Visions of pike ...

 

Christmas Eve, the "night before Christmas" and tonight, according to one well known poem, children will go to bed with "visions of sugar plums" dancing in their heads, but I suspect that when my head hits the pillow after my return from Midnight Communion a prehistoric looking fish will be inhabiting my sleeping thoughts. The reason? My next planned fishing session is a January piking pilgrimage to Norfolk, to be shared with fishing companions Pete and David.

 

While pike are not my favourite species (perch claim that epithet), they exert a strange fascination over me, and have done so ever since I caught my first of their kind, a lively jack of about three pounds, back in January of 1982. There's something special about a fish that exhibits such ferocity and oozes malevolence in its watery home, while being so fragile and vulnerable on the bank. Add to that the myths and far fetched stories that surround old esox and you have the stuff of which angling dreams are made.

 

 

Pike are also the fish, more than any other, whose size, for me at least, is one of the least relevant factors in terms of my appreciation of them. Because many of the places from which I've caught pike have been relatively wild or natural waters, catching any pike is an achievement, and the pounds and ounces merely a bonus. I have also found that small pike, such as the one caught by my son in this picture, are often more exquisitely marked than their older and larger counterparts, and these predators in miniature are as appreciated for their beauty as others are for their weight.

 

 

In addition to the imagination capturing qualities of the fish themselves, there is an attractiveness caused by the differing styles of fishing for them, all of which I enjoy. There are days when pike will chase a lure in the manner of a kitten chasing a toy, and seeing the water erupt as a pike aggressively turns with a lure in its mouth is one of the heart stopping thrills of angling. Lure fishing is an active, intuitive approach to fishing, maximising the primeval hunting aspect of the sport that links us to previous generations of our ancestors. Live baiting has always been the most reliable method for me, and although dead baiting has been responsible for the downfall of a number of my pike, it is the method in which I have the least confidence, and at which, in the words of many of my boyhood school reports, I must "try harder".
 

 

Pike and perch share my winter fishing attention, and the tail end of this calendar year has been disappointing in terms of pike captures, although my perch obsession has meant I've only twice fished for them since October, resulting in the capture of just one miniscule jack. However, last January and February yielded a bountiful supply of pike for me and Pete, and our hope as we look towards January is of recent history choosing to repeat itself. My first pike of 2015 was this 14 pounder pictured below, if its grandmother swims in a Norfolk river whose name I'm unwilling to divulge, is twice the size and has a mind to take my bait next month, then my Christmas wish really will have come true. Santa, I really have been a good boy .............

 

 

A good ending

 

 

Novels, films, sermons and lives are all in want of a good ending. So too, fishing seasons. For those of us who fish ponds, lakes and canals as well as rivers, seasons these days are defined by calendar years, not by the once glorious 16th of June. When I was a teenager the countdown to "Opening Day" caused me more excitement than the countdown to Christmas, but as LP Hartley observed "the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there", and times have changed.

 

After an indifferent last couple of month's fishing, and knowing that this would be my final chance to wet a line before church life goes into Christmas overdrive, I was desperate for a good ending to my season, and- despite the absence of monsters landed- this morning's session gave me the good ending I desired.

 

 

It had been hoped that Greg would join us on the canal for our "last hurrah", but unfortunately work commitments prevented him from doing what he would rather have done, and so it was just Pete and I who braved the early morning chill. We headed for a spot that we thought had the potential to be good for perch and set about mixing some groundbait laced with chopped worms and prawns. We started off on float-fished maggots, which saw me catch three micro-roach within 5 minutes of commencing to fish, but it was only after switching to worms that the perch really started to turn on. Initially we fished tight to the spots we had baited, feeding and casting accurately in true "textbook style", but it turns out that perch don't read text books, and more speculative casting around the swim and "chasing bites" proved to be far more effective.

