Last chuck for tench, first throw for perch.

The Bible's first book, Genesis, in its creation narratives describes Adam and Eve walking with God in the quiet and cool of the evening. My latest evening foray to the Syndicate Lake was cool (the heatwave having temporarily given way to milder weather) but anything but quiet. The reason? Every year the farmer who owns the land, and from whom we rent the lake, puts 150 flightless ducks on it, and a few weeks later invites a bunch of his friends round to blast the poor things to smithereens with shotguns. The intervening period sees large groups of ducks waddling around the banks together and aimlessly traversing the lake's surface in large flotillas. Unaware of their impending doom, they seem content enough and I enjoy watching their antics, but one thing they aren't is quiet!

Wednesday was the first evening of the week in which I had no meetings in my diary, and with my wife away for a couple of days looking after our grandson I grabbed hold of the "window of opportunity" and on returning from work, snatched my fishing tackle, jumped in the car and headed for the lake. In the three weeks that had elapsed since I last fished the pool, the tench had started to come out with greater regularity, and most days seemed to see the capture of at least one tench being reported on the Syndicate's Whats App group. It's not a lake that gives up its prized tench (and even more so its elusive crucians) easily but, setting up in a swim I'd never fished before, I felt confident that there'd be at least one fish in it for me. In the event my confidence proved unfounded. The lake was in one of its sullen moods with only the very occasional brief flurry of pin-prick bubbles tantalisingly giving rise to misplaced hope. Three hours of motionless bobbins and silent alarms elapsed and with dark beginning to close in I packed up and, fishless, made for home. 

And that was that. With work and life commitments piling up it  was over a month before I was able to fish again, by which time Autumn was in the process of superceding summer, the leaves were just beginning their metamorphosis from verdant green to russet and gold, the temperature had dropped, and my son and I made the decision to reluctantly call time on the pursuit of tench and switch our attention to pike and perch. A fortnight passed and my son and I made a brief exploratory recce of a new stretch of the canal (without the distraction of fishing rods!) which will be the focus of our winter pike fishing exploits. We both love a project, and both love to plan. But that was as close as we got to fishing.

Finally, a week after our canal recce, and a full month after I last actually fished, I found the time to return to active angling, beginning my seasonal dalliance with perch. With just a few hours available, I arrived at the lake just after 7am, and set up a simple perch bobber float rig with which to explore the margins for my stripe-sided adversary. Prawns were the hookbait of choice, with a regular trickle of red maggots being fed into the swim. The weather was dissapointingly sunny, which made for comfortable fishing conditions, although less than ideal ones for the target species. It took about 40 minutes for me to connect with my first fish, which quickly made it clear that it was no perch. After a spirited tussle, a carp of about 7 or 8 pounds found itself engulfed in the folds of the landing net. 

Shortly afterwards I was connected to my second fish of the morning but alas, once again the fish was not the intended target, but a modestly sized roach with a penchant for prawns. 

My friend Matt arrived once he'd completed dropping off his daughter at school and set up in the swim next to me. He favoured worms over prawns on this occasion and was soon also fishing a float in the margins. For him, as for me, perch were conspicuous by their absence, but he did manage several decent roach, topped by a fish that would probably have weighed close to a pound. 

We only had the morning in which to fish and so for the last three quarters of an hour I scaled down to a size 18 hook and double red maggot, which brought a flurry of fish (mostly roach of about half a pound and even a couple of miniscule representatives of the target species) but none of the hoped for specimen perch. The real excitement of the morning came in the final few minutes of the session. Matt had set up a carp rod which had been left to "fish itself" sat on a bite alarm while he paid attention to his float, and it was predictably the rod that "fished itself" that saw the morning's major action! I had packed up my tackle and was just preparing to lug it unceremoniusly to the car when Matt's bite alarm sounded a shrill note, and Matt found himself attached to what would clearly, if landed, be the biggest fish of the day. I stayed to act as ghillie and after a few minutes in which the carp did its best to make its escape, a nice mirror was nestling in the net. The scales registered a weight of 15 lb 2 oz, and the fish's capture rounded off a pleasant morning's activity. 

One of fishing's many beguiling features is its unpredictability. We went to a water with a good pedigree for specimen perch, and from which we have both in the past landed some fine fish but on this occasion it was a gatecrashing carp that stole the show on a "no-show" day from Richard Walker's "biggest fish of all." 

Maybe next time a 2 pound perch will be gracious enough to make my day. Here's hoping, but perch or no perch, there'll still be few better ways to while away a morning.