Perch, and the healing power of stripes

For most of us the thought of "escape" is one of the factors that drives us repeatedly to the water's edge; escape from the pressures of work, from the drudgery of chores, from worries about money or health or family - as anglers we have in our possession the secret that the river bank or lakeside has restorative powers of which non anglers remain sadly ignorant. After a particularly frenetic period of work, and with a month passed since my last fishing trip, I was in need of restoration and so along with Pete as my non-household member covid fishing partner, it was back to the perch pond to once again target the specimen perch that live and feed in its murky depths.

There was an added piquancy to this foray to the small, unprepossessing, pond that we have discovered to be the home of monsters, as we were fishing in memory of our friend and fellow Christian Anglers group member John, who lost his battle with cancer last year. In 2019 we had hosted a perch match in his honour, with members attending from around the Country, the largest fish of the day securing its captor's name on the trophy, but this year due to the restrictions around corona virus such an event was impossible, and so for the almost 100 fishermen and women who form the membership of Christian Anglers the whole of November was designated perch month, with the promise of the trophy to whichever member catches the heaviest verified perch during the month. 

With clouds scudding threateningly across the sky and against a backdrop of trees most of which had now lost their autumnal glory and whose bare branches clawed finger-like at the menacing darkness above, I tackled up with a vintage glass-fibre avon rod and old Allcocks centrepin reel and dropped a small perch bob float into the margins. The ubiquitous red maggots were dribbled into the swim on a little and often basis, along with chopped worms and prawns. Hookbait was prawn on a size 12 hook.

GK Chesterton once remarked that "if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly", and his quip proved to be an accurate summation of my first few attempts to connect with a fish on the float's disappearance, but eventually I got my timing right and my reward was a fine perch that pulled the scales down to a pleasing 2lb 10 ounces.

Conditions were, to say the least challenging with the wind blowing directly into our faces and whipping the surface of the lake into a constant mesmeric pattern of peaks and troughs, but despite the weather's best efforts the perch continued to make their way to the bank, with a procession of good quality fish ranging from about a pound and a half to a pound and three quarters (the latter of which was weighed, the others merely estimated.)

Pete, who almost always out fishes me, was for once struggling and although he also caught a steady stream of fish, his were all small with none exceeding about half a pound in weight. As Pete is generally a more competent (and determined) angler than me, I can only surmise that for some idiosyncratic reason the perch had, on this occasion, decided to form an orderly queue in my swim in preference to his.

In addition to the perch I also landed a small chub of about a pound and a fish which, in the water, looked as if it would be a new personal best roach but which turned out, to my mild disappointment, to be an ide of just under 2 lb.

At 1 o'clock I drew stumps, aware that the real world beckoned and that to stay and catch more might be to trespass on my own good fortune, and even perhaps take some of the shine off what had been a splendid morning.

As I packed away my tackle I paused to take in what I could see; the little lake that fuels so many of my dreams, the friends with whom I fish, the trees, the ripple on the water's surface and the reflections just beneath it, and as I looked and mused, I thought of John and felt myself enveloped by a momentary sense of peace. We had spent the morning looking to earn our angling stripes by catching a fish emblazoned with stripes, but as my gaze took in all around me, I reaffirmed my trust in the fact that for John even now, and for me at some future point when my mortal life reaches its close, our permanent eternal healing, as the Biblical prophet Isaiah pointed out, is secured by Someone else's stripes. 

Perching in the autumn of our discontent

My fishing is an inverse mirror image of that enjoyed by many anglers. With carp fishing being so universally popular, for most fishermen and women it is the warmer months when carp are at their most catchable that their angling is at its most intense and when hopes of a "monster" are at their highest. I, however, hold carp in relatively low regard due to their ubiquity and the way they have come to dominate the whole angling scene in this Country. I concede that their fighting qualities are admirable, and that really big carp in waters with low stock density take some catching, but despite having caught hundreds of them over the years, I find it hard to foster much affection for them.

Of our summer species I am fond of tench, crucians and rudd, but the fish more than any other that gets me excited and captivates my imagination is the perch with its bold stripes, proud spiky dorsal and general bravura swagger and pugnacity. Consequently, my summer fishing is a casual affair, much more about the simple joy of "being there", an opportunity to enjoy scenery and sunshine and catch prodigiously. Autumn and winter, by contrast, are about the pursuit of specimen perch, often an attritional business in hostile weather that numbs the angler to the bone.