 

 

Any session should be about more than just the fish, and this is particularly so of a "last session", and so a bankside cooked breakfast to celebrate the end of a highly enjoyable season was in order. The sun occasionally broke through, but the weather was mostly cold, although mercifully dry. Pete was using a pole float on running line using a 14 foot match rod and his "pride and joy" small Greys fixed spool reel, I opted for a shorter, 10 foot, match rod, and used one of Ian Lewis' handmade "crucian mini dart" floats. We also picked up the odd fish on the quivertip, with a worm presented on a running ledger with a 3/8 ounce bomb.

 

By the time we packed up at lunchtime a goodly number of perch had made their way to the keepnet, and in the lulls between perch catching activity (which tended to come in short, sharp bursts of several fish), the conversation was varied and convivial. In honour of the season, we changed hats for some final photographs, and ended the season resplendent in headgear that might have been borrowed from Santa.

Another season now consigned to the "drawer" in my head labelled "happy memories", and new adventures to look forward to in 2016. I can't see me ever getting bored of this game .........

 

 

 

 





Walton: Anoraks, Anglicans and angling.

Wikipedia, the modern source of all knowledge defines an "anorak" in British slang as "a person who has a very strong interest, perhaps obsessive, in a niche subject. This subject may be unacknowledged and not understood by the general public. The term is often used synonymously with geek or nerd." I am a Walton anorak.

 

Most anglers have heard  of Izaak Walton, many have a copy of his Compleat Angler on their bookshelves, but few have read it. I have. Of those who have read it, opinion is divided- his book (the third most reprinted literary work in the English language, after the Bible and the works of Shakespeare) is either loved or loathed .... the "Marmite" of literary tomes. Jeremy Paxman and the late Sir Michael Horden both disliked it, while others have been charmed by it. I'm happy to declare myself a fan of Walton's.

 

The details of Walton's life are well known- his unusual longevity, his humble beginnings as a publican's son, his successful business life, his introduction into literary society, his friendships with prominent churchmen, his two marriages, his unlikely friendship with Charles Cotton, and his love of fishing and the pastoral life. He lived through the plague, the fire of London, the English Civil War, the Commonwealth and the Restoration of the Monarchy, and quipped that in writing about fishing he had "made a recreation of a recreation."

 

 

 

That Walton was a religious man, and a devout Christian, is well known. "The Compleat Angler" often references his faith, or deviates into praise of the Almighty before returning to descriptions of fishing days, of rural idylls and tactics and techniques, and as a clergyman it's no surprise that this aspect of Walton interests me. He quaintly argues for the purity of angling as a pastime on the basis of Jesus' propensity for choosing fishermen to be key amongst his followers, and often transports the reader from the riverbank to loftier themes of eternal consequence. However, what is less well known is that most literary critics and experts see "The Compleat Angler" as being a book that- intentionally- works simultaneously on two levels, and that has a deliberate religious sub-text ... a religious allegory, if you will.

 

 



 

The thinking is, that the "Compleat Angler" is not only an angling manual, but also an Anglican apologia. A coded defence of Anglicanism against the more extreme forms of Puritanism. There is a myth that, in the English Civil War, the Parliamentarians were Protestant and the Royalists Catholic-leaning, but such an oversimplification misunderstands the complexities of the political and religious affiliations of the day. Walton was very much a Protestant, with theology, from what we can tell, that was nothing more or less than credally orthodox Protestantism, but he was also a man who believed in order in society, had a high view of the place of the Monarchy, was a committed Anglican and a lover of the Prayer Book, and as such was a known Royalist sympathiser - it was for this reason that he left London for the relative safety of the countryside.

 

 

 

The attributes that Walton expects to find in the angler are also those that he believes to characterise the true Anglican. The angler, in Walton's book, is contrasted with the hunter, a belligerent, contentious character, quite unlike the moderate, peace-loving angler who Walton describes as one who (borrowing a phrase from 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4:11) "studies to be quiet." The hunter, of course, is the extreme Puritan in allegorical form. Walton's eagerness to link angling as an art beloved of the original Apostles is a theological attempt to decry congregational Puritanism as being in some sense less an expression of the apostolic faith than Anglicanism. Walton saw Anglicanism as a "via media" between the "top-down" authoritarian magisterium of Roman Catholicism and what was, to his tidy mind, the anarchic and aggressive tendencies of some in the Puritan movement.

