In bed with Mr Crabtree

Although there's an element of "Ooeer Mrs!" in the title, this blog post is as upright and moral as one might rightly expect from a "man of the cloth."

The thing is, you know you've chosen to be Vicar of the right church when after the service a member of your congregation comes up to you with a package and says "I found this in a second hand booksellers and wondered if you'd like it", and procedes to unwrap and present to you an excellent condition 1959 edition of "Mr Crabtree goes fishing". Roger, who gave me the book,  (pictured below with a crucian carp) is a recent convert, not to Christianity (he's been a Christian for a couple of decades), but to angling, having been introduced to the sport through his son.

I was doubly delighted, as one of the great omissions in my angling library is a copy of "Crabtree". The truth of the matter is that, at 44 years of age, I'm the immediate post-Crabtree generation, although I did own a similar book by Bernad Venables entitled the "Piccolo Book of Fishing" when I was a boy, which used the same cartoon format, but with a young adult acting as the mentor to a child angler, as opposed to the eponymous pipe smoking father of "Peter" in the original.

And so, on Sunday night, I settled into bed, nursing a throat infection that had made my Sunday sermons sound as if they'd been preached by the offspring of either Darth Vadar or Barry White (and that probably hadn't been helped by Saturday's spinning session in freezing conditions!) and settled down to read. Ironically, following my weekend blank, and in view of the fact that in the 30 odd years that I've been fishing January has been a singularly disapointing month in fishing terms (my first ever pike, caught in January 1982 being the exception to the rule),  I was interested to read just a couple of pages into the book that "The Crabtrees have decided to start their fishing year in January. They could not do better ..." - looks like Bernard Venables and his cartoon creations know something I don't.

I suspect that it'll take a while before it's sensible for me to fish again, and so it may have to wait another year before I see if any of the Crabtree's January optimism has rubbed off on me. Until then I'll have the consolation that I now have one of the "classics" on my bookshelves for those moments when armchair angling has to suffice.

January deja vu

When something's repeated often enough it becomes a tradition ... blanking on my first session of a new year seems to pretty much fit that category! This morning, accompanied by my son, I managed to steal a quick spinning session to the Grand Union. The day was cold (as January day's should be), and we knew that there was every chance that we would fail to catch, but for as long as you have a lure in the water "hope springs eternal" and there's always the possibility. We concentrated on a couple of bridges and a few areas where the tangled tree roots provided what looked like good ambush points for perch in need of a snack, but to no avail.

The highlight of the day was quite possibly "borrowing" one of the tables at a canal-side pub to stop and enjoy a hot drink and a chat, before rejoining the increasingly unequal battle between us and the fish who were either too cold to feed or not hanging around in the areas we were targetting. Several spinners and lures were used, including all the usually reliable ones, but after an hour and a half of "character building" it was time to return home and join the girls.
 A day fishing is never a day wasted, however, and on the way home I realised that my son, who has been fishing for 8 years has only blanked four times, which shows the value of (a) having a fishing parent to provide (often unheeded!) guidance, and (b) the difference being able to access Commercial Fisheries has made to a generation of young anglers - it wasn't that easy when my brothers and I were teaching ourselves to fish in 1981!

So, we still await our first fish of 2013, but as the saying goes; "Piscatur non solum piscator", which roughly translates: "There's more to fishing than catching fish."

Baitboats in a split cane world ...

 

Here's the received wisdom in relation to the legendary Carp Catcher's Club, that small society who redefined the way we fish, created the aura that still surrounds Redmire and showed an unbelieving angling public that carp really were catchable: Dick Walker was the innovator who applied his relentless curiosity and scientific mind to the task of catching carp, and BB was the hopeless romantic, a dreamer and icon for all that's traditional in angling.
Of course, there's more than a grain of truth in those statements. Dick Walker, more than any other angler, gave rise to modern specimen hunting, and BB was a dreamy, mystic, but re-reading his classic "Confessions of a Carp Fisher" along with all the descriptive writing and the evocations of "The Old Copper Mine"(Beechmere) and tales of Father Angelus I came upon this:
"I also experimented with a small raft made from scraps of bark, resting the bread upon it..." , BB goes on to admit that " ... with the boat method I usually manage to get some tangles in my coiled line; a single blade of grass, a leaf or twig, will cause the line to 'snarl', the bait is jerked off the boat and the whole laborious business has to be begun again".
So, there you have it: even in today's gadget saturated carp world bait boats remain controversial, but way back in the late 40's and early 50's BB, of all people, was experimenting with an early form of the bait boat.
It just goes to show there really is, as the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes put it "nothing new under the sun" ... it's enough to make Chris Yates remove that scene of him blasting a bait boat to pieces from "A Passion for Angling."
BB and boat baits- whatever next? Bernard Venables and hair rigs? Isaak Walton and method feeders?

In debt to Capability

 

 

It wasn't his intention, but Capability Brown has immeasurably added to the pleasure I derive from fishing, for it is he who was the architect and populariser of the estate lakes that form my favourite fishing  environment . Don't get me wrong, I don't exclusively fish estate lakes, and none of my biggest fish have come from them, but there's something indefinably magical about a 250 year old lake of an acre or two set in the grounds of a stately home. It's been said that Brown's intention was to "improve on nature", and while I don't for one moment think that he manged to do that (you can't out-create the Creator!) I love the intimacy of fishing small estate lakes.

