A thing of beauty - golden crucians and a prized possesion

"A thing of beauty", so someone once said, "is a joy forever." I'm not quite sure if I go along with the "forever" bit (after all, "forever" isn't just a long time, it transcends time and takes us into eternity), but I'd endorse the sentiment .... things of beauty should be enjoyed, and the enjoyment should extend beyond the present moment. All of which brings me to some recently caught fish, and a newly acquired prize rod.

 

 

As an angler who normally sets out his stall for a particular target fish, and who, although not size obsessed, prefers the fish to be capable of putting a reasonable bend into the rod, it's been a great pleasure recently to return to my roots and to fish for "whatever comes along" and to enjoy a mixed catch of, mostly small, fish. A big part of the enjoyment has been the company in which the fish were caught: our church's fishing club, and my son, but in the case of some recent crucians it was also the sheer beauty of the fish themselves. I'm fully aware that not every fish that looks like a crucian is a crucian, and fish hybridised with carp, plain feral goldfish, goldfish crucian hybrids and F1's can all obscure the picture, but these fish- crucian or otherwise, were certainly attractive, with vivid red fins, golden scales and the ubiquitous plump profile. Great fun, for me and my son.

 

 

The other object of beauty is a new fishing rod. Last year a number of e-mails were exchanged between me and my friend Don Morse of Rattlesnake Rods, a top fishing rod builder based in Florida. I was after a new, custom built light lure rod for my canal pike and perch fishing. We discussed rod lengths and design, money exchanged hands, and Don set about building the rod, a 6 foot 3 inch spinning rod. This week I took delivery of it (just 3 days from Florida to Leicester by FedEx!), and am delighted with my new "toy".

 

 

I'm reluctant to publish pictures, because they really don't do justice to the rod. In real life, close up, it's an absolute beauty. It features an abbreviated, shaped  cork handle, the blank between the corks is decorated with God's Country Camouflage, my name, and a copy of the Icthus and cross tattoo that I have on the inside of my forearm. The guides are of the prize winning Microwave type, increasingly being used in the US, but only just beginning to appear on the UK scene. With whippings in British racing green, and a lovely lightweight feel, I can't wait to give it its first outing on the canal.

 

 

 

 

Whether or not it's a joy forever, what's undoubtedly true is that it qualifies as a "thing of beauty." This much is sure - if I hook a snag, I'm pointing the rod straight at it, setting the clutch as tight as it will go, and pulling for a break ........ this is one rod that I certainly don't want to snap! Thanks Don.

 



The debut outing and an abundance of fish

 

Sunny at times, windy at times and mostly dry, the first ever trip of the Thurnby Church Anglers was everything that could have been hoped for. No-one blanked, but more importantly everyone had fun, and the bankside banter and conversation was as much a part of the day as the fish landed.

 

 

Although all members of St Luke's Church, we were an eclectic bunch, a mixture of experienced and obsessed anglers and newcomers to the hobby (in the case of Graham's nephew, one teenage angler fishing for the very first time) and the tackle in use varied from state of the art to "out of the ark". Although the fishing was never hectic, fish came steadily throughout the day, with perch, crucians, roach, bream, tench and chub all putting in an appearance.

The crucians were chubby and for those of us who were pole fishing pulled the elastic gamely before dazzling on the bank with their plump profile and golden sheen.

 

 

 

Most were small, like the ones pictured above, but the odd better sized specimen turned up, like the one held by Louie in the picture below:

 

 

As someone who, in common with many anglers, generally fishes with one particular target species in mind (usually pike or perch in autumn, winter and spring, and carp in summer), it was a real pleasure to be fishing for whatever chose to take the bait, and to never know what was going to bite next. This chub was my most prized fish of the day, not for its size, but because it was the first of its species that I had caught for many a year, and it gave a good account of itself on my light pole tackle.

 

 

We mostly fished using either pole or waggler tactics, both proving effective, but Pete's experiments using the Method towards the end of the session showed its potential for this lake, with a succession of carp attacking the feeder within minutes of it landing on the lake bed.

 

 

Some of the mirror carp were among the prettiest I have ever seen, with lovely scale patterns. I often think that carp are similar to pike, in that while the giant leviathans provide a sterling test and look impressive, it's their smaller brethren that are the most aesthetically pleasing to look at.