This year my summer fishing was further affected by government restrictions designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, and so my opportunities to fish were more limited, having to be fitted in to periods of leniency between two phases of lockdown, and as I embarked on my first Autumnal perch session there was the very real fear that we might soon be enduring stricter controls on our activity again - any plans for anything approaching a perch "campaign" could only be tentative, and so as I arrived at the lake (one which has in the past produced perch for me up to a very pleasing 2lb 15 ounces) I was aware of a greater self-induced pressure to catch than I would normally feel on the first perch adventure of any Autumn.

I was joined at the pond by regular fishing companions Pete, Roger and David, and after days of solid and torrential rain, the day had dawned bright and sunny- wonderful  conditions for enjoying sitting by a lake but less than ideal for perch, with their well known preference for low light levels. The trees were still mostly clothed in green, but some were beginning to display their russet and orange autumnal livery, pleasantly framing the pool. I began regularly trickling a stream of red maggots, chopped worms and prawns off the edge of some reeds, but after an hour and a half only one small perch had succumbed to my float fished worm offering prompting the decision to switch to prawn for "just half an hour to see what happens." In the event it only took ten minutes for the classic perch bob float to do exactly as its name suggests it should, and when the bobbing gave way to disappearance the firm strike was meant with equally firm resistance, and after a brief tussle a substantial perch was being drawn over the net. Having been admired, photographed and weighed, the venerable old warrior was returned to the murky depths, with the scales registering a commendable 2 pounds and 12 ounces.

Meanwhile, Dave, Pete and Roger were catching with reasonable regularity on worm or maggot, but only seeing small roach and perch joining them on the bank. Pete landed a small carp which tore around his swim angrily before seeing Pete's side of the argument, and followed it up with a really good quality roach.

I persisted with the prawn, resisting the temptation to play the "percentage game" with maggots, and another classic perch bite saw a second really nice striped adversary putting a bend in the vintage glass fibre avon rod and drawing the sound of "music" from the sixty year old centre pin as it attempted to resist the inevitable folds of the net. On the bank it was clear that this was a smaller perch than its predecessor, but a splendid, handsome fish nonetheless.

The odd fish smaller continued to surrender to my three companions, and we were treated to an overhead aerial display from a red kite before Pete provided the final piece of significant action for the morning landing the second heaviest perch of the day, a glorious striped specimen that weighed in at fractionally over the magic 2 pound mark. 

With heavy rain forecast and a hat trick of nice perch between us, we agreed to pull stumps shortly after midday, having thoroughly enjoyed our morning of piscatorial activity. As the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness continues and gives way to winter, one thing is sure: it won't be long before the four of us are back at the pond, and until then thoughts of perch and plans for their capture will rarely be far from our minds.

There are doubtless many worse ways to spend a morning, but equally incontrovertibly few better.

Rats and crays outscoring carp

 

It remains one of angling's most endearing qualities that even when the fishing is poor and the challenges posed frustrating, that there is still much pleasure to be had and memories to be made. The first weekend in September saw me join my brothers Andy and Tim for our annual fraternal fishing weekend. We had chosen a small lake in Gloucestershire which was advertised as being home to about 70 carp, most of them doubles, a few twenties.  We weren't expecting it to be an out and out "runs water", but it seemed to present itself (with its log cabin, exclusive one party booking etc) as typical "holiday angling"- difficult enough to be worth the effort, but easy enough to provide a few reasonably sized carp to experienced and competent anglers.

We arrived on the Friday, with Andy and Tim ensconced in swims of their choosing by late morning, and me arriving slightly later, in the early afternoon. There were a couple of islands, a pretty uniform clay bottom and depth (Tim did a bit of  exploring with a marker rod and bomb), and a number of margin features (bushes, overhanging trees etc), and commonsense suggested that feeding a few spots, casting to features and fishing methodically and neatly should produce a few bites. It did- but not the sort we wanted.

Single bleeps and little pulls on the line that didn't even register audibly on the alarms were almost constant, and after half an hour a boilie had been whittled away to almost nothing. A quick trip to the onsite tackle shop and a conversation with the guy working there (whose slightly vague, distracted and distant demeanour suggested his regular daily intake of "Bob Marley cigarettes" might be higher than even the average consumer of weed might view as sensible) saw us leave the shop with a number of plastic baits and the assurance that "there aren't crays in there, pal, it's small fish doing it." A piece of bacon in a landing net placed in the margins soon confirmed our suspicion that his explanation was spurious producing in a few minutes a more than decent haul of American invaders, as did the few crays that went to the length of  resolutely hanging on to the hooks and being swung in to the bank throughout the course of the weekend. "This place is worse than the East End in the 60's" I quipped, leaving Tim to finish the sentence "... yeah, it's ruled by the crays (Krays)."

