One pluck, but out of luck ...

Desperate times demand desperate measures- it'd been three weeks since I'd last fished, and a combination of work pressure, family commitments and preparing for my American fishing roadtrip had conspired to keep me from the bank. With no immediate prospect of the time constraints relenting there was only one thing for it: a night sleeping in the spare bedroom so as not to awaken my wife at an unholy hour, alarm set for 5:30am and a brief spinning trip before work.

By 6:00 I was threading the line through the rings of my spinning rod on a blustery, drizzling and downright cold morning- so cold I elected to wear my winter thermal suit.

One of the many reasons that fishing is superior to golf is that while golf has been described as "a good walk ruined", spin-fishing is a good walk enhanced, and so I set off on my enhanced walk.

 

The section of canal I spin fish has not been prolific for me (14 perch from 8 trips), but has the joint advantage of (i) being free fishing, and (ii) being close enough for brief "smash and grab" fishing escapades. The perch have never been large, but it's a pleasant stroll and a diverting form of fishing and so, if taken on its own terms and with realistic expectations , challenging, thought-provoking and a lot of fun.

 

 

I started off in my "banker" swim on my "banker" lure- fishing under a bridge where my son and I have caught several perch, using a Rublex Ondex, but today to no avail. I moved spot and in my second swim had a "follow" and then a tentative "pluck" from a small perch (I saw the fish, all of 2 ounces, a momentary flash of dark stripes and erect spikey dorsal) right under my feet. I persevered in the same swim, eventually changing the Ondex for a small Panther Martin spinner, and then for an even smaller silver and red spotted spinner, but failed to induce any further interest.

 

I wandered up and down, trying a few more spots before returning to the swim where I'd had the follow, and then, finally, to the bridge, "chopping and changing" spinners, but- again- without luck.

 

By 8:05 am I was back home, sat at my desk and ready to begin another day of church-related activity. Did I regret the early start as a result of my blank? Not a bit of it. In many ways an hour and a half's spinning on a not particularly productive stretch of canal is much more of a challenge than most of the other fishing that I engage in and provides plenty of puzzles to fuel the piscatorial brain cells. I'll certainly be back for more, it's a style of fishing that fits nicely with my work and family patterns, costs nothing and gets me scratching my head and thinking. I'm toying with the idea of getting into drop-shotting and proper ultra-lite fishing for these perch .... now that really will be fun!

My son with a canal perch from a previous session when the stripey quarry were proving more co-operative.
 

America- the adventure beckons...

I'm not quite at the stage of counting down the days yet, but the anticipation is growing. I love fishing, I love travel and I love my Christian faith, and it seems almost greedy to be bringing the three of them together for a "once in a lifetime" adventure treck, but that's what I'll be doing at the end of next month.

 

All travel is exciting, but the most rewarding is when the journey spirits you out of your existing comfort zone. All-inclusive poolside holidays in Spain have their place, but they don't teach you much about life or yourself. My forthcoming American adventure will unquestionably take me to places (and I'm not just talking geography here) that I've never previously been.

 

Travelling (unaccompanied) in a rented car- alas not the pick-up or SUV beloved of American outdoorsmen, but a cheap little economy hatchback- my journey will take me from Atlanta to South Carolina, on to North Carolina, then into Tennessee and Kentucky before spending some time in Missouri. I'll be connecting with American Christians (churches, individuals and groups) who use fishing and hunting to build relationships with non-churchgoers and to share faith with them, with the intention of learning lessons that are transferrable to a UK context.

 

There is- inevitably- some fishing planned. A kayak fishing trip will see me way outside  the familiar  (I've only canoed 3 or 4 times in my 45 years, and to do so with an expert in the kayak in front, while trying to cast and land fish on a four foot rod will severely test my mettle ... and I suspect do wonders for my humility!). My wife, upon hearing of this proposed kayak trip at first looked alarmed, but was later seen reading the small print on my life insurance policy with a strange, avaricious look in her eye! I'll also be fishing for North America's favourite sportfish, the largemouth bass, as well as hoping to bank fish for trout in Lake Taneycomo. Excited? ... you bet!

