) is based not on tactics, native cunning or strategy, but merely on a whim, and today "felt" like a Wizard and Aerial type of day. The day was mild, the pond ripple free and expectations were high.

For most of the group of eight anglers fishing the friendly competition, held annually in memory of our late friend John Rellie, those expectations proved to be unfounded. The perch were sullen, moody and not in a  compliant mood, although a handful of better fish were landed over the course of the day. I fished mostly with prawns as bait, occasionally changing to red maggots although this change always prompted only a procession of very small fish. My best perch of the day proved to be this fellow which would only have weighed around three quarters of a pound had I bothered to subject it to the indignity of the weigh sling.

Tucked away in a reed fringed corner, the exception to the rule was eventual winner John, who managed four perch over a pound, the biggest registering a weight of one pound and fifteen ounces. His fish came to a mixture of legered and float fishing tactics, the succesful bait being some of the largest tiger prawns I've ever seen. 

John was not alone in catching perch of a better stamp, with Gaz managing a brace of perch that both exceeded the pound mark and Loz also landing a perch just shy of a pound and a half. Rogue carp with a penchant for perch baits provided a welcome distraction but none of the larger perch put in an appearance and, for the first time in its seven year existence the competition was won with a fish that weighed under two pounds.

At the appointed hour of 3:30 we gathered for the presentation of the trophy and to say our goodbyes. Despite the fishing having this year been challenging, we all agreed that it had been a day well spent and a goodly sum had been raised for our chosen charity. The conversations and camararderie had more than made up for any deficet of large perch and despite having fished for six and a half hours with only small fish and one respectable (but by no means large) perch to show for my efforts, I went home in a contented frame of mind. I did, after all, have one more thing to look forward to: before leaving the house in the morning I had divided the prawns and left half of the packet at home to include in a fish pie, and I can happily confirm that the small aquatic crustaceans proved of a hit that evening with me than they had been by the perch in the daytime!

On being "in the family way."

I once heard someone say that as we journey through life our portfolio of enthusiasms diminishes. He was right. I no longer climb trees, fly model aircraft, pull wheelies on my bicycle or pull girls (or try to), play football, or go to nightclubs. The years have changed me, mostly for the better, but fishing is the one old enthusiasm that burns as brightly as it ever did, its glow undimmed by the passing of time. The fishing itself has metamorphosised through its different eras and obsessions, and now in its fifth decade, has seen spells of single species enthusiasm for (in turn) carp, pike, and more recently perch, daliances with hi-tech carp gear, pole fishing, and collecting and using vintage tackle, but the basic deep down love of angling has never been under threat. Even when in my 20's my main hobby was playing football, I still fished and could never walk past water without gazing into its depths for signs of life and mentally assesing how I would approach fishing it. Nowadays I am more aware than I have ever been of the ancillary pleasures of fishing- those of time spent in the stillness of beautiful places, and the company in which they're spent. 

I have a number of excellent fishing companions and their presence alongside me on the bank can redeem even the most cheerless of fishless days. Increasingly, fishing has become for me a social pursuit and while I do from time to time enjoy a solo session and the unique sense of peacefulness it offers, my preference is to fish with friends. 

Foremost among my angling companions these days is my son, James. All families have traditions, whether a holiday destination that is returned to year after year, the time at which Christmas presents are opened relative to the monarch's televised speech or any number of other idiosynchrosies that only make sense to the family members themselves. One of our family traditions is fishing. It's not a tradition that goes back generations (neither my father or either of my grandfathers fished) but one that was begun by me and my two brothers. (both pictured below)

Our own children, now all adults, have also all fished, and our sons, with varying levels of commitment to the pastime still do. Both my son and daughter caught their first fish when very "little people" and while the last time my daughter accompanied me on a fishing trip was six years ago, my son and I try to maintain a pattern of fishing together once a month, come rain (frequently!) or shine. Most years I manage to fish with one or both of my brothers, despite our being scattered accross the British Isles and the three of us have our own WhatsApp group in which we keep each other updated on our latest fishing adventures and escapades.

Not only do families have traditions but families, rather like waistlines,  expand over time. In just over a fortnight's time, I'm due to become a grandad and it was my commenting that my future grandson (yes, we do know it's a boy) will one day join the family ranks of anglers which prompted my son-in-law to point out to me that despite having been married to my daughter for five years I'd never taken him fishing. Suitably chastised, arrangements were hastily made to remove from him his ignorance of the gentle art, and a glorious sunny day saw us sat by the side of a small well-stocked pond. I elected not to fish but merely to play the role of guide and ghillie, and he proceded to catch a succession of fish drawn from a catholic range of species. My suspicion is that his love of football will prevent fishing from ever  being more than an occasional diversion, but he thoroughly enjoyed the experience and at least now at family get-togethers at which my brothers, son and I are talking about fishing he has some comprehension of what "all the fuss is about."

