"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.

 

 



A slow start to the pike season

Fishing has a way of keeping you humble. Fast on the back of triumph come the trials that build angling perseverance and patience. Ten days after landing my biggest ever perch, my first pike trip of the Autumn proved to be an altogether more chastening affair.

Accompanied by Greg (pictured below pouring a coffee to punctuate the inactivity) and Pete, confidence was high. We were in a spot that has been kind to Pete and I in the past, and the cold start soon warmed up into a lovely (although possibly too) bright morning of "mists and mellow fruitfulness".

 

 

Catching the livebaits was the first challenge, a task which turned out to be quite a challenge. However, despite their reluctance (perhaps they had an inkling of their fate) a few were collected, and soon we were in business. Greg elected to spin, rather than livebait, and caught a small perch on his first cast, a fish which turned out to be a "false dawn" as over the next two hours he was unable to add to it. After about half an hour my livebait was taken, and I reeled in the smallest pike I have ever caught on a livebait - it must have weighed all of 8 ounces. My theory, which is impossible to prove and so must remain only a theory, is that the livebait attempted to mug the pike and was somehow unlucky enough to get caught up in the young jack's mouth. To add to the insult it was deep hooked (despite my policy of instant striking), and required careful unhooking. The fish was returned (and swam off with a defiant flick of its tail), but I didn't bother with a photograph (which would only have been for comic appeal, anyway), as I wanted to return the fish to the water as soon as possible. Pictured below are some of my unhooking tools, not the prettiest sight, but a few pairs of forceps, some pliers, a Baker "Hook-out" and the Fox wire cutters are all essential items for anyone wishing to go pike fishing.

 

 

For the rest of the session the livebaits remained untouched, although Pete did manage another diminutive pike, about the same size as mine on a spinner. One of the handsomest fish of the day was this perch which was caught while fishing for livebait, a fish whose good fortune was that, although not large, it was marginally too big to be put into the "condemned bucket".

 

 The sun climbed in the sky and the temperature rose, and it seemed clear that no further pike were likely to set the floats bobbing, and so Pete and I (Greg had already departed for work) opted to spend the last 20 minutes spinning for perch, a decision which resulted in a brace of small ones for Pete and another little fellow for me.

The day had begun with high hopes but, although the company and weather were congenial, had provided a tough start to a piking campaign that will see us through the winter and into next Spring. A baby pike apiece for me and Pete, but it's the wily esox at the top of the leaderboard after round one. Battle lines have been drawn ....

 

Loving my Lincoln

 

Everyone knows the score: centre pins are supposed to be beautiful. The reel of the aesthete. Shiny, metallic, preferably venerably ancient and a joy to behold. I have a centre pin that approximates to that description (pictured below), and have used it to good effect and landed good fish on it. It's a pin that, like me, is in its 5th decade and "ticks all the boxes." However, it's not my favourite centre pin of the two I own.

 

 

 

My "go to" pin isn't of any great vintage, and if it were a child only its mother would find it attractive. It's the Shakespear  Lincoln, made of graphite not machined metal and is slightly larger in diameter than I would choose, however it spins freely and forever, and is a joy to play fish on, never tangles and even with freezing cold hands is easy to use. The ultimate example of a product whose "sum is greater than its parts."

 

 

Most of my use of the reel is for standard float fishing in the margins, but I have used it with a largish perch bob and a gudgeon livebait while perch fishing, and the gudgeon (hardy and indomitable as its species always is) swam for what seemed like miles, gently taking line from the pin.

I rarely use a fixed spool reel for close in float fishing these days, preferring the more tactile sense of playing a fish that comes from using your hand as the reel's "clutch", and the Lincoln has fared well over the last seven years, and looks indestructible enough to last forever. Pretty it may not be, but "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and I love my Lincoln.