We persevered doggedly throughout the afternoon, with no runs to reward our efforts, fishing to spots, feeding sensibly, experimenting with plastic baits, returning to boilies, trying popped up baits, but all to no avail. The highlights of the afternoon were watching an egret alight on a branch of a fallen willow just to the right of where I was fishing, and being treated to a couple of fly-pasts by a kingfisher, a blur of vivid electric blue, and a thing of true beauty.

An early evening barbecue provided respite from the fishing, with brotherly reminiscing and story telling covering half a century of shared experiences interspersed with tactical musing on the unexpected problems the lake was providing us with. Plastic baits were remaining completely untouched, boilies and wafters destroyed in less than no time by the voracious appetites of the marauding American Signal Crayfish, who were doubtless also hoovering up our feed with indecent haste. We hadn't reached the first night yet, but by early evening had all come to the conclusion that, in fishing terms, we were in for a grueller and our definitions of "success" would have to undergo rapid redefinition.

As night fell we recast, and faced our second plague of Biblical proportions. The three of us have all been fishing for enough years to be reasonably nonplussed by the ubiquitous presence of rats, but this bunch of resident rodents were something else. Roaming in groups like ill-intentioned louts on a rough estate, they knew no fear, and as the darkness intensified so did their nerve and inquisitiveness. I sunk into my sleeping bag, pulling it right over my head, closed my eyes and waited for the morning. The night, predictably,  proved run-less. 

The following morning, I decided that wandering around the lake and dropping into swims with a float rig and sweetcorn might prove an alternative to sitting behind bite alarms fishing half-chewed boilies, so I grabbed my 2lb TC barbel rod, a reel loaded with 8lb line and set up a simple float rig with a 2BB Norfolk Reed waggler. Within seconds the float had dipped under the surface, but the culprit was only a small (but beautiful) mirror carp. Loosefeeding sweetcorn, a few pellets and some mixed particles, saw almost every drop in resulting in a small carp ranging in size between about a quarter of a pound and just under a pound. Andy was soon joining the fun, our hope being that a larger carp might be attracted by the loose feed and the activity of scores of small carp feeding and bully its way to the hookbait. Such an eventuality, unfortunately, failed to occur but catching small fish in the sunshine proved an enjoyable diversion from the hard slog of trying to bypass the crayfish to get at the larger carp.

Tim and Andy were still trying all manner of schemes to fool the bigger carp, while I was reconciled to catching innumerable small ones and hoping that a larger specimen happened along and succumbed to the allure of my bait. Andy dropped into an area near one of the islands and cast tight to it, and was as surprised as the carp he hooked when his alarm sounded. A brief tussle resulted in the weekend's only double figure carp falling to his opportunism.

Saturday night was, predictably devoid of fish, although a couple of pleasant hours were spent in conversation around the fire pit before another night spent sleeping to the accompaniment of the incessant nocturnal scuttling, rustling and pitter-patter of rodent feet.

Sunday morning saw a leisurely pack up before departure. We said our goodbyes, agreed that the fishing had been poor but the company excellent, and wended our weary ways back to Leicestershire, South Wales or Hertfordshire. We did, however, before we left lay out the now dead form of one of the  American Signal Crayfish ( "there aren't crays in there, pal") on the "Welcome" mat of the log cabin, and balanced another on the gate at the entrance to the lake. The owner may have taken our money, but we owed it to ourselves to let him know that he hadn't taken us for fools!

Gone but not forgotten - "a touch of glass"

I recently heard a writer in an interview use the phrase "nostalgia falsifies", and I guess we all have a tendency to don "rose tinted spectacles" and remember the past as it never really was, but not all memories are false and our minds are not always playing tricks on us. There is a neutrality expressed in  the truth with which LP Hartley opens one of his novels: "The past is a foreign country- they do things differently there." Sometimes better, sometimes not, but invariably differently.