With my son-in-law having been removed from the ranks of the fishless, it was now time to induct my son's partner into the family tradition, a pleasant task that was undertaken this past weekend. She, my son and I, all shared a swim which, although slightly crowded, made for a very pleasant few hours. Between the three of us over the course of the day we caught probably somewhere in the region of a hundred fish, and it transpired that although she proved to be a fast learner and adept at catching fish my son's girlfriend was, although brave enough to do so,  less comfortable holding them! Being the good sport that she is, she also joined with another tradition that my son and I have developed, that of the bankside cigar (a tradition, I hasten to add, that we've only adopted since he got into his twenties!) 

There are many things in life that we lay aside as time marches inexorably on, but I trust that fishing will not prove to be one of them and that there are a good few years yet in which to fish with my brothers, my son, and when he's old enough, my grandson. I'm also hoping that the investment that I made in sorting out constant tangles when he was small will mean that, as things go full circle, when arthritis and poor eyesight prevent me from tying my own hooks that my son will be there to tie them for me. For the moment, I remain "piscator" and he "venator" but when the time arrives, I'll be more than happy with the reversal of roles. Here's to family traditions!

 

Lazing on a sunny afternoon

Sometimes the window of opportunity is narrow. Sunday isn't exactly the easiest day to go fishing if you work as a minister of a busy church, but my son and I hadn't fished together since early June, and so, in the brief timeslot that exists in the hiatus between the end of my two morning services and the commencement of the evening service, we grabbed a rod apiece and headed to one of our favourite lakes. Our choice of swim was severely limited, as by the time we arrived at the lake at around 1pm, there were few swims unoccupied- it appeared that the warm weather had lured every local angler to the lakeside.

The 19th Century American countryman, philosopher, and "man of words" David Henry Thoreau was on to something with his observation that "many anglers fish for all their lives without ever realising it is not fish they are after." My son and I like to catch fish (what fisherman doesn't?) but for us the pleasure extends far beyond merely the bringing of fish to the shore. Success is relative to ambition, and ours is simply to have a good time, and so we set up in anticipation of enjoying the sunshine, the prettiness of the surroundings, some good conversation and, hopefully, the occasional fish.

With Britain basking in a mini heatwave, we figured that the rudd for which the lake is well known would almost certainly be up in the water and so, on arriving at our pitch, we threw a couple of handfuls of maggots into the lake, but their introduction to the water was not immediately greeted with the anticipated swirls, boils, and flashes of gold and silver as the rudd and roach intercepted them on their descent through the water's upper layers. The lake seemed to be in high summer high dudgeon, the fish stupefied and rendered apathetic by the heat. 

We continually made adjustments to the depth at which we were fishing and to our shotting patterns, and before long the odd rudd or perch was finding itself swung in to our waiting hands but, although we were catching at a faster rate than any of the lake's other anglers, all of whom seemed to be really struggling, our captures were only ever intermittent.

Eventually we succeeded in getting the fish to feed with more consistency, but each fish, despite only being of very modest size, was the result of us needing to fish with greater effort than is often required on a lake that is one of our frequent haunts, and from which we would have expected to catch far more prolifically than was the case today. 

However, despite the somewhat (presumably heat induced) frustrating lethargy displayed by the fish it would be wrong to declare the afternoon anything other than a resounding success. The veracity of Thoreau's dictum had once again been proved to be accurate in its insight. No afternoon in which a father and his adult son while away three hours together entirely content with the beauty of their surroundings and the pleasure of each other's company could ever be deemd to be anything other than a resounding success. Some men yearn for fame, riches, and acclaim, but for me time spent fishing with my son is its own reward and more than enough to guarantee my face wears a satisfied smile on the drive home. It is my extreme good fortune to know that my son is the guarantee that I will never be friendless and not every father can make that claim - I am, indeed, blessed.

Angling in (someone else's) Arcadia

There can be very few anglers who have never wished that they owned their own private lake for the exclusive fishing use of themselves and one or two friends, and even fewer who have been able to realise the dream and take posession of their own corner of nature as an angling playground. However, giving credence to the saying "it's not what you know, it's who you know", I was this evening afforded the opportunity to wet a line in one man's private slice of Arcadia. My friend Matt has an uncle (I realise this is beginning to sound like one of those "friend of a friend of a friend of mine" stories) who owns a handsome property which contains within its grounds a lake dug and stocked for the sole use of himself and a few friends. Matt and I have occasionally fished together in the past (and much more frequently talked about fishing together!) and for some time Matt had promised to take me to his Uncle's lake to pursue some of the rarely fished for inhabitants that swim in its attractively tree fringed depths.

The evening was warm and sultry in the way summer evenings are meant to be, and as we walked round the lake we saw the odd carp basking or patrolling and others giving clues to their whereabouts without necessarily making themselves fully visible. Encouraged by what we'd observed, we set up in adjoining swims and within minutes my bite alarm was indicating a take as a carp powered off towards the middle of the lake. A spirited tussle resulted in defeat for the carp and success for me, and after a few minutes I was admiring a pristene common of around seven pounds. 

