The Last perch

In the summer of 1981 three brothers then aged 13, 11, and 8 started fishing. Forty two years on and fishing continues to provide for them common ground upon which memories are formed. Despite the inevitable geographical diaspora that is the norm for modern families, every year the three of us  manage to fish together at least once, and modern technology has given opportunity for our own private WhatsApp group in which catch photos are shared, stories told, questions, musings and conversations aired, almost all of them piscatorial in nature although, if truth be told, football chatter is also occasionally permitted to intrude. It would be a grave mistake to conclude that fishing provides the only glue that binds together the fraternal bonds (kinship and shared memories go far deeper than just the pursuit of fish) but it would equally be a mistake to underplay the part this jointly owned love of angling contributes to the connection between three men who are brothers by the accident of birth but friends by virtue of choice.

And so, six months after the three of us last fished together, and on the occasion of my 54th birthday,  we were once again to be found in each other's company by a lake, on what for me would be one final session with perch as the target species before switching to the more traditional species of summer, with hopes that we might each land at least one in excess of the magical 2 pound mark. 

The sky overhead was overcast and the air carried a chill, but the prospects looked bright when within five minutes of lowering my prawn hookbait next to an enticing looking snag my float dithered and bobbed before burying decisively. An equally decisive strike saw me connected to an indignant perch, which tipped the scales to 1lb 12oz. Not quite a 2 pounder, but an excellent start to the day.

However, rather than being a portent of good fortune and easy fishing, the "early doors" perch turned out to be something of a false dawn, and over the ensuing hours every bite had to be earned by hard work and cussed determination. It was an hour later that we had our second respectably sized perch, a slightly smaller fish of 1lb 10oz, with me again being the fortunate captor.

All three of us had started with float fished prawns, but as the morning went on Andy and Tim also experimented with maggots (which only resulted in small fish) and worms, but despite these changes and the fact that all three of us were feeding our swims with a regular trickle of loose maggots and chopped prawn pieces, perch of decent calibre remained hard to come by. Eventually, around lunchtime, youngest brother Tim got himself off the mark with the first of what would be for him a brace of perch, the larger of which was just under a pound and a half.

In the meantime I had landed the first of three ide that took a liking to my bait, the fish putting a pleasing bend in my split cane rod, and for the merest fraction of a second as I drew the fish over the rim of the net I wondered if I was looking at my new personal best roach, but once on the bank the fish's real identity was clear to see. My pb roach, a 1lb 14oz fish caught in Devon, remains my best redfin some 20 years after its capture, but the ide was a handsome fish and a pleasing distraction from the gruelling pursuit of the less than compliant perch.

Andy had placed himself in a likely looking corner swim, with reeds lining the margins, every bit the textbook type of swim that Mr Crabtree would have chosen, and eventually his fortitude was rewarded with a brace of respectable perch. He had experimented with both worms and maggots, but it was a return to a prawn fished hard on the bottom that turned the tables in his favour.

The day wore on with the lake moodily continuing to give up its perch only with the greatest of reluctance, although I did finally manage to complete the hat trick with a final fish of 1 lb 12oz.

Although seven perch all in excess of a pound might sound like a pleasing result (as indeed it was), the three of us had fished hard for nine hours with long spells between bites, the lake seemingly flicking on and off as if some unseen hand was pressing an invisible switch. It was also unusual that none of us caught a two pounder, as over the years that I've fished this particular pond for perch on average every third fish I catch weighs 2 pound or over, so it would have been reasonable to expect at least one of us to break the magical barrier. However, such considerations seem churlish- we had enjoyed a good, but challenging, day's fishing and the pleasure of continuing to add new memories to those which are already imprinted on our minds and a part of our fraternal folk lore in our fifth decade of fishing together is itself more than ample reward. 

I suspect that for as long as the Lord spares us and our health allows us, every year new plans will be hatched, new venues visited and new stories created. Rumour has it that next year carp may be the quarry.

Fishing with friends

CS Lewis, author of the Narnia stories which captivated my childhood imagination once observed that "friendship is born at the moment when one man says to another 'What? You too? I thought that no one else did that.' " On meeting and getting to know other anglers, it has been a great relief to discover that I'm far from being the only middle aged man who still gets excited the night before a fishing trip, and that there are other men with families, mortgages and responsible jobs who daydream about lakes, rivers, ponds and fish, and for whom fishing is their "go to" default setting when their minds begin to wander. Over the decades of my angling life I have been blessed with many friendships that have enriched my time spent in pursuit of fish, and among that vast crowd of friends past and present, are numbered fellow members of the Christian Anglers group to which I belong. Nationally, the group is a network of around a hundred members linked by their commonly owned and jointly held passions for both their fishing and their faith, and today eight of us had arranged to spend a day fishing together in the Spring sun. Fishing, in common with every hobby, has its own lexicon of aphorisms, clichés and sayings, many of which focus on the fact that there is far more to angling than simply the catching of fish, and days like today prove the truism true, and so rather than racing to the lakeside to set up our tackle in a hurry of frenzied anticipation, we met first for a leisurely breakfast, cooked for us by Mark, the fishery owner.

Friendships renewed and replete with sausages, bacon and eggs we strolled in leisurely fashion down to the lake and selected our fishing pitches. In the few weeks since I'd last fished, Spring had well and truly sprung, and the once bare trees were now decorated in shades of pink, white or green, their hues retelling the annual story of  fecundity, possibility and the beginnings of new life.

While some members were busy setting up Method feeders and bite alarms my approach, as ever, was simplicity itself, a small bodied quill waggler fished on the bottom with a couple of maggots on a size 18 hook. A few balls of groundbait were introduced to prime the swim, followed by maggots being loose-fed sparingly at frequent intervals. An unseen chiffchaff gave notice of its presence by singing its name aloud, joining its voice with the various other warbles, chirrups and cheeps of the voluble avian choir. The weather was mild and the water troubled only by the merest of ripples, although sadly my float was similarly untroubled as it protruded above the lake's flat surface. Eventually it sunk from sight on a few occasions, the culprit turning out to be either a roach or rudd, beautiful in appearance, but all in the 4-8oz category, with the exception of my largest fish of the day, a plucky little perch of perhaps three quarters of a pound. 

My fellow piscators were also struggling, David caught the day's only carp, a handsome mirror of about 7 pounds (which resulted from his only bite) while Loz and Garry fared best, with both of them registering a reasonable net of roach and rudd. (Garry's being displayed in the photo below) Only one of our number blanked but it was a day when every fish caught was hard earned. 

However, despite the fish doing their best to remind us that "fishing" and "catching" aren't always synonymous everyone remained in high spirits, enjoying the rejuvenating properties of a day in the outdoors and time spent together. Loz made a nuisance of himself sneaking a life-sized model of a heron into people's swims when they weren't looking (as if there were any need to make the fishing harder than it already was!) and bank walking and chatting were as much a part of the day as staring at floats that resolutely refused to slide out of view.

All too soon the day was over, goodbyes were spoken, and tackle loaded into cars for the return trip to reality. Another of angling's well known aphorisms posits the thought that "a bad day's fishing is better than a good day at work." I'm inclined to agree, but don't tell my Bishop!