Three such lakes (all of which I'll decline to name!) have a special place in my affections; the small pond that has featured in a number of these posts in which I currently fish in the summer for crucians (and where last month I blanked while fishing for perch!), an estate lake in the South East that I lure fished for pike with my brother when in my late 20's - summer piking with topwater plugs and shallow divers and loads of compliant jacks, and a charming little lake I fished with my son for a couple of years either for small wild carp of 2 - 3 pounds or for hoardes of voracious little roach and rudd.

I enjoy and am fascinated by fish-inhabited water of all kinds; big wild gravel pits, small meandering rivers, canals and even the much maligned commercials, but, to my mind, there's nothing to beat a nicely matured estate lake, and so I propose a toast to Capability Brown and all his landscaping successors!

My son, a couple of years ago, with a catch of small roach and rudd from an estate lake

On getting lucky ...

HT Sherringham wrote of carp fishing in 1911 : "So far as my experience goes, it is certain that good luck is the most vital part of the equipment of him who would seek to slay big carp. For some men I admit the usefullness of skill and pertinacity, for myself, I take my stand entirely on luck. To the novice I would say 'cultivate your luck' ..."
Now, Sherringham was one of the foremost anglers of his time, and so the the piece deserves to be read in the light-hearted manner it was intended, but it got me thinking about the part "luck" plays in angling.

We've all bristled at the well-meaning bank-walker's question "Had any luck, mate?", and wanted to launch ourselves into an impassioned piece of oratory about the skill required to be sucessful in "the gentle art", but as I pondered on Sherrigham's dictum I realised that three of my own personal bests were caught by accident while fishing for other species of fish, and therefore might be seen as "lucky fish".

A roach of about a pound (with possibly a hint of bream?) "fluked" on carp gear 

 

My biggest roach, not a giant, but at 1 lb 12 oz a "good effort", was caught while fishing for carp, using boilies, bolt rigs and tackle that ensured that the ensuing fight was less than spectacular, while my best ever perch was caught on a plug intended for pike, and my biggest zander fell to a livebait while again targetting old esox.

 

My personal best zander caught while pike fishing

 

So, was Sherringham right? I guess we have to concede to him a degree of truth, luck does play a part, but over the course of time a part that is of lesser significance than skill, technique, experience and above all "watercraft". What also seems indisputable is the fact that the "luckiest" anglers also seem to be the hardest working and most skilful.

 

As for me, the way things have been with my fishing of late, I'll take whatever "luck" I can get, but I suspect the secret to turning my fortunes around will have more to do with effort than random chance. Perhaps "cultivate your luck" is a euphemism for keeping persevering, and so as I take my leave, I'll wish you all "tight lines and good luck" and leave you to interpret the salutation as best you see fit.



 



Partial redemption and the tyranny of time ...

 

Three tiny spinner-caught perch from the canal don't exactly signify the greatest ever comeback since Lazarus, but at least they restore some sort of parity between me and my underwater quarry after last week's blank on the Estate Lake. There's nothing quite like an ignominious blank to pull me back to the water's edge!

However, whatever slight sense of satisfaction I'm feeling has to be offset by the fact that this season (in these days of all year angling I date seasons in Calendar years, not from the once-hallowed 16th of June) has been a "season of two halves". My summer which was spent chasing crucians was great fun, and although I failed to land my target 2 pounder was a success both in terms of enjoyment and numbers of fish caught. The autumn/winter, by contrast, has never really got going, always been slightly half-hearted and has yet to see any fish of note caught.

Time seems to be the great enemy. I'm nicely sorted for summer fishing, with the Estate lake offering cracking crucian sport, and another local lake where (if the inclination takes, although this year's crucian obsession didn't allow) decent fun-sized low double carp are always on the cards , but I really haven't cracked the winter predator fishing round here at all. The combination of a busy work and family life haven't allowed ample time for the extensive exploring that's always a precursor to success when faced with long lengths of canal and no prior knowledge, and so my results (like the fish I've caught) have been stunted.

Eternal salvation might be undeserved and all of God's grace, but success in fishing comes by hard work and human effort, and at the moment I haven't got the time! Never mind, only 6 months till the weather picks up and I can resume my carp and crucian capers!

Blanking in the rain

No one does denial with quite as much ingenuity and self deception as an angler who (like I just have) has suffered a blank. It's never our fault. It's either the wrong weather (all anglers), a bad draw (match anglers), the wrong moonphase (pike angling's loony fringe) or a whole range of other inventive excuses.
Then there are the little sayings that we employ to try to convince ourselves that we don't mind blanking; "there's more to fishing than catching fish", and so on, which- of course is true- but the fact is we do mind, and we much prefer catching.

Although today's was only my second blank of this year, the frustrating thing is that I've learnt nothing from it, and, for me, it's the acquisition of new knowledge that makes blanks bearable.
I don't know what I did wrong or what I'd do differently.
I knew that the crucians for which the estate lake is well known would be in a semi-torpid state, so wasn't expecting to tangle with any of them, but I was confident of picking up the odd perch or roach.
I guess although I've learnt nothing new, it's reinforced what I already knew: with some exceptions, fish are much easier to catch in the long, hot days of summer than in the cold of winter.

Confident that the perch would feed, I started off with a worm on a size 14, pole fishing at the edge of a reed bed on 4lb line with a 2lb bottom. After introducing some chopped worms, I introduced red maggots regularly, but sparingly. After a fishless hour I fined down to 2.5lb line and a 2lb bottom to a size 20 and single maggot, but still to no avail. After 3 hours of unremitting rain, and not even a single tremor on the float I accepted the inevitable and packed up.

Next time out I suspect it'll be off to the canal with my spinning rod- at least that way even if the fish remain unimpressed,  I'll still get a good walk!