 

Most of all I'm looking forward to meeting new people and making new friends. I'm excited about worshipping in new contexts (ranging from a Presbyterian church in South Carolina through Southern Baptist to an "Outdoors person's" church in Missouri), and to meeting people who run local and national outreach ministries based around outdoor sports, sharing their life and learning from them as I experience and enjoy the distinctives of their church-life, their culture and traditions.

 

Motels, big steaks, strong black coffee, bluegrass music, the open road, Christian fellowship, apple pie and new fishing techniques and methods .... bring it on! Oh, and I'll be blogging too, so you also can  vicariously experience life on the road, interesting characters, and fishing and faith US-style.

 

 

Locked gates, lost time and tiny fish ...

We knew the drill; time was of the essence. The alarm clock woke me at 6:00am, only 24 hours older than I had been the day before, but "on paper" a whole year older. I took the dog for her custmary walk, and was back by 6:40, woke my son and chivvied him along as he wrapped himself in several layers while rushing breakfast. The car was quickly loaded, and by 7:00 am we were arriving at the estate lake. We had about four hours to play with, until a birthday celebration pub lunch marked the begining of my 46th year.

On arriving the gates of the estate lake were locked, but we weren't unduly concerned. An old boy unlocks the fishery at about 7:00, and a few minutes weren't going to hurt. Half an hour later we were concerned. Said old boy was still conspicuous by his absence, and the clock was ticking. Feeling slightly guilty as the sleepy voice of the owner's wife answered my phonecall my fears were temporarily assuaged when she informed that she would send the elderly gentleman down to let us in. Half an hour later concern had turned to apoplexy, and I made the decision to move on to another local lake.

 

We arrived at the second lake (a favourite of mine, but which- for some unaccountable reason- my son isn't fond of) and set up in swims next to each other, he on a waggler while I elected to fish the pole. After an hour I'd caught 9 fish, 3 perch and 6 roach, all small but the swim seemed to be building. My son's heart, however, just wasn't in it and he didn't have a single fish to show for his, admittedly half-hearted efforts. Knowing how much he likes the estate lake, I asked if he fancied moving back to it, on the assumption that by now it must be open! His face lit up immediately, and the die was cast.

 

 

 Knowing that we only had an hour left in which to fish, we opted to share a swim, both pole fishing in the margins, and here our fortunes were entirely reversed. In our final hour my son had half a dozen fish, again all of very modest size, including our first crucian of the year, while I had nothing.  As we packed up and prepared for the family festivities, as if to add insult to piscatorial injury, the skies opened and treated us to a brief, but spirited, hail storm. Of the four hours available to us we had only actually fished for about two.

Following today's frustrations, and owing to the fact that my last two sessions have resulted in the capture of a string of fish of only meagre proportions I've decided that my next session will be after carp. Sitting behind a pair of rods on buzzers isn't my favourite style of fishing, but I'm feeling a growing  need to bend into something a bit more substantial ..... provided, of course, the lake is open!

 

 

Art imitating angling ...

I was sad to discover recently that John Searl, a fine angling artist (and, indeed, I'm led to believe a fine angler) had died. His art has illustrated a number of fishing books in my library, and I enjoyed watching him gently coach Geoffrey Palmer into landing a chub in one of the episodes of the admirable TV series "The Compleat Angler."
Angling has a distinguished history of producing fine artists, a tradition which sems to have proliferated in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Bernard Venables, Paul Cook, Karen Sarkar, and Chris Turnbull spring to mind, but- much though I enjoy their art, my personal top four are as follows:

Number Four- Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper's stylised and striking fish portraits, particularly of pike and predators have adorned the dust jackets of a number of best-selling angling books. A master of his craft.