My fishing these days consciously harkens back to bygone times as a consequence of the pleasure I've discovered in recent years through using vintage rods and reels for almost all of my fish bothering  activities. Life expectancy may have been shorter, social attitudes may have been more intemperate, working conditions less refined, "health and safety" unheard of, and TB and polio still a present threat, but they certainly knew how to make glorious fishing tackle "back in the day." Pride of place in my collection goes to my cane rods, which includes an almost 70 year old marvel of whole and split cane made by the famous Allcocks company, and a particularly  aesthetically pleasing float rod by Aspindales replete with an exuberant abundance of intermediate whippings. Sadly, neither manufacturer still exists, Allcocks were acquired by Norris Shakespeare back in the 1960's and Aspindales have followed the path many other businesses reliant on craft, guile, and hard earned skill have trodden into oblivion, courtesy of the modern obsession with functionality and utilitarian efficiency.

However,  it is not only rods made from cane that have captured my affection, as the majority of my vintage rods are made of glass fibre and originate from the late 1960's and early 70's. Not only do these rods have the advantages for the collector of being cheaper to purchase  and virtually indestructible in usage, for me they also provide a tangible connection to my earliest angling experiences. Born in the late 60's and raised in the 70's, by the time I began fishing in 1981 there were few cane rods to be seen on the bank, although I do recall one elderly gentleman who used to fish our local lake with split cane rods, and was a dab hand at extracting  good numbers of the lake's tench population. This was the early carbon fibre era, but for those of us solely reliant on pocket money, birthdays, and Christmas to fuel our fishing addiction, graphite was beyond our financial means, and we cut our angling teeth on glass fibre.

The two absolute favourites among my personal arsenal of  glass rods are a 13 foot Rodrill float rod  and an 11 foot ET Barlow specimen rod. Both are unpretentious no-nonsense rods devoid of frills, that would have been standard fayre in the rod holdall of the the average adult angler of their period, while being the envy of the army of small boys to be found wielding 6 foot solid glass Winfield spinning rods round any lake in the 1970's.

Again, I suspect that early adolescent and childhood connections, in part, account for their favoured position among my glass fibre collection. For a start, there's a geographical link. Although I've lived in the Midlands for nearly 13 years now, I'm from the South East and have never forgotten the fact. My boyhood and teenage years were spent in Reading in Berkshire, I studied (I use the term very loosely) for my degree in London, and the first few years of my married life were spent in North London, and I still consider myself a Southerner adrift in the East Midlands. Rodrill were a North London company, while Barlow hailed from Thames Ditton, a suburban village on the outskirts of London in Surrey. A further link with my childhood comes from the fact that for several years the rod I most coveted in my local tackle shop was an ET Barlow Vortex rod which had taken its design cues from the Bruce and Walker rods of the era, with their lustrous glass, "fake" intermediate whippings, and iconic cartoon perch that formed the brand logo for Vortex rods. My Barlow rod has the logo, but is a model devoid of the "fake" whippings.

The Rodrill match rod has accounted for everything from small perch, roach and rudd up to near double figure carp, while the Barlow rod has been employed on several occasions in pursuit of pike, although to date has never been tested by anything more substantial than jacks of 2 or 3 pounds in weight. 

I have no doubt that in most situations a modern carbon fibre rod would be more efficient (and certainly lighter to hold), but for me that misses the point. In some strange mystical sense, my Rodrill and Barlow rods transport me back to a point in my own history, a time when footballers were still allowed to engage in a full blooded tackle and as long as the ball had been vaguely in the vicinity of the felled player within the previous sixty seconds the referee was unlikely to remove a card from his pocket, to the days of rented televisions, an era when being given 10 pence to spend at the sweet shop ensured a veritable feast of sugary confections, and to the time when I was awkwardly charting the transition from child to teenager. I seem to recall that there were lots of things that didn't make sense to me back then, as my hormones transported me on the journey from short trousers to spots and the (mostly unsuccessful) pursuit of girls, but none of that seemed to matter when I was sat on a folding stool with a glass fibre rod in my hand and all of the confusion fell away as every part of my being focused its intent gaze on the orange tip of my float. 

Perhaps the interviewed writer was right- maybe nostalgia does "falsify", but if my vintage glass rods are a part of the delusion, I really don't mind, and I'll continue to wilfully labour under its falsification, a 20th Century boy in a 21st Century world.

Return to angling- "take two."

