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.