And this- to me- is part of the fascination of Walton; a book which informs us that the chub is "the fearfullest of fishes" and can recommend that when fishing for perch we keep our worms in a bait tin on a bed of fennel along with other observations and angling instructions, while also being  acknowledged as the greatest example of pastoral literature in the English language and simultaneously functioning as a work of theological polemic can only be, in anyone's estimation, a work of genius.

 

What Walton would have made of modern angling with its obsession with ruthless and unromantic pseudo-scientific efficiency, or modern Anglicanism with its large-scale capitulation to theological "wooliness" can only be speculated upon ........ I suspect he would have been disappointed in both, and if he was, I for one, would wholeheartedly concur.

 



 

 

 

 

 



Ian Lewis handmade predator floats

I've never previously penned any product reviews on my blog, largely because I've never claimed to be anything other than a very average angler; passionate, addicted, mad keen, but in terms of ability only ordinary. However two things have caused me to change my mind: (1) If Matt Hayes or John Wilson write a product review the product is being endorsed by an angler with the watercraft, experience and intuitive fish catching ability that would enable them to empty a river or lake using a cane pole and a bent pin. If, on the other hand, I write a review there's every chance that the reader is- at the very least- as proficient as me, and quite probably better. If I can achieve good results with a product anyone can. (2) I'm such a fan of Ian's floats that they deserve to be commended to others. One last thing that needs saying- I am not a sponsored angler, and have no commercial link up with Ian; I write merely as a keen purchaser and user of the floats that he painstakingly makes in the traditional way. The photo above shows some of my collection of his predator floats, but I will limit this review to the two styles that I most commonly use for my piking.

 

 

The photo above shows three of Ian's standard pike slider floats. A style of float known by all predator anglers these are simplicity itself to fish. A stop knot and bead (or its modern equivalent the plastic float stop) sets the depth, a Fox sinker or heavy shot adds weight and a wire trace completes the set up. The line slides through the centre of the float, and the whole thing can be set up and fishing in minutes. Ian's floats utilise balsa, come in a range of sizes, and are available either in plain varnished balsa style or painted in a British Racing Green colour. I have both, and can confirm that they look equally stunning. More importantly, the float does exactly what you'd expect it to do when a livebait is bobbing away beneath it, and when a pike runs with the bait.

The other float from Ian's predator range that I have used is his newly offered "American style" pike slider, which is basically a refinement of the original. Attractively presented in a two tone balsa and Racing Green colour scheme, this float has the central hole as an insert that protrudes at both the tip and the base of the float. In every other way it is identical to the original pike slider, and this has become my pike float of choice.

I have also recently taken delivery of a float described as a cork Zander slider (although it would be equally good for pike if used with a small bait), which I have not yet had an opportunity to put to the test. However, it, along with Ian's other pike floats which include traditional bung-shaped offerings and an exquisite  looking copy of a vintage pike float, appears to be lovingly made, and I'm confident it would do everything asked of it.

Predator floats are only a small part of what Ian makes. As one of the country's few fulltime, professional floatmakers he has an extensive range of river and lake floats, avons, wagglers, perch bobs and the like, all made to traditional styles using reed, quill, cork and balsa. I almost exclusively use his floats for my general coarse fishing, and a 3BB scorched waggler has been my "go to" float for most of this season and has accounted for personal best perch and golden orfe this year. Check out his full range of floats at www.handmadefishingfloats.co.uk

In summary, Ian's predator range are functional and effective in use, and have far more character than any float from a mass produced plastic range. I've used them and caught on them, and would recommend them to any angler, as well as suggesting that any fisherman could do a lot worse than to peruse  Ian's website for their general float fishing needs, too- however, be warned: you may end up with a "wish list" of alarming proportions!

 

Party crashing perch

Pardon my foray into the world of poetry, but here's my summary of this month's fishing in verse;

No sun,
No warmth,
No fish,
November.

My fishing year, which began with a bang in January with a run of pike culminating in a river caught 14 pounder, is ending with a decided whimper.