It appears that "lockdowns" are like London buses- no sooner is one lifted, than another one turns up. I managed to fish three times in the period between the curtailment of the first hiatus and the imposition, for those of us living in some areas of Leicester, of the second.

Now that the latest of these restrictions have been eased I am at last at liberty to fish again, but it is a sobering statistic that tells me that eight months into the calendar year I had, prior to today, only managed five sessions. I realise, of course, that the loss of a few trips to the river, lake or pond pale into insignificance at a time when some have lost lives, loved ones, or jobs, it is, after all, only fishing, but it felt good to be back, even though I should have been on holiday in Greece with my wife (you've guessed it- holiday cancelled due to the virus!)

The afternoon sun was high in the sky, and the Club Lake was looking as splendid as ever, the shadows cast by the trees on the far bank muting their reflection in the water, and everything, leaves, grass and even the pond itself, a veritable sea of green. Flies hovered and danced above and upon the water's surface, and somewhere in the middle of the lake a carp leapt and crashed back into the depths, the sound of the splash rousing me from my temporary reverie. I chose a swim which had an extensive bed of lily pads as its dominant feature and set up a vintage glass fibre avon rod, paired it with an old Mitchell 204 and prepared to cast my bread (flake on size 12 barbless) upon the waters. The lake, whose surface was mirror-like in its calmness, exuded an air of benevolence, as if extending a kindly welcome, pleased, it seemed, to be making my re-acquaintance.

For the next couple of hours the action was constant, the delicate float frequently disappearing, leading to a lively tussle with the small but spirited carp that make up the majority of the pond's fish population. Birdsong provided the backing track for the afternoon, as I sat immersed in a tableau that, for the most part, could have been anytime in the last century and a half. Only the very occasional sound of a car in the distance, or aeroplane overhead differentiated the experience from what might have been familiar to an angler in Victorian times. The trees surrounding the lake were doubtless older than me, and hopefully they and the lake will outlast me to give pleasure to future generations of fishing folk. The English countryside has cleansing and restorative properties, of which we as anglers are privileged to be frequent beneficiaries.

Fishing the club lake is not quite as easy as shooting ducks in a barrel, but it isn't far removed from that particular metaphorical scenario. The carp are plentiful (and consequently never reach a large size) not due to the deliberate and wilful overstocking that typifies the modern commercial fishery, but because of the incredible fecundity that seems not only to cast its fertility spell upon the lake's environs, with its trees, foliage and lilly pads, but also its inhabitants who spawn with prolific success year on year, producing a steady stream of beautiful, but small carp.

The tackle I choose to employ is, these days, for me as much a part of the pleasure and rich angling experience as the landing of fish. Whether using one of my ancient cane rods or an old glass fibre wand, the pairing of one of my collection of well looked after (or in some cases, refurbished) rods with an appropriate vintage reel is a pleasure in the same order as pairing a good wine with a complementary cheese, or a fine cigar with a tumbler of whisky or rum. With the exception of the very occasional foray into the world of "serious" carp fishing, spinning for pike, or fishing for barbel, I choose to eschew the use of modern carbon rods, preferring the aesthetic appeal of tackle imbued with inherent beauty made venerable by the passing of time. I can only speculate on what tales these rods and reels may have to tell of the exploits they were party to with their previous owners in a bygone angling era.

The club lake is not a place for long sessions- the endless catching of fish would, in truth, become tedious- but for me has become a refuge in which to to while away an hour or two catching some of the prettiest carp I've ever caught, while enjoying the aesthetic delight of its setting. Summer will give way to Autumn, carp will move aside to allow for the pursuit of perch, and my fishing will become challenging, focused and concentrated rather than relaxed and casual, but until the leaves turn to russet and golden, the days draw in, and the air takes on a chill, I'll make the most of this particular oasis and enjoy catching these handsome fish, who require of me only the most modest investment of effort. Some people pay inordinate sums of money to receive therapy- mine just costs me the price of a loaf of bread, and a year's club membership.

Fishing from the heart

"Home is where the heart is" according to a well known proverb, and for me "home" is  defined less by place and more by people. I have spent most of my adult life living in Vicarages, often impressive architecturally but "tied cottages" and not mine to own, and now that my wife and I do own our house it's an unremarkable, unprepossessing three bed semi with a well tended garden, but nothing to get particularly excited about. To me, the bricks and mortar are merely the "rain shelter" within which life happens and memories are made, and it's the people with whom that life is shared and those memories made that are where my heart is.