My banded pellet and Method feeder approach quickly saw two smaller carp follow their larger sibling to the bank before Matt, employing the same tactic, got in on the action with his own hat-trick of carp before the activity subsided and we were able to enjoy and appreciate the serenity of the surroundings without the (admittedly welcome) intrusion of fish.

Matt set up a float rod and managed a couple more carp and a nice ide that would probably have weighed close to two pounds before, and with the light just beginning to fade as the sun sunk lower behind the trees, the screech of my bite alarm indicated that one final common had made a decision it was about to regret and I landed my final carp of the evening.

The final tally of fish caught was five carp to each of us, along with Matt's unexpected bonus ide. All too soon it was time to return to life in the less serene surroundings of the suburbs of Leicester, but the three hours spent in someone else's personal corner of paradise had provided restorative refreshment for the soul at a time when it was much needed. Plans are afoot for a return trip before the autumn evenings draw in. When the surroundings and the company are right the fish don't need to be big.

Fishing in a Venn diagram

You could write what little I learned at school about maths on the back of a cigarette packet, but one thing I do recall being taught about was sets. I was never quite sure what sets had to do with numbers or arithmetic (I never progressed as far as algebra, trigonometry or complex equations) but I do remember that sets were displayed pictorially in Venn diagrams, and the overlap between sets was called an "intersection." I spent last weekend inhabiting what would have been one such intersection if my life and passions were described in terms of a Venn diagram. 

My Twitter biography (I refuse to indulge the ego of the narcissist who designed those overpriced electric cars by referring to said social media platform as "X") attests to the fact that my passions are faith, family, football and fishing. I could have added travel, literature and single malt whiskies to the list, but to do so would have compromised its pleasingly alliterative character, and so I chose not to! Anyway, the weekend brought together three of the four (faith, family and fishing) as I attended the eighth annual camping Retreat of the Christian Anglers group to which I belong. 

The excellent Purple Badger campsite in Leicestershire was once again the base for our weekend's escapades which, as is always the case, comprised of a mix of fishing, plentiful food (mostly of the high protein/high carbohydrate type generally preferred by anglers!) and times of talking and reflecting together on our different experiences of our shared Christian faith. These accounted for the fishing and faith aspects, with the intersection completed by the presence throughout the weekend of my brother and nephew, and my son joining us for breakfast and to fish on the Saturday.

After a hearty breakfast (cooked for us by Mark, the owner of the campsite) we travelled to a commercial style fishery about half an hour's drive from our base which offered the opprotunity to fish in a variety of styles, so accounting for both those who derive their pleasure by sitting behing matching rods and bite alarms as well as those who favour fishing the float, or (in a couple of cases) utilising a pole. With the exception of one inclement half hour in which the rain hammered down malevolantly with violent vigour , the elements were in benign mood, and although the carp weren't prolific, most anglers managed at least one carp and not a single angler suffered the ignomony of a blank. 

I shared a swim with my son and we each put out a carp rod and allowed it to "fish itself" while enjoying catching an almost relentless stream of smaller fish on the float. In the event we each ended up with a brace of carp to show for our efforts, my son landing the largest of them. Both of his were caught on dedicated carp tackle, while I was pleased that one of mine came on a float and centre-pin. We even managed a "double hook-up" with both fish being landed within seconds of each other. 

Around the lake others were also bringing carp to the bank, and there was an air of casual enjoyment as rods were wound in from time to time to enable  anglers to walk the bank and renew acquaintances with friends, one or two of whom hadn't seen each other since last year's Retreat. 

With the angling itch temporarily scratched, we returned to camp and spent some time talking in the sunshine about how life was going for each of us, where we are seeing God active in the ups and downs of our daily lives, and what we felt we were learning in it all. I realise that the majority of regular readers of this blog may find thoughts of such conversation amongst a bunch of anglers unfamiliar or strange, but for most of those of us attending the Retreat our faith is of even more importance to us than our fishing, and the single biggest aspect of our personal identity.

Two of our cherished Saturday night traditions are the barbecue, always presided over by chief cook and bottle washer, Pete, and the bonfire that follows it as evening gives way to night and darkness draws in.

Sunday, as has also become a regular ritual, began with a rustic service of Holy Communion in the open air, before we fished the lake on the campsite. Here the predominant species are some fine quality and beautifully coloured roach and rudd, although I was equally happy to augment the silver-sided roach and golden rudd with a procession of gudgeon, a fish for which I've had an inordinate fondness ever since childhood angling days.

As is needful for all good things, the weekend had to come to an end, and goodbyes were said and this year's Retreat pronounced by most who attended to be the best so far. We had been fed both physically and spiritually and our angling appetites were also satiated, although doubtless not for long. I drove home happy in the knowledge that three of my four passions (family, fishing and faith) had been brought into proximity and existed for a few hours in a joy inducing intersection - I wonder if there's a way in which we could work in a football match next year? It would certainly add a frisson of danger as a group of mainly aging and arthritic men tried to reclaim the heroic footballing deeds of their long gone and misspent youth!