Number Three- Robin Armstrong
Not only an accomplished painter of fish, but also of birds and general wildlife themes. If you get an opportunity to purchase a copy of his book "Dartmoor River" don't pass it up- a truly delightful book.

Number Two- David Miller
Now a feature on our annual rod licenses, David Miller's depictions of underwater life have a large following. His eye for detail brings to mind  a Korda underwater video without the distraction of the commentary.

 

 

 Number One- Adriano Manocchio

Although I'm neither a fly fisherman or an American, Monacchio's depictions of the North American fly fishing experience are my favourite examples of angling art. The highest compliment that I can pay to his work is that, like his countryman Norman Maclean's novella "A River Runs Through It", his art manages to evoke all that's aesthetic in our pastime, and makes me want to reach for my rods and make for the riverbank.

 

 



A grueller in Gwent

As someone old enough to remember Michael Fish's predictive debacle with the "Great October Storm" I should have known to better than to take notice when the weatherman confidently declared that Saturday would see a mini-heatwave in South Wales. The mini-heatwave turned out to consist of torrential rain and rapidly dropping water temperature, to once again prove that weather forecasting is an imprecise art and an inexact science.

I was in Wales along with my son to fish with my youngest brother and his son as guests on their club lake. Heavily stocked with F1's and with the possibility of bonus "proper carp" (F1's are great fun, but always feel slightly "phoney") and good back up stocks of roach, bream and perch, on a good day it's not unusual for club matches to be won with 80 pound or more of fish, but as the temperature dropped the fishing was always likely to be a struggle.

I elected to just fish with a pole in the margins (3 pound line, 2 pound bottom, size 20 hook), while my son and nephew did likewise, but both also elected (just as well, as it turned out) to put out a "sleeper rod" on bite alarms using method feeders and fake corn.

My nephew was first to catch, with a couple of tiny commons (all of 2 ounces) on the pole, before my son had the first F1, which fell to his "method" rod.

The "method" seemed to be the method on the day, and soon my nephew was joining the action, with a couple of F1's in quick succession. My brother, who had opted not to fish, but to nobly act as chief "ghillie" for the two boys, was kept busy mixing groundbait and providing advice as they played their fish ( a task which both of them performed with high levels of competence), and generally acting as bankside director of operations as well as taking responsibility for the "chip shop run".

As is often the case when pole fishing and loose-feeding maggots, my swim took longer to get going, but a "little and often" trickle of bait resulted in a couple of F1's in quick succession, before loosing a couple more. The fish fought well on the pole tackle, pulling the elastic round and giving a good account of themselves as they struggled for freedom in the deluvian conditions.

After four hours we decided to pack up. Although the weather had been inclement, and the fishing slower than anticipated, we'd had a great time, brothers, nephews and cousins enjoying each others company and the challenge afforded by the conditions. We ended up with 10 F1's and about the same number of "bits" between us, with the best F1 (which I was too embarrassed to photograph, as I'd foul- hooked it, although this fact did make the fight on pole tackle last much longer than usual, thereby increasing the fun factor) probably somewhere around the 3 pound mark. Our final tally of 20 fish between the 3 of us, for an estimated combined weight of something in the region of 20 pound might not represent the most prolific haul ever taken from a "commercial-style" fishery, but in the context of the conditions, and the youthfulness of all but one of the anglers, led to a wet and weary but satisfied group of anglers leaving the lake.

Oh, and by the way, I may not have distinguished myself piscatorially, but I was the winner of the post-fishing Monopoly game when we got back to my brother's house!

Gotta love gudgeon

I like small fish, which the less charitable of my fishing companions might, with some justification, say is "just as well", because they're mostly what I catch!

 

Of all the small fish my favourite is the gudgeon, although being mostly a stillwater angler these days I don't catch the prolific numbers of them that I did as a boy.