Technically I didn't blank today (as I had on my previous trip this month), but with pike as my intended quarry I only succeeded in catching live baits ..... and even that was a struggle.

 

In fairness, things could have been worse. The day, though cold, was sunny and dry, with Britain only just recovering from the tale end of Hurricane Barnaby, and with snow forecast for the weekend and water temperatures low, perhaps we should count ourselves fortunate to have caught anything at all.

 

With tackle for live baiting and spinning, as well as the tiddler snatching gear to catch aforementioned bait, Pete and I felt that we had most eventualities covered as we set up our stall in the early morning chill. Forty minutes in and our float-fished maggots remained untouched, then Pete's float danced a little jig before submerging. His strike met with slightly more spirited resistance than we would have wished for, and a nice perch, too large to serve as bait, was netted and immediately returned. A welcome distraction, but no answer to the pike bait dilemma.

 

 

We persevered a while longer with the float before deciding that spinning might prove a more effective way of garnering small perch to use as live bait. I immediately caught a small perch on a silver and blue spotted spinner, and within minutes it had been transferred from the bait bucket, had been lip hooked with a single treble on a wire trace and was bobbing around underneath a small cigar shaped pike slider.

 

Pete caught another perch on the spinner before switching back to pole and maggot, and had a succession of small perch, as well as this bigger fish, presenting a bait near to a bridge, always a good spot from which to target perch.

 

 

My fishing companion seemed to be enjoying catching perch, and was happy to be diverted for slightly longer than planned, but eventually he set up his pike rod, also presenting a free running livebait. And "that was pretty much that." No pike mauled our baits, the sun rose in the sky and the only action was provided by two stunning kingfishers who treated us to a pleasant aerial display, and a middle aged drug user with little understanding of "personal space" who made friends with both of us, talked nonsense, and then after treating me to a brief dancing demonstration disappeared with a cheery wave.

After our chemically-altered acquaintance had left the scene we spent the last half hour spinning before calling it a day.

It's as well that fishing is about far more than merely catching fish, as  my two pike sessions since October have resulted in just one solitary pike of about half a pound, and November has seen me blank on our club trip and come mighty close to repeating that feat today.

The only member of our circle of fishing friends who has caught a pike this month is David, but he had to travel to Norfolk to catch it, and it was hardly of a size that was going to trouble the record books; however, a pike is a pike, and it's currently Dave 1, Jon 1, Pete 0, Greg 0 from our October and November piking sorties, which- by my calculations, particularly in view of the meagre size of the two we have caught- means that the pike are soundly winning this particular battle of wits.

 

However, such is our addiction that, despite today's underachievement, Pete and I have already planned our next trip. A December "multi-species challenge", floatfishing for whatever comes along at a nearby small stillwater ..... some of us are very slow to learn!



Wet and wild, with no method in my madness ...

Every cloud has a silver lining. Yesterday I blanked, but if you have to blank (and on occasion we all do), then it's much more amenable to blank in excellent company (even if they all catch, as yesterday they did!) than to blank on one's own. I love the image of the lonely, taciturn figure who choses to fish on his own, happy with his own company and putting distance between his troubles by stepping out into the countryside with just a rod, reel and meagre provisions for company, but the reality is that my preference is always to fish with good friends, and I rarely set out alone. Perhaps all of that is why my blanking at yesterday's final Thurnby Church Anglers club outing of 2015 didn't leave me bitter, but, rather, able to reflect on the mistakes that I made in a sanguine state of mind while remembering the whole experience as a "good day".

 

We fished the lake that I had done a recce of last month, and, strangely, my thoroughness in having an exploratory session proved to be a major part of my undoing. Last month, on a much hotter, sunnier day, the carp had only responded to method-fished pellets (which I had switched to in the last hour after a day of only catching small "bits" on  float-fished maggot and caught three carp), and my compatriots had also fared best on method and pellets. The wind was swirling and the rain falling as I packed my gear into Greg's van, and in an effort to leave as much of my tackle clean and not in need of drying out I decided only to take a quivertip rod, small baitrunner reel and all the necessaries for fishing the method (big mistake ....... huge).