 

 

All too soon it was time to pack up, but it was unanimously agreed that the inaugural trip had been a stunning success, that every church should have a fishing club as well as Bible study groups, Alpha Courses, Sunday schools and youthgroups, and that we should meet again next month for another outing. I, for one, can hardly wait .....

 

 



Pubs, clubs and a giant gonk ...

 An intriguing title, but a pretty fair summation of my fishing activity thus far in the month of April. If the "pubs and clubs" bit has prepared you for some salacious confessions of the lounge lizard type, then I must disappoint you, it merely refers to the first meeting of our church fishing club, which took place in our village's licensed hostelry. With 18 church members keen to be involved we filled in forms, planned, and will be going on our first outing in May, when we've booked a lake to ourselves - expect a full report next month.

And so to the "giant gonk" ....

 

 

Last Saturday my son (pictured above) and I snuck out at first light for a couple of hours float-fishing on a local pond. It was a casual affair, bait was just a pint of maggots, and it was mostly about the company and the chance to be somewhere pleasant after a busy few weeks which hadn't allowed any time for fishing. (Easter's church related busyness being immediately followed by a family holiday to the breathtaking volcano island of Iceland) 

 

We were soon catching pretty, but very small rudd and perch, when the float dipped again and I swung in what I thought would be another rudd. However the "rudd" was long (surprisingly fat) and brown with hints of silver and violet- a gudgeon, and "what a gudgeon". I'd estimate its size as between 3 and 4 ounces (the photo has caused considerable interest and not a little admiration on one angling Facebook site), which when you consider that the British record, set in 1990, is a fish of 5 ounces "on the nose" helps realise what an absolute monster this fish was. Ironically, what is probably likely to turn out to be one of the smallest fish I catch this year will almost certainly also (in proportionate terms) be my "largest." Here's a picture of the fish in question:

 

 

All of which led me to doing some research on gudgeon tales, and- appropriately- I came across a great story about an 18th Century Vicar, the Revd George Harvest, Vicar of Thames Ditton, who was engaged to be married to the daughter of the Bishop of London. On the morning of the "big day", the Vicar decided to while away the hours before the nuptial ceremony with a spot of gudgeon fishing (gudgeon were his favourite quarry), and so engrossed was he in his angling activity that he missed the wedding. His intended (clearly no angler) took umbrage and broke off the union before it had another chance to be formalised or blessed. Speaking as an angler more than as a representative of the established church, it sounds to me as if he had a lucky escape; the Bishop's daughter would surely never have understood the "one last cast" mentality that permanently leads to anglers arriving home later than promised.

Christian Anglers UK .... the first month.

Lent is, so Christians more traditionally minded than myself remind me, a season of penitence, and so it is with a heavy heart that I confess that it's now a fortnight since my last fishing session. January until mid February saw me make a respectable5 trips to river or canal in pursuit of pike, but since then the "day job" has taken over and fishing, temporarily, has had to take a back seat.

However, that doesn't mean that the period has been totally unproductive in piscatorial terms. UK Christian Anglers ( www.christiananglers.co.uk ) has reached the end of its first month, been featured in both the angling and church press and started to pick up a loyal following of forum members from across the country. With an average of just under 2000 hits per week, a growing resource library of instructional articles and some lively conversation on the forum the first four weeks have been exciting and encouraging. 

 

A committed team that includes Angler's Mail contributor Bill Rushmer and British angling's foremost blogger Stewart Bloor ( www.theanglingrev.com ) among those steering the project means the future looks bright, with plans to develop the group and to set up a network of church-based fishing clubs.

 

   Bill Rushmer

 

Plans are afoot for a fish-in (diary dates are proving challenging to co-ordinate, partly due to the number of Saturday's I'm losing to weddings that need conducting this summer .... one couple's "happy day" is my lost fishing session!), but despite the calendar log-jam, there are one or two possibilities that we're exploring. The idea will be for a friendly get-together of forum members to fish a sponsored event with the money being donated to charity - watch this space.