There's lots about the gudgeon that commends it as a worthy little fish- they bite readily, they look like barbel in miniature and they give a pleasing "thump" on the rod tip, when fished for with a light match rod and fine line, for a fish of such humble proportions. Chris Yates, so I'm led to believe, once had an infatuation with them, which considering he was the first angler to capture a carp over 50 pounds from UK waters says something (although I'm not quite sure "what") about their appeal.

 

Perhaps I like them most because they remind me of boyhood fishing. As a boy I sometimes fished a tiny stream in Berkshire, the Emmbrook, from which I pulled many minnows, a fair number of dace, the occasional chub and hoardes of voracious gudgeon trotting maggots under a wire stemmed stick float. In places the Emmbrook was only inches deep, in other spots four feet in depth, but was almost always narrow enough to jump over.

 

 

 

I also caught lots of gudgeon from the river Loddon, where it was a favourite tactic (which I nowadays wouldn't recommend) when nature called to drop the float and maggot baited hook into the margins of the river, do what nature demanded behind a bush, and on returning there was almost always a wriggling gudgeon that had impaled and hooked itself while you were absent.

My first experiments with a self-invented "bolt rig" also led to me catching a netful of gudgeon. I was fishing the Thames at Caversham in winter and the river was "high", coloured and not "particulalry handsome", and despite the fact that you could usually catch some quality perch by floatfishing, I was struggling. After a couple of fishless hours, remembering how the Loddon fish always hooked theselves, I "invented" my own bolt rig before I'd ever heard of the real thing; I fixed a large "coffin lead" (remember them?) a few inches from the hook, fixed by a leger stop either side of it, figuring the gudgeon would take the maggot and hook themselves against the weight of the lead. They did.

 

 

Most of last season was spent fishing either for crucians or perch, but I did catch a couple of gudgeon (admittedly stillwater gudgeon, which doesn't quite feel right), and as I eulogised about them to my son, who couldn't quite understand why dad was getting so excited about such tiddlers, especially as he (my son) had just caught a decent personal best rudd, I was transported back to my own childhood, when at times I was so keen to catch gudgeon that I deliberately targetted them by flavouring my maggots with garlic, having read an article in the Angler's Mail in which Ivan Marks cited garlic as the ultimate gudgeon additive.

 

Happy days, and although my big ambition for this season (as it was for last) will be to land a 2 pound crucian from my favourite estate lake, I do hope that, at least once, I pluck a gudgeon from its watery home ....... gobio gobio- a true princeling among fish.

 

 

 

 

 

"Sounds like a plan ..."

Today was a case of mixing "business" with "pleasure."
 If you were to ask me what three things define me as a person and really "float my boat" they'd be my faith, my family and my fishing. Faith and family are pretty well integrated both at home and at church, family and fishing isn't too bad (my daughter used to fish until she discovered make-up, clothes and boyfriends, while my son remains my most regular fishing companion, and I try to fish with my brothers and nephews every year despite the distances between where we live), but I've never really "cracked" integrating my faith with my fishing, which was why I drove the 60 miles this morning to get together with Stewart Bloor.

If you've never heard of Stewart Bloor check out his website (Stewart Bloor's Angling Journal) which has an enormous following and is updated weekly. Stewart is a well known and respected personality in Black Country angling circles and has a number of sponsorship tie-ups with fishing manufacturers, and, unlike me (I should be far better at it considering I've been fishing for over three decades!) he's a highly accomplished angler. He's also, like me, a minister of a church.

We met to talk about the possibility - which following our conversation was upgraded to a "must do"- of setting up some kind of Christian Anglers Organisation here in the UK.

We were thinking websites, forums, social media and some kind of regional or local presence with the potential for fishing retreats, get togethers and the like for Christian anglers, or anglers who want to explore some of the bigger questions of life and faith.

So far we're only in the earliest stages of talking, but are looking to get a few other like-minded contacts together to try to steer the idea from vision to implementation.

An impossible dream?
I don't think so- after all, there's good precedent:  look what Jesus managed to pull off with a small bunch of motivated fishermen!