Dreams, visions and an angling retreat ..... Christian Anglers Retreat (Day 1)

According to the Old Testament prophet Joel, "young men have visions" while "old men dream dreams", and as someone who can lay claim to being pretty much bang in the middle of those two categories I conclude that I have a right to both. Another prophet, Zechariah (why did they never have ordinary names like "Steve" or "Jim"?) warned "not to despise the day of small things", and while I caught plenty of fish this weekend they were all pretty small, but that didn't dampen my enthusiasm for one of the best weekends I've ever experienced. Neither did the initially wet weather, and the weekend was a significant step forward in starting to realise the vision that several of us had when starting UK Christian Anglers (www.christiananglers.co.uk) and the fulfilment of one of our dreams to host a weekend fishing retreat.

 

 I was fortunate enough to miss the sight of a bunch of men setting up camp in a farmer's field in meteorological circumstances similar to the ones that sent Noah scuttling into the Ark, as I'd spent seven and a half hours in a car ferrying my daughter to and from a University Open Day, and I joined the anglers from Leicestershire, Yorkshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire in the homely village pub just a few hundred yards from the farm, where they were enjoying a meal.

 

After a wet night we awoke to a dry day, and although the fields were as muddy as I'm told Woodstock was in 1969, the sun was peeping through and we were in high spirits as we cooked a bacon and sausage breakfast in the gazebo style camp kitchen. Breakfast was followed by a "Thought for the day" delivered by Andy, one of our number, and a few prayers, and then we were off to our first fishery, the excellent Homeclose Fishery. ( www.homeclosefishery.co.uk ) near Whissendine. The lakes here are pristine (each with its own adjacent reedbed for filtration), as is the condition of the fish. Most of the anglers opted to fish on Sallow Lake ( a pond of about one and a half acres with a small island), while two, Jez and Keith, chose to pursue crucians on the lovely Ash Lake. Both are reed fringed and dotted with lilly pads.

 

On Sallow, bream such as the one I'm displaying in the picture below, dominated, and anglers results varied. Andy and Mick forged ahead with close to one hundred fish each, Andy's coming to the pole while Mick's (seen here playing a carp)  fell to a mixture of waggler and swimfeeder tactics.

 

Carp were scarce, with only a few putting in an appearance, with the younger anglers (with the exception of Mick, who is a bit more, er .... "senior") almost monopolising the few carp caught. Ben (top) took this fish borrowing his dad, Roger's, rod and centre pin, while Sam caught his carp borrowing his dad, Andy's pole. Unfortunately, my Dad doesn't fish and wasn't there, so perhaps I never had a chance!

 

 My son also had one of several miniscule, but truly beautiful, carp that turned up, this pretty little linear being an example of perfection in miniature.

 Only a couple of golden orfe were landed on Sallow, with the honours going to Andy (top) and Pete.

 

 

Meanwhile, over on Ash and tucked into a couple of inviting little corner swims dotted with lilly pads, Jez and Keith were "cleaning up" with golden orfe, the occasional blue orfe and some gorgeous plump little crucians, with each of them catching somewhere in the region of a hundred fish.

 

The fishing on Sallow wasn't nearly as prolific as I've known it in the past, but most anglers managed around twenty fish apiece (with Andy, Mick and young Sam the most successful), and despite me having led for most of the day in the dad/son "match", James rallied and an excellent last hour saw him end up beating me by two fish, leaving him with a knowing smile and the much coveted family "bragging rights".

After packing up and returning to camp, and with the weather now in benign and amiable mood, we chatted, while Pete bossed the barbeque and Andy supervised the younger lads in building an enormous bonfire. The barbeque was followed by us breaking into two smaller Bible study groups, spiritual sustenance to complement the physical sustenance, for which compliments go to the chef.

 

 The evening finished with the bonfire, an enormous pyramid of straw bales and wood, which sent flames licking high into the night sky. Day one, dominated by bream, gave way to night, conversations gave way to sleep, and the older men "dreamed" of the next day's fishing.

Crucians ... my next best thing.

