Falling off my perch

For many men the mid-life is a time of crushing disapointment and dangerous risk. For me it has been neither. While others may mourn the loss of their looks (I had none to lose) or their hair (mine was curly and I didn't particularly like it), I was pretty unperturbed by the whole thing. I didn't have a crazy fling with a younger woman (such things are poorly thought of in my line of work) and I was happy to sail past my silver wedding anniversary and into whatever the future holds with the girl I married when she was only 22. Unlike some of weaker disposition, I was also succesful in declining the enticement of the shining chrome and throaty roar of a Harley Davidson. In fact, the nearest I got to a mid-life crisis was splashing out on a few split cane fishing rods and vintage reels. The one thing I really do miss, however, from my younger days is the seemingly endless amount of freetime one has, freetime that is generally wasted in one's youth. As Anno Domini continues to do its work of depreciation on me, more than the physical vigour of youth it's that spare time that I yearn for. Perhaps when I move out of middle age and into old age proper and retirement I'll experience a recrudesence of the experience of posessing unallocated time, time which- of course- I will immediately allocate to fishing. But for now in my current season of life, every fishing session is precious, and possible only by the rescheduling of the duties that make up a work and domestic life. Fishing with good friends, doubly so.

It had been over a month since I last fished, and with the longest day passed and summer now only a fading  memory, I had been looking forward to the annual Christian Anglers charity perch match. Autumn is, by far, my favourite of the seasons in which to angle. Shakespeare may have felt that there was no finer comparison for the subject of his admiration than a "summer's day", but the poets who really knew where things are at leant much more in an Autumnward direction, from Keats and his "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" to Robert Frost's wistful musings on the impermanence of the season's golden hue. It's not just the visual beauty that makes the year's penultimate season uppermost in my affections, but also the fact that, while immersed in its beauty, I prioritise fishing for the most striking of our coarse fish, the prickly and pugnacious, boldly-striped and  crimson-finned perch and this was to be my first foray in search of perch this Autumn/Winter.   The second week of November may, technically, place us more in Winter than Autumn, but to my mind for as long a the trees remain bedecked in golds, scarlets and russets and until the branches turn bare, it's still Autumn.

My rod and reel selection (for perch fishing at anyrate) is based not on tactics, native cunning or strategy, but merely on a whim, and today "felt" like a Wizard and Aerial type of day. The day was mild, the pond ripple free and expectations were high.

For most of the group of eight anglers fishing the friendly competition, held annually in memory of our late friend John Rellie, those expectations proved to be unfounded. The perch were sullen, moody and not in a  compliant mood, although a handful of better fish were landed over the course of the day. I fished mostly with prawns as bait, occasionally changing to red maggots although this change always prompted only a procession of very small fish. My best perch of the day proved to be this fellow which would only have weighed around three quarters of a pound had I bothered to subject it to the indignity of the weigh sling.

Tucked away in a reed fringed corner, the exception to the rule was eventual winner John, who managed four perch over a pound, the biggest registering a weight of one pound and fifteen ounces. His fish came to a mixture of legered and float fishing tactics, the succesful bait being some of the largest tiger prawns I've ever seen. 

John was not alone in catching perch of a better stamp, with Gaz managing a brace of perch that both exceeded the pound mark and Loz also landing a perch just shy of a pound and a half. Rogue carp with a penchant for perch baits provided a welcome distraction but none of the larger perch put in an appearance and, for the first time in its seven year existence the competition was won with a fish that weighed under two pounds.

At the appointed hour of 3:30 we gathered for the presentation of the trophy and to say our goodbyes. Despite the fishing having this year been challenging, we all agreed that it had been a day well spent and a goodly sum had been raised for our chosen charity. The conversations and camararderie had more than made up for any deficet of large perch and despite having fished for six and a half hours with only small fish and one respectable (but by no means large) perch to show for my efforts, I went home in a contented frame of mind. I did, after all, have one more thing to look forward to: before leaving the house in the morning I had divided the prawns and left half of the packet at home to include in a fish pie, and I can happily confirm that the small aquatic crustaceans proved of a hit that evening with me than they had been by the perch in the daytime!