 

I've also met with the team at Christian Vision for Men (CVM) in Chesterfield. They were massively excited about the project, and we're looking to do some work with them in the future. A really good bunch of lads who run some quality events and produce the excellent "The manual" daily Bible reading notes. (notes aimed at men, which take a realistic 5 minutes to do amid a busy day). Check CVM out at www.cvm.org.uk

 

                                                             Stewart Bloor

 

Stewart and I have plans to do some filming for the group's Youtube channel, and the intention is to grow the capacity of the group so that occasional weekend angling retreats can take place. The social media presence is completed with a Facebook page which is kept regularly updated.
 Remember, Jesus never told his followers to mow the lawn, decorate the living room or do extra over-time, but He did (in effect) say "Go fish" (Luke 5:4) .......... we intend to!



"The first, the last and a very fine line"

 

"The first will be last, and the last will be first" declared Jesus in the famous Sermon on the Mount, and the past week has seen some piking firsts and lasts in our household. Today I caught my last pike of this river season on a chilly and challenging early morning pre-work session, while last Saturday my son caught his first ever pike.

 This new calendar year has seen me fish 5 sessions with pike as the intended quarry and from those 5 trips I've landed 3 pike, the largest at 14 pound coming on my first trip. Today's capture, if weighed, would have probably only tipped the scales around the 6 pound mark, but, although no monster, was a welcome relief after 2 successive blanks. It was the turn of Pete, who has been comprehensively outfishing me this year to blank today.

 

As so often happens, the pike came straight after a missed take. The livebait was immediately recast to the same spot and within seconds the float was sliding away. A brief fight followed before the obligatory photograph. As ever, watching the fish swim purposefully back into its watery home was as rewarding as the capture.

 

 

Last weekend I'd managed to secure a few hours for a quick trip to the canal, where pike were again the target. It was another single fish session, but thankfully it was my son, rather than me, who was the successful angler, his small silver spinner being attacked right underneath the bank by a marauding  jack pike. A short and splashy fight which lasted seconds, but saw the pike launch itself into the air before being netted ensued as a result of the young pike's error of judgement. Although my son has caught carp and bream much bigger than the pike, the fact that it was his first of the species made it a special moment for us both.

 

So, my last pike of the river season, his first pike ever, and in both cases an example of how fine the line between success and "failure" is in fishing. In both instances, just one thrown hook or missed take would have resulted in the dreaded blank.

 

And so, with the rivers closed till June, it's onwards and upwards as lakes, ponds and towpath beckon, and more "firsts". "lasts" and twists of fate.

 

 



"Me and the farmer" (or "how to lose with grace")

No apologies for the shameless "House Martins" reference- my fishing partner's surname is Farmer, and this post is as much about the tables being turned in our fishing relationship as it is a report of this morning's latest pike escapades.

 Here's the thing: Pete fished a fair bit as a kid, but hadn't picked up a rod for 20 years until last year. Pete and I are friends, and I'm also his Vicar, and last year we started fishing together. I'd lake to say I taught him all he knows, but that wouldn't be true. It's probably fair to say I've passed on a fair bit of (if not expertise, certainly experience), but such is his new found addiction that he's always on youtuube these days exploring dropshotting, carp rigs, pole fishing and the like. That notwithstanding, for a while, I was, in fishing terms, his Jedi Master and he my Padawan, but those days are now long gone. My pike record for 2015 is three trips and two pike, his nine pike from seven trips.

  

 

 Today's trip had an inauspicious start for both of us. It took the best part of an hour's loosefeeding with maggots before we started catching small roach and perch, but once we had a few baits, we cast out in an optimistic frame of mind. My float, a handsome handmade pike slider made by Ian Lewis (Ian Lewis handmade floats) sat prettily in the water among the reflections, and surely it was only a matter of time .....

 However, apart from the bobbing caused by the swimming motion of the bait, my float, although undoubtedly better looking than Pete's utilitarian factory produced Fox model, was the one that remained untroubled.

 

 

 Pete's, by contrast, shot away three times, the above picture being of the first of his hat trick. Two of the fish gave particularly noble accounts of themselves, and all were returned in frisky mood to fight another day. To add insult to injury (almost literally), I caught my forefinger on one of the pike's teeth while helping Pete unhook it, and ended the session wearing a yellow children's plaster with pictures of balloons on it (Pete's children are younger than mine).

