With the earth having almost completed another orbit of the sun, and with Christmas only a fortnight away, it feels like an appropriate time to review another angling year that will soon be just another set of memories getting smaller in life's rear view mirror. The urge to now look back is also in part due to the fact that today I finally conceded that, with a full diary of work and family commitments, I won't venture to the water's edge again until January comes around.
It's hard to know where to start, and a purely chronological "then I did this" and "next I did that" approach to chronicling the year feels as if it wouldn't do justice to one of my most enjoyable (and arguably succesful) seasons, for many a year. In fact the year was bookended by mediocrity - the early months seeing me fail to catch anything of note and the late Autumn and winter petering out with a bit of a whimper as my opportunities to fish decreased as a result of unavoidable busyness in other areas of my life. The Spring and Summer, by contrast, gifted me some of my most pleasurable and rewarding angling experiences of recent times.
2025 was, for me, "the year of the tench." A chance conversation on a Facebook group led to me being invited to join a small syndicate on a lake whose two main species are tench and true, bone fide, crucians. The lake had a reputation for not giving up its treasures lightly, but on my first session (on which I not unexpectedly blanked) the peaceful and private nature of the lake, its unmanicured natural appearance, and the friendly nature of the syndicate's members, confirmed my decision to join as being a good one. In the event, I only blanked twice and enjoyed a summer in which short sessions of just a few hours provided me with some wonderful tench, with three over 6 pounds (biggest 6lb 12oz) and several more in excess of 5 pounds.
My first session which saw me fishing in traditional tench fishing style with a centre pin reel, porcupine quill float and sweetcorn as bait resulted in a biteless four hours and so on my second trip (more in hope than expectation) I tried fishing with a method feeder and hair-rigged Robin Red pellet, a change of tactics that saw me land a hat trick of tench, and from that moment the die was cast. I love fishing in traditional style but these fish seemed to have other ideas and I didn't intend to miss out on the bounty that the lake seemed reasonably keen to bless me with, and so the rest of the spring and summer was spent sat behind bite alarms and fishing for the tench using scaled down carp tactics.
May and June saw the continuation of my exploits on the syndicate lake before July provided me with one of my fishing highlights in a year that contained a number of such. This time the cause of the pleasure was less the fish that were caught, but more the fact that I was spending 30 hours fishing and camping with my son, James. Despite both of us having busy jobs, commitments, and mortgages to pay, we manage to fish together several times every year and the chance to bivvy up and enjoy all that goes with overnight session fishing (bankside cooking, time to ruminate and chat, and a generally more unhurried and relaxed approach to time) gave this trip a special feel. Over the course of the session we alternated between sitting behind bite alarms and moving around the lake float fishing and caught a mixture of tench, feral goldfish, strange little fish that looked suspiciously like Gibel carp, and one solitary mirror. The weather also alternated, with lashing rain giving way to glorious sunshine and vice versa.
After the overnighting interlude with James, it was back to the syndicate lake and continued success for the rest of the summer with tench. Most of the tench of the lake tend to either be a very dark, deep brown in colour but some of them seem to have an almost golden sheen to their olive flanks. Many are venerable old warriors, some bearing the scars of close encounters with otters or stab wounds from a lucky escape from a cormorant's beak, but a few smaller fish of under 3 pounds were caught by other syndicate members, showing that a new generation is following on the heels (or fins?) of the one that is currently providing such pleasure for the lake's fortunate anglers.
September came around and as I set up for my final session on the syndicate lake I was unaware that the best was yet to come. Most of my trips had taken place in the morning, but the occasion of my last visit was an evening. I arrived at the lake as late afternoon was beginning to merge into evening, and the lake had an "end of the day" feel to it- not the promise of morning as the lake "wakes up", nor the soporiphic midday air of slumber, but the pond itself almost seemed to communicate an air of winding down in preparation for nightime. There was little fish activity to be observed, a small patch of bubbles for about ten minutes, but no other visible cues, and my bite alarm had similarly provided no audible clues until, without warning, it screeched into life. The fish made a token show of resistance without fighting too hard and I assumed I'd hooked one of the smaller tench until, as I drew the fish towards the net I saw a plump silhouette which, as it got closer, emitted a golden glow. What I was connected to was a crucian, and a good one at that. I have long loved crucians, to the extent that I have even in the past made the long journey to March Farm to spend a single day fishing for them, and as the fish approached the folds of the net I felt my heart pounding as I willed the hookhold to remain firm.
The scales gave a weight of 2 pounds 3 ounces, a new personal best for me. It was the discovery of the presence of crucians in the lake that had first prompted my interest in the syndicate, but although they exist in reasonable numbers only a few make their way to the bank every season, and so I was beyond delighted to have been privileged to make the acquaintance of this fish, butter-coloured and plump and everything that a crucian should be.
My Autumn and Winter fishing has barely got going, with only two sessions in search of perch managed since my September triumph on the syndicate lake. Both were at a commercial venue that has been kind to me in times past, but my two trips only resulted in three perch (the largets no giant at 1 pound 9 ounces), a couple of barbel, and a brace of gatecrashing carp. The second of these trips was the annual charity fundraising perch match held by the Christian Anglers group to which I belong where my fish was good enough for 3rd place, the biggest perch of the day, which was just a couple of ounces below 2 pounds, falling to the rod of my friend John MacAngus.
As the year draws to a close, and time spent on the bank this year becomes part of the stream of angling consciousness that flows all the way back to the school summer holiday of 1981 and my first foray into the world of fishing, I look back on a year that has given me as much pleasure as any of my early days did. As a 13 year old I often barely slept the night before going fishing, and while that might not quite be the case now, I still find myself aware of a knot of excitement and anticipation in my stomach anytime I prepare for a trip to the water's edge. As back then, so too now, am I able to enjoy even a day when the net remains bone dry. Every year (and this was no exception) I travel to the Fens for a pike match with friends from the Christian Anglers group, and over the five years we've fished the match I have only caught once. This year was another blank, but the bleak yet beautiful scenery and indominitable nature of the Fens, and the company of friends (one or two of whom manage a pike every year) makes the event special, and in a way sums up all that makes fishing what it is to me: good friends, the glory of God's creation, and the occasional fish ..... it doesn't take much to put a smile on my face.