 

 

The first indication that I was possibly heading down a blind alley was when Greg, fishing light and float-fishing maggots first lost, and then landed two carp (including this leather). I chose to ignore whatever lessons I should have deduced from that, convinced that my method ball of feed and the drilled pellet hair rigged and hidden inside the groundbait would prove as irresistible to the carp as it had three week's previously. It didn't.

 

 

Roger was the next into a carp, again on maggot, and again float-fishing in the margins. He was using a new centre pin for the first time, and so the fight (which lasted several minutes) was an extra pleasure for him. Eventual pressure saw the fish succumb, and another wet and windswept angler had beaten the appalling conditions and had a smile on his face.

 

 

It would be wrong to give the impression that the fishing was easy. Carp were being caught, but only very sporadically and not in numbers. The rain at times beat down, the wind didn't make watching a float (or quivertip) easy, and with the exception of Mick (who managed seven carp on swimfed maggot and a 1.5 pound hooklink!) no-one was catching prolifically and long spells of inactivity punctuated the morale raising sight of one of our number connected to a fish.

 

 

Once again our friend Roy, an angler from Yorkshire who we've got to know through the Christian Anglers UK website, had joined us, and he was the second most successful fisherman on the day, with four carp to show for his efforts, and the rain, slow fishing and long car journey hasn't deterred him, as he's already e-mailed me to say how much he's looking forward to next year's program of outings. A mad keen angler, it's always a pleasure when we see him arrive at the fishery and greet us in his archetypally White Rose county accent.

 

 

Wayne was the last angler to join the fun in terms of carp, landing a really attractive almost fully scaled mirror on- you've guessed it- float-fished maggot. By now, I really should have taken the hint and begged, borrowed and stolen tackle from the others and set up a float rig, but stubbornly I persisted, hoping against hope that an odd carp would turn up, take the bait and vindicate my decision. It didn't- I read the water wrong, had made the mistake of pre-judging what would be the best approach, was too slow to adapt and paid the price. It's happened before, but I remain slow to learn!

 

 

As the afternoon wore on, and other responsibilities called, tackle was packed up and goodbyes said. Mick had managed seven carp, Roy four, Greg two, and Roger and Wayne one apiece. Carl and Pete had failed to catch carp, but Carl had landed one tench and Pete a succession of perch, while my bait, regularly recast, had remained untouched all day.  Despite being a grueller, the day was universally enjoyed by all the club members, and the formation and success of the club has been the highlight of my angling year (even coming above the captures this year of my personal best perch and largest ever river pike ). Since inception in March we've had seven trips and plans are already being drawn up for 2016.

I guess the conclusion is that while I may not be a particularly good angler I am a sociable one, and the epithet pleasure angler fits as a description of what I derive from fishing as well as my tribal affiliation within it. Rainsoaked, windswept and a blanker, but unbroken and unbowed and already planning my next session.

 

 

 

"If you want to get ahead ..."

My very favourite piece of fishing writing mentions fish, and fishing, only once and then merely tangentially. Authored by John Gierach, it's entitled "Camp Coffee" (dispel all unhelpful thoughts from your mind of coffee pots being "fabulous" and mincing around in an effete manner) and is entirely concerned with reminiscing about coffee making on fishing trips while in the wilderness. In the same spirit (although with less erudition) of tenuously linked fishing writing comes this paean to the hat maker's craft.

 

The thing is, I'm receding and greying and not in denial about either fact. Resigned to the loss, and sanguine about the dulling in colour, I don't dye, comb over or wear a hat to attempt to disguise the march of Anno Domini. In fact, I've always regarded the wearing of hats as something of an affectation in every area of life except one: fishing. I don't always wear a hat while angling, but more often than not I am to be found displaying an example of the milliner's art.

 

My everyday "go to" for fishing headwear is the baseball cap, of which I possess a veritable collection. It offers the practical advantages of an eye-shielding peak, useful when squinting at a dotted down float, and its everyday ubiquity removes the possibility of any accusations of ostentation.