All of which, by way of lengthy preamble, explains why today was for me, in words stolen from Bill Withers a "lovely day."

Today was a Sunday, but not just any Sunday, today was Father's Day and although it began like any Sunday in this coronavirus season does for me, by setting up my laptop to log in to online church (it no longer seems strange to "go to church" in pajamas and dressing gown while eating breakfast), the rest of the day comprised of what my own father would have described as "special treats." I never knew what the distinction between a bog-standard treat and a special treat was, but it was a phrase much used in our family during my 1970's childhood.

The treats began with a responsibly socially distanced visit from my daughter and her husband who currently live in London, but are moving to Nottingham at the end of the Summer, and so have been staying in Leicester these last few days sorting things out. After being unable to see them for most of the year to date, seeing them several times over the last week has been a joy, even if hugging remains off limits until Boris tells us otherwise! Cards and presents were received and after a leisurely and unhurried  traditional roast dinner courtesy of my wife, I was given an "exit pass" for the rest of the day, and whisked off to the lake by my son and his girlfriend.

It was three in the afternoon by the time we arrived at the club lake, and following a week of heavy rain the grass was wet underfoot and the lakeside vegetation rich, glistening green, and verdant. James and I set up our tackle, both of us float fishing and both electing to use centre pin reels. I matched my cane Allcocks Wizard with a Record Breaker reel from the same manufacturer, while James paired a modern carbon rod with his pin, and so we commenced to fish for carp in the margins with bread and sweetcorn for bait.

The fish came in rapid procession, mostly carp of no great size, but all of exquisite beauty and in pristine condition. The carp in this lake, especially the mirrors, are among the prettiest I have ever seen.

My porcupine quill float was rarely undisturbed for more than a few seconds before darting under, and although we missed countless of the lightening fast bites, by the time we packed up after just a couple of  hours of  reasonably casual fishing, we had landed around thirty fish between us, mostly carp with the occasional roach or rudd and a solitary roach/bream hybrid.

The majority of the fish were somewhere in the quarter of a pound to one pound size bracket, but I did manage to extract one larger carp, pictured below along with a video of my tussle with said fish. As ever, the Wizard coped admirably with its adversary despite its years now almost numbering three score and ten.

While the club lake mostly fulfills the role of pleasant distraction before the serious business of fishing for specimen perch is resumed in the Autumn, it has become for me a place of connections, connecting me, in its simplicity, with the angling of my childhood, but above all providing a place in which I and my son have time to connect and enjoy each other's company while fishing.
Like I said, for me it's all about the people.

Baskets, bags, boxes and bamboo tubes.

Far be it from me to be dismissive of Julie Andrews- she's a Dame, a "national treasure" and an eighty four year old woman- but I've always been underwhelmed by the list of "favourite things" that she sings about in The Sound of Music- it takes more than "whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens" to put a smile on my face, but perhaps that's the point. Such lists are subjective, and aren't guaranteed to be received with the same enthusiasm as is shown by the one moved to share them.

I was reflecting in an absent minded moment recently on my own fishing "favourite things" list, and realising that it isn't just the expected things that bring me pleasure, but often the little things that might to someone else appear incidental and unimportant.

So, in the spirit of Maria, and with not a "lonely goatherd" in sight, here are a few of my (piscatorial) favourite things:

Now, if honesty is allowed momentarily to trump angling romanticism, an old style willow basket is not the most comfortable of items on which to park one's posterior but that in no way detracts from my affection for mine. (Point of clarification: I refer to my affection for my basket, not my posterior!) A present from my wife, purchased from a well known internet selling site (yeah, you know the one) it was, as they say, "pre-owned" and  required a fair degree of TLC upon first arriving- a good clean with soapy water, followed by a coating of boiled Linseed Oil, but the result is a basket that has been accompanying me on fishing adventures for the best part of 15 years, and definitely finds a place in my favourite things list.

There are, however, days when a bag is preferable to a basket, and on such days a more recent acquisition takes its place in my prized possessions list. It's a trout fishing bag (although in my case, always employed for "coarse" rather than "game" purposes), which, although inexpensive, in it's colouration and style, and with it's leather buckles, conforms exactly to the image in my mind of what a good fishing bag should look like.

