"Why" questions fascinate me more than the much more mundane questions of "what" or "how" and I have often speculated on why in the 21st Century so many of us choose to fish. We're not doing it for reasons of subsistance (we return all our fish to the water), it doesn't, for most of us, bring with it much in the way of fame, wealth or adulation and yet the pastime exerts an almost magnetic and obsessive pull on so many of us. Some posit the theory that it's a primeval urge, a residual memory of the time when our forefathers were hunter/gatherers that time hasn't yet genetically erased. Maybe they're right. In my case, I've concluded that my fishing derives largely from a sense of wonderment and a desire for adventure.
Wonder comes naturally to children, but the passage of time and realities of life erode it in the adult. My eighteen month old grandson's curiosity knows no bounds, and passing vehicles elicit from him a pointing finger and excited shouts of "car", "bus" (self-explanatory") and "lollo" (lorry). Birds and animals draw similar responses, and he has long been fascinated by trees and flowers suggesting that even at so young an age he has a sense of what aesthetic beauty is. Fishing, even in my late 50's, helps me to reconnect with wonder, although, sadly, not with the intensity of a toddler's capacity for surprised amazement. Perhaps for me, it's more a sense of awe facilitated by the places in which we fish. When surrounded by natural beauty I realise afresh with Elizabeth Barrett-Browning that " earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God"
I also fish because I yearn for adventure. The modern world is comparatively safe and sanitised in its Western European form. In years gone by I've been on safaris in East Africa, travelled along the Nile, and embarked on a solo road trip accross the USA's Southern states to sate the yearning, but on home soil, adventures are harder to find. That's where fishing comes in. With a bit of imagination a fishing trip can become an adventure and every year, for 48 hours, I immerse myself in an angling adventure of my own making. I realise that there are many "session" carp anglers who camp out to fish two or three times a week, but for someone like me, whose fishing sessions are usually between three and six hours in duration, a weekend by the side of a lake becomes an adventure.
In recent years the adventure has been a family affair, with me fishing with either one or both of my brothers or my son. This year, for the first time, all four of us had managed to co-ordinate diaries and get the requisite domestic permissions in order to fish the weekend together. The adventure begins far in advance of the weekend itself, with lists being drawn up, tackle and camping equipment checked, bait and sundries being ordered and purchased, and months of conversations on WhatsApp before the dream finally metamorphosises into reality with the packing of cars and vans and the long drive to the lake, in this case a lake in Dorset that is home to carp and catfish.
As fortune would have it, the reality exceeded even the dream. The weather, which at the beginning of the week was forecast to be malign turned out to be beneavolent with glorious sunshine and not a drop of rain, and the fish proved to be in a cooperative mood. Our intent had been to catch carp with the hope of perhaps the odd bonus catfish adding a bit of novelty value to the escapade, but it soon became clear that we would catch almost as many cats as we would carp. After arriving at midday and spending the first half hour setting up camp, a couple of hours into the session I found myself playing my first fish, although it might be more accurate to say that it played me while I hung on grimly for dear life. After about half an hour of struggle (both mine and the fish's) the fish eventually surrendered itself to the net and the scales showed it to be a catfish of 26 pounds and 8 ounces.
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My brothers, Andy and Tim were fishing on the opposite side of the lake to my son James and me, but in view of us, and they on the other bank and James in the swim we were sharing were catching the odd carp (almost all of them scraper doubles) before the excitement really ratcheted up a notch as James found himself attached to a particularly angry catfish, which raced accross the lake and got stuck solid in a snag in the margins of an island, where it elected to sulk and stay. After 10 minutes of stalemate it was time to improvise to try and break the impasse, so James opened the reel's bale-arm and held the rod while I handlined. The ploy worked and the change in sensation saw the fish move back into open water. After a typically lengthy and attritional battle the fish finally relented and James was staring at a 30 pound cat, a fish which would be unsurpassed for weight over the course of the weekend.
Fishing for bigger fish tends to follow a pleasing pattern of reasonably long periods of gentle inactivity punctuated by flurries of frantic activity, and such was the rhythm of this weekend. Although we fished seriously, feeding spots regularly and doing our best to induce the fish to comply, we were there as much for the occasion and the opportunity to be together as we were for the fish, and from time to time rods would be wound in and a visit to the other's swim undertaken, with each pair taking it in turns to cook the evening meals on the Friday and Saturday. These times of conversation and company are a part of what makes such a weekend special, and although in years to come we'll remember the fish we caught and not what we talked about, they contribute to the general sense of time well spent.
Afternoon faded into evening, evening gave way to night, and the fish continued to oblige. Carp, as well as catfish, were visiting the bank, with probably slightly more carp than cats being captured, but such was the nature of our success (dear reader, this isn't always the case!) that it became impossible to keep a tally of all fish caught or to recall the weights of all but the most noteable of captures. The carp were noticeably much smaller than the catfish, with a few mid doubles but most being around the 10 or 11 pound mark making it hard to conclude anything other than the catfish, which breed prodigously as well as feeding voraciously, have bullied the carp out and relegated them to a lower level of the food chain.
I lost a couple of cats, but ended the weekend with four banked, all of them weighing 20 pounds or more. My penultimate catfish provided another exercise in innovative fish playing, when it took me behind an island. This resulted in the need for me, aided by both my son and my brother Tim, to have to walk round the corner of the lake onto a wooden bridge that divides two parts of the lake, pass the rod under a tree to Tim, while I clambered round the tree, in order to change the angle of attack and bring the fish back from behind the island. The power of the fish and the intuition that leads to them seeking out cover was requiring us to employ more imagination than is usually required in order to bring a fish to the unhooking cradle!
Even a keen collector of statistics would have struggled to keep abreast of the numbers. Between the four of us I honestly don't know how many carp and catfish we landed but I'm pretty sure that all four of us banked cats of 20 pound plus, as well as carp a plenty. At one stage James and I (who were sharing a large double swim were playing a catfish and a carp simultaneously- I the carp and he the catfish - which led to a few slightly hairy moments, and Andy and Tim, also sharing a double swim, managed a double hook-up on cats which provided them with a nice photo for the family album!
James and I packed up and left early on the Sunday morning, our respective domestic commitments calling us homeward, and were back home before midday. Andy and Tim fished on until late morning and continued to catch, with Andy managing to prise a pleasing last-gasp brace of carp which were both only slightly shy of 20 pounds, fish that proved to be the largest carp of the weekend.
There are some things that you are able to plan in advance for when arranging a fishing weekend, others that are beyond your control. Sometimes the planning and the unknowns converge harmoniously with pleasant weather, feeding fish, and everthing seeming to align perfectly. This weekend was one such occasion. I have for some time maintained that I fish as much to make memories as to catch fish, and these were memories that will live long. Discussions are already underway and in their early stages about where we might venture to for next year's adventure.
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