 

 

 Pete's biggest fish was weighed, and brought the scales down to 11 pounds, the third double we've had from this stretch this year, with a 14 pounder I landed in January being the biggest to date. It was a great performance by Pete, and although I blanked (unless you count catching livebaits) a thoroughly enjoyable way to pass the morning.

Tonight when I did my daily Bible reading the passage was from Mark's Gospel, Chapter 10 and verses 43-44: "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be the first must be the slave of all" ...... I wonder if that includes constantly netting your mate's fish?

 

 



 









The lure of the canal

What a difference a week makes. Seven days ago, on the mildest day of the year to date, Pete and I shared a brace of pike apiece, a further three threw Pete's hooks, and it seemed as though we'd "cracked it". Today, on a much colder day, with the air temperature never rising above 2.5 and spending most of the morning hovering around zero, we blanked without so much as a follow. The water was the colour of thick pea soup, and despite throwing, plugs, spinnerbaits and soft plastics into the canal we knew, pretty quickly, that the likeliest outcome for the day would be us getting, as the Americans call it, "skunked".

 

But, despite all that, I love fishing the canal in a way I would once never have thought possible. Prior to moving to Leicestershire and discovering the Grand Union, canals were at the bottom of my hierarchy of water types, occupying a place even lower than the oft derided "commercials". I'd always assumed that they were almost uniformly, dirty, urban, covered in graffiti and the hang out of layabouts, drunks and drug users and fished only by grim faced matchmen catching stunted fish using bloodworm or joker on the pole. There are- doubtless- stretches of the Grand Union which conform to that image, but the stretches I fish are rural, quiet and attractive and contain a good head of predators.

 

 

Now, it would be a mistake to think that because there are a good head of pike and perch (and some zander) that they're easy to catch. They're not. Or at least, if they are easy to catch, I'm often making hard work of catching them! It's rare to actually blank, but the reward for a couple of hours of lure fishing is often just 3 or 4 perch of about 4 ounces each, and the pike are mostly modestly sized specimens, like the one pictured above. With miles of towpath available, locating fish is half the battle, and while the obvious spots, the locks, bridges and vertical structures are productive, it can be hard knowing which swims to fish and which to walk past when time is limited, as for me it usually is.

 

 

With over 2200 miles of navigable canal in the United Kingdom, these once great industrial highways now exist almost solely  for leisure purposes, and although this means sharing the towpath with hikers, dog walkers and (sometimes frankly moronic and dangerous) cyclists, and the water with pleasure craft and (equally often moronic) canoeist's there seems to usually be a friendly spirit of bonhomie and "live and let live" about the various categories of person enjoying the watery surroundings and I've grown to love the sight of colourfully painted barges- especially when they're moored, sheltering fish and not churning up my swim! After years of neglect and pollution the Canal and River Trust and armies of volunteers have done a magnificent job in cleaning up our canal system, and the demise of the canals to the once burgeoning railways has, in the fullness of time, proved to be angling's gain.

I'm aware that if I'm to really master the canal I'm going to need to "up my game". To broaden my skill base and gain confidence in drop-shotting and jigging, the latter of which I'm sure would be the key to catching zander on a regular basis. I'm also going to need to keep exploring, not just sticking to the same old areas that have proved productive in the past. In addition (with the exception of scratching around for half an hour to catch a few livebaits) I've only floatfished the canal once in the three years I've been fishing it, which is a definite oversight - to catch a nice perch on a floatfished worm, red maggot or prawn has to feature on this year's "to do" list. Pike have fallen to livebait and to a variety of lures, but I've yet to experiment with deadbaits on the canal, and so there are lots of projects yet to be undertaken. I suspect that this year, as last, with the exception of a couple of months in high summer when carp fishing (in its most casual form) will distract my attention, the main focus of this year will be the predatory species of the Grand Union Canal. So many puzzles to solve, so many miles of towpath to walk ... why did it take me half a lifetime to discover the joys of canal fishing? To use a word that fits well with my vocation, when it comes to canal angling I'm well and truly a "convert."