Has a good thing come to an end?

 

One of Ernest Hemmingway's best short stories is called "The end of something." It's about a young lad called Nick Adams and tells of him breaking up with his girlfriend. The setting is a deserted mill and lumber yard in 1920's America, and it carries a poigniance for anyone who has ever loved and lost. There's a saying that "all good things come to an end" and I'm beginning to wonder if my love affair with a lake I often refer to as "the Perch Pond" is drawing towards its close. It's not that I don't like the place anymore, it's just that a lake that over a period of several winters provided me with over 20 perch that exceeded the 2 pound mark and 3 or 4 times as many that were between 1 and 2 pounds has failed to deliver any perch of even a pound in my last half dozen trips. Last year the biggest I pulled from its depths would have possibly scraped in at 12 ounces, and I'm struggling to escape the feeling that it may be time to explore new waters for their winter perch potential. 

The lake in question is small and shallow, and although it receives a reasonable amount of angling pressure it was only myself and a few friends who quietly went about our business pursuing its perch. It remains a mystery to me why most of the anglers who fished it ignored the perch (perhaps they were unaware of their existence?) and chose to target 6 or 7 pound carp on poles or method feeders rather than gloriously hump-backed specimen perch. Whatever the reason, their loss was our gain. All anglers love to theorise, and my only conclusion is that the large perch must all have been aging warriors of the same generation, and that age group has now largely died off. It's hard to come up with a different explanation. It can't be predation because the lake's other species all appear to be thriving. 

As is so often the case with break-ups (I should at this point make it clear that I've been married for 30 years and have no desire or plans to seperate, my comments are made from observation not experience!) the decision from a logical point of view isn't complicated (the lake isn't producing large perch anymore, so a new venue needs to be found) but the difficulty is caused by the memories and the way the lake's story has become a part of my story. Perhaps it's less about the fish caught and more about the way the lake, for a small group of us, became "our secret." Both of my brothers journeyed from afar to fish it with me, I fished it with my son and several of our fishing friends, and every year it plays host to a charity fishing event run by the Christian Anglers group I belong to. It's less a case of walking away from the lake's perch (or absence of them) and more a case of reaching the final page of what's been a pleasant and rewarding chapter in my angling life. 

I'll give the pond a couple more chances this Autumn, but I suspect it'll soon be time to start exploring again, trawling the internet, keeping an ear to the ground, listening out for rumours of perch in local waters, and wading through dissapointments until a new lake with large and catchable perch is discovered. In the meantime, my message to the lake is "we've had some good times, we're not as good together as we once were, let's stay friends, and thanks for all the memories..." It does feel like we've arrived at the end of something.

(Not) the biggest fish of all

Summer came early this year, but so too has autumn. A warm, sunny and dry May was the prelude to a long, hot summer but even as the the August heat beat down, the leaves were beginning to turn from green to golden.  The paradox of autumn is a metaphor for life - its brief burst of beauty is in reality a harbinger of decay- as the poet Robert Frost reminded us "nothing gold can stay." Impermanence and provisionality are the signature of the season. Beyond such philosophical musings, the onset of Autumn signals the resumption of my perch fishing activity.

I arrived at the lake at around 7:30am, and within twenty minutes had picked my pitch and was dropping my porcupine quill float into a perchy looking spot next to some marginal reeds. A further twenty minutes elapsed before the float dived into the depths. My response of a swift upward sweep of the rod was met with firm resistance and the next few minutes saw me being led a merry dance by a fish which turned out to be not the hoped-for perch but rather a stillwater barbel. While, along with most right-minded anglers I am no fan of stocking thse denizens of running water into lakes and ponds, the barbel in this lake always fight hard, appear vigorous and healthy, and swim away in determined fashion when released. 

I rebaited my size 10 barbless hook with a fresh king prawn and continued trickling red maggots and the occasional broken up prawn into the swim. The sun rose in the sky, pleasantly warming my skin but providing far from ideal conditions for perch to feed in. About half an hour after my opening barbel I was once again playing a spirited fish which turned out to be the twin of its predecessor. 

By now, the sun was shining with purposeful intensity and beams glimmered and danced on the rippling water. Occasionally a few grey clouds would appear, and for a minute or two the sky would darken and the gloomier interlude would produce in me the hope that the lower light levels might induce the perch to come on the feed, but each time the wish failed to materialise into reality and the float remained obstinantly motionless.

As I entered the final hour before my planned midday finish, I decided on a change of tactics. The prawn was proving singularly unsuccesful at provoking a response, and so on the basis that one popular definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result", and not wishing to be thought insane, I switched to a small hook and double red maggot. I knew that this would inevitably trigger the capture of a procession of small fish, but my first ever 2 pound perch fell to double red maggot on a small hook, as also did my biggest ever perch of 2lb 15oz, so in the absence of any other encouraging signs it was as worthy an experiment as any. In the event, the anticipated steady stream of small fish (most of which were the target species in miniature) ensued, but without the bonus of anything sizeable.

As the clock in the neighbouring village chimed twelve times, I swung the float to the bank for the last time and began the task of packing up. After a spring and summer of almost constant and uninterrupted success with tench, topped off with new personal bests for both tench and crucians, today's session had proved to be a chastening object lesson in the capricious nature of fishing. After a summer spent almost entirely sat behind bite alarms it had been enjoyable to once again be manipulating a float and using a centre pin reel, but the lack of a sizeable perch to open my account had led to the enjoyment being tinged with dissappointment. 

I suspect that my perch campaign may prove to be somewhat more challenging than my tench one was.  One of my favourite fishing books is one that has become something of a collector's item in recent years. Produced by The Perchfishers it's title borrows from Dick Walker's comment that perch are "the biggest of fish." Not today they weren't!