Also deserving of their place are my bamboo float tubes, and boxes full of traditional handmade floats. I have float tubes in both flamed and unflamed bamboo, with minimalistic whippings in black, scarlet and blue. Each holds only a handful of floats, but there is an aesthetic appeal that transcends their functional qualities and, along with many other traditional anglers, such float tubes hold a privileged place in my angling affections.

As well as the tubes, there are the boxes, each with slotted foam to hold the floats secure, with my favourite being one that exclusively houses a part of my perch bob collection, which has been "customised" with a sticker obtained from the USA featuring a shoal of perch twisting and turning in the water with predatory intent.

A constant companion on my fishing trips is my Swiss Army knife, still in immaculate condition despite being moved from tackle box to tackle box a number of times during the course of a season for the last quarter of a century. Its presence tends to be more for its totemic value than for regular use, although it does find itself cutting luncheon meat into cubes and performing various practical tasks from time to time, but I refuse to set off for the riverside or lake without it, still holding onto the boyish notion that a tackle box that doesn't contain a knife is in some way diminished by the absence. It is pictured here in my pike box, although it is mostly to be found in my general coarse box, a yellow and clear perspex Stewart box that I have had since I became a fisherman at the tender age of 13.

The penultimate item that finds its way into my "hall of fame" is my wooden landing net. With a lovely bamboo handle elegantly whipped in burgundy, and with a mesh that although modern, knot-less, and fish-safe, manages still to convey in its appearance  the suggestion of a previous era. Having only a small frame, its use is restricted to  waters that contain fish of only modest proportions, but it is a thing of beauty and always a pleasure to slip underneath a fish.

The final item to feature in my eclectic, but highly personal, list is my Australian bush hat. Given to me twelve years ago by my parents for my 40th birthday, it has not only adorned my head while fishing, but has also accompanied me on safari in East Africa and on a fishing road trip across the Southern States of the USA. It probably only comes with me on three or four fishing trips per year but is another article of my angling related ephemera for which I have an inordinate affection.

So, there you have it. None of these items are the "hardware" of fishing (the rods and reels), none are essential in order to fish, but all form a part of the pleasure of the rich wider tapestry that makes angling such an engrossing hobby in which to immerse oneself.
So, "When the dog bites, When the bee stings, When I'm feeling sad ..." it's to these that I'll turn!

Roach - the "shoulder padded jacket of the fish world."

My copy of the Observer's Book of Coarse Fishing (a Christmas present from my parents in 1981) informs the reader that the roach is the "best known and most popular" of Britain's coarse fish species, and Bernard Venables in Mr Crabtree goes Fishing  ( I have the 1959, sixth edition, on my bookshelves) concurs, describing the roach as "the most popular of the fishes". Izaak Walton, however took a counter view writing "... the roach is accounted the water sheep for his simplicity or foolishness." Personally, although in matters piscatorial (and theological) I invariably find myself in accord with Walton, in this instance I must side with BV, who contends that " a large roach is most difficult to deceive." Supporting evidence for his claim is the fact that while I have caught numerous roach in excess of a pound, I have yet to land a two pounder.

My fondness for roach is in part a response to their aesthetic attractiveness, in part a result of the fact that they are susceptible to the float fishing tactics that I prefer, and also because they seem to me to be emblematic of a simpler, more wholesome and innocent era in angling history - a time before the cult of the carp and the carp angler had redefined the practice of fishing.

With its bluish green back, metallic silver scales and bold red fins, the roach is possessor of  an elegant and simple beauty - unarguably attractive without being in the least bit "showy".

Many roach have graced my net over the years, and the capture of my first weighing in excess of a pound  (a fish of 1lb 4oz taken in the October school half-term of 1982) remains one of my fondest and most vivid angling memories. I have spent many a pleasant evening fishing for roach with my son (he is pictured here with my brother, Andy, each displaying a nice example of the species), and while I have never indulged in any serious pursuit of the species, I remain hopeful that one day a two pounder will join me on the bank.

Fashions change (hence the somewhat cryptic title of this piece), and it may be that it is the fate of the roach to be the piscatorial equivalent of the steam engine, the VHS recorder or the shoulder-padded jacket, but I hope not, and would love to see a resurgence of affection for species rutilus rutilis. I also really need to do something about the fact that my biggest ever roach was landed by accident while fishing for carp with a boilie on a bolt rig, a method of fishing which seems a crude, disrespectful, and  wholly inappropriate  way to fool such a delicate biting adversary. 

I am (I believe to my credit) suitably embarrassed.