 

 

Many of the baseball caps I sport were gifts dating from my fishing sabbatical in the USA in 2013, when I met up with a number of churches and Christian outdoors groups who use their passion for fishing as a vehicle to share their passion for their faith. The hat in the picture above is from a group called "Ironman outdoors" based in North Carolina, while the hat below bears the logo of "Hooked for Life", whose founder I met in Tennessee.

 

 

My favourite head adornment, reserved for when I'm "in the mood" is my suede leather Australian bush hat, a style of headwear I'd long admired before my parents presented me with one as a 40th birthday present. Although primarily a fishing hat it would be unforgiveable to only wear it when in pursuit of fish, and it has accompanied me on safari in East Africa, been fished in while in the US and shielded me from the sun in the Nevada desert. This is a hat that (if such can be said of an inanimate object) is rugged and adventurous, and wearing it transports me back to adventures past and contains the promise of those yet to be.

 

 

There are times when circumstances dictate, and headwear is a purely practical consideration. As an all year  angler, often found at the water's edge in conditions that would drive more sensible (or less afflicted) souls to seek the solace of a roaring fire, there are occasions when a hat makes no other statement than one about the desirability of keeping warm. Most photos of me holding pike find me wearing hats whose warming properties are their highest commendation.

 

 

It is, however, reassuring to realise that the desire to cover one's head while piscatorially engaged is not an eccentricity unique to me. Any trip with the Thurnby Church Anglers club, to which I belong, will see a good number of head's covered with a broad range of millenary styles on display.

 

 

 

 Greg tends to favour the type of headgear immortalised by "Bill and Ben the Flowerpot men", a type of hat that has long been associated with angling, and which I also sometimes favour.

Other members, such as my son, opt for the standard baseball cap approach, in his case either one that he won from the Angler's Mail when a photograph of him with a fine net of bream was published some years ago, or this "carpy looking" Realtree number.

 

 



 Jez, seen here with Roger, has his own favourite, and any club outing sees the airing of a profusion of hats that, one suspects, only appear from the deep, dark recesses of wardrobes or cupboards or hanging hooks when a trip to river, lake or canal for angling purposes is in order.

 

 

However, even a church angling club sometimes falls prey to the advancement of less desirable aspects of youth-culture influenced sartorial statements, and we do, on occasions, have to acquiesce with good Christian grace to David Cameron's entreaty to "hug a hoody" .... nothing, it seems, is entirely sacred.

 

 

And so to relax and plan my next fishing trip, weighing up in my mind what techniques, tactics and tackle to employ in my endless, restless search for the next fish, and to similarly ponder weightier matters, such as which hat to choose.

Like the man said, "if you want to get ahead ....."



 







 

 



Three Men on a mission

 

In one of the oldest historical narratives in the Bible, Moses sends a dozen spies to do a recce and report back on the, as yet un-entered, Promised Land. Two (Joshua and Caleb) return with a positive assessment, but ten tell a gloomier story. "The people in the land are like giants" they recounted to Moses, before emphasising their misgivings by claiming that, in comparison, "we felt like grasshoppers."

Today Louie and I went on a reconnaissance mission of our own, and although the fish weren't exactly "giants" they were a nice size, and we can report to the Thurnby Church Anglers that the prospects for next month's final club trip of the year are good.

 

We arrived at the lake, a small, circular, "commercial style" venue, and the first surprise was finding Mick, another member of our church club also there on a reconnaissance mission of his own. We dropped in on either side of him, and set up. Louie and I were fishing to a plan, with Louie fishing The Method with either plastic sweetcorn on a hair or banded pellet, while I was to see how float fishing fared, alternating between maggot and sweetcorn.

 

 

It wasn't long after lobbing in his feeder that Louie's rod started dancing in the rod rest, and his first carp, a pretty, fully scaled mirror was drawn over the net. He then had to undergo a long wait for his next bite, which didn't come until he changed from fake corn to banded pellet, but in the meantime Mick was building up a head of steam, with his method rod seeing regular action from the enthusiastic carp. Meanwhile the float was producing only small perch and roach for me, but I resolutely persevered.

 

 

The fish tended to come in clusters, and while Mick managed a couple of carp on floatfished corn in the margins, it became apparent that what the fish really wanted was pellets banged out towards the central island and hidden in the middle of a big ball of groundbait or dampened 2mm pellets. After a long wait, Louie's swim came into life again, and with just 2 hours left I decided that my floatfishing experiment had "run its course" and it was time to join the fray with a quivertip rod and Method feeder. I far prefer to catch on the float, but you don't get fish on the bank by obdurately refusing to acknowledge what's becoming increasingly obvious!

 

 

Almost immediately I was into my first carp, which gave a dogged account of itself, and I added another two before packing up. The bites were ferocious and unmissable, and anyone fishing here without either a baitrunner or their clutch loosened would need to be on a constant state of high alert and always ready to dive for a fast disappearing rod. There's little subtlety about either these carp or this style of fishing.

 

 Mick and I even managed a "double hook-up", and at the end of 6 hours Mick had recorded 10 carp, Louie had landed 6, while I managed 3 after making my delayed switch to Method tactics. Our final assessment is that things look hopeful for November, although the weather could be very different in a fortnight's time, with the potential for the benign beauty of a balmy Autumn day having been replaced by attritional winter frosts. We're also sharing the lake wish some anglers fishing a match, which will also change the scenario somewhat, with more anglers competing for the fish, more disturbance, and (one assumes) some highly competent, robot-like matchmen bringing their own efficient approach to contrast with our rather more haphazard and casual approach to a day in the countyside!

 

Roll on November, and here's hoping that winter delays its arrival for another couple of weeks.

 

 

A pugnacity of perch

The first fish I ever caught was a perch. A boldly striped, wriggling thing of wonder that took my float fished worm, the culmination of four solid weeks of trying to catch a fish. From that time forward, it was not only the fish that had been hooked, but me too, although I never consider my passion for fishing an "addiction" - an addiction is something you're trying to give up. Ever since that first perch was swung in to my eager hand I have had a particular fondness for the species. Obliging when small, challenging when big and always beautiful to behold.

 

 

The late Bernard Venables, angler, artist and wordsmith declared that the collective noun for a shoal of perch should be " a swagger". I would humbly offer as an alternative "a pugnacity" of perch. It has the advantage of alliteration, but also perfectly conveys the bravado of a fish that knows that it has looks on its side, likes to pose with its impressive spikey dorsal proudly erect and exhibits bullying tendencies as it harasses and harries the smaller piscine inhabitants of its watery environs.

 

 

Among the attractions of perch fishing is the catholicity of methods that can successfully be employed to angle for them. The fish above, caught by Louie a member of our church's fishing club, came while fishing with light tackle and a pole, many of my perch have fallen prey to the duplicitous trickery of a small spinner with a flash of red wool tassle, legering with swimfeeders and livebaiting also have their day, and my favourite method of catching them is with my ubiquitous centre pin reel and a float, a method which accounted for my biggest ever perch of 2 pound 5 ounces.

 

 

The colouration on this fish, as on the picture of my fishing partner Pete's fish below, is the typical less vivid example common in fish caught in clay bottomed and heavily coloured commercial Stillwater venues. While it may be fashionable to deride such "carp puddles", the reality is there are some very big and rarely fished for perch in such places, and, in fishing as in life, there's no place for snobbery! There's something enjoyably counter-cultural about pitching up at a "commercial" and sitting on a whicker basket and fishing with a centre pin reel .... the majority of hardened carpers conclude that you are either (a) mad or (b) an irredeemable "noddy" and you find yourself left alone to enjoy your sport without interruption.

 

 

If I were forced to elect to fish for only one species of fish for the rest of my life (and what a cruel, invidious choice that would be to have forced upon oneself!) I would choose the perch. With its stripes, eagerness to please and bombastic personality the perch is a totemic fish, loved by small boys and the best sort of men ..... those who- at heart- remain boys.