Anglers, like schoolteachers and football managers have their favourites. For the teacher it's the little girl with pigtails who presents the teacher with a weekly apple and an end of term mug bearing the legend "World's greatest teacher", for Roy Hodgeson it's Jack Wilshere, and for me it's perch, but followed very closely by my next best thing: the crucian. I think perch edge it for me because (a) I've caught so many of them, (b) I've caught a number of reasonably big ones and (c) because they're so widely distributed. By contrast, in over 30 years of angling I've never caught a crucian over a pound, haven't caught that many of them, and there are precious few lakes left that contain genuine 100% pure bred crucians. I did spend one summer fishing mostly for crucians at a local estate lake, which has now sadly been filled in and been replaced by soul-less executive houses, but here the fish were a mixture with some true crucians, but also hybrids, feral goldfish and in one instance a crucian-like apparition of about a pound with an enormous fan tail that gave my son a lively tussle on a very light pole rig. I even sent some photo's of my estate lake catches to Peter Rolfe, the country's leading crucian afficianado, and he confirmed some of the fish to be true crucians and others to be ...... well, you know how it goes. A typical catch from the estate lake (and here's hoping that the foundations of the expensive new houses subside and sink into the mud of what was once the pond) is pictured below.

 

 

I love crucians for the same reason that I (to my guilt and shame) bullied some of my classmates at school: for their plump rotundity, shyness and plodding nature. They evoke memories of a different era, of small farm ponds and fishing in the days before bite alarms were invented, the angling equivalent of village green cricket, warm beer, Morris dancers and church clocks chiming. If a fish can epitomise English values it's the crucian: solid, dependable, not ostentatious or showy, and with a unique beauty that's there in spades if you care to look for it.

 

 

I also enjoy the styles of angling that are most commonly  associated with crucians. The crucian is a fish that is most frequently chased with float tackle, whether the pole fishing approach that my friend Roger was using to land the fish in the photo above, and which has accounted for most of my son's crucian captures, or the more traditional reed waggler and centre pin reel approach that I tend to favour. Although small, they're no mugs either, and bites can be finicky and tackle often needs to be fined down. I even have a favourite float for crucians, made by master Devonian floatmaker Ian Lewis, a sarkandas reed float with a small bristle insert, known as the "Crucian Bristle Tip."

 

 

I'm fortunate that there are a couple of pretty lakes near me which hold true crucians, although in both of them the fish are small. I'm sure they do run bigger, but I've never seen one come out of either venue that would go heavier than half a pound. However, with crucians the lack of ounces is more than made up for by attractiveness and (comparative) rarity value. The Angling Trust are now making a much deserved fuss of the crucian, encouraging the reintroduction of authentic crucians into well managed fisheries, and have designated June to be "Catch a Crucian month", with a photographic competition to accompany the publicity push.

 

As for me, like Martin Luther King, "I have a dream". Not one as worthy and epoch changing as his, but one that may just be shortly realised. My friend and well known angling journalist, Bill Rushmer, is organising a September trip to Marsh Farm for members of the Christian Anglers forum and their friends. Now, if there is a place of special pilgrimage for crucians then Marsh Farm is it; the venue from which the last couple of record fish have come, a place where the progency of the fish is known and attested, and a place where personal bests are a very real possibility. (if you don't believe me, look at the picture below of Bill with one of his many notable Marsh Farm captures). My dream is for a 2 pounder, which in a water which holds 3 and 4 pounders seems to me to be a modest one, lacking in avarice, altogether reasonable and unassuming, just like the fish itself. I may not achieve the dream, but be sure of this: I'll have fun trying.

 

 



Dark, mysterious and ..... richly roasted

Throughout my life I've often turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. To my teachers: universally,  my wife: frequently, my Bishop: who knows? Sure, I am an Area Dean, but as every Anglican knows, Area Dean is the highest position an Anglican clergyman can attain to before actually becoming important. To my children: probably not a disappointment, but certainly an embarrassment. In fact- truth be known- I'm often a bit of a disappointment to myself, and nowhere is that sad fact truer than in the serious matter of coffee for fishing.

 

Now, it's no secret that I am a coffee lover, and, no doubt to the detriment of my health, I drink gallons of the stuff. In fact, fishing is in part responsible for my coffee addiction- back in my childhood winter fishing was a painful business, sitting huddled in a thin anorak wearing woolen fingerless gloves knitted by my grandmother- heck, you could almost feel the chilblains growing on your feet as biteless hour followed frozen biteless hour; sometimes our hands got so cold that by the next day the skin would crack and start bleeding. It wasn't a pastime for the faint hearted. The consolation was the coffee. Hot, sweet (in those days I took sugar - tons of it!) and contained in a 1970's tartan thermos flask it was the consolation for all the suffering.

 

 

And so, to return to where we started- my disappointment and self recrimination. You see, the thing is my friend Greg (pictured above), although a relatively recent convert to the gentle art of angling has already left me trailing in his wake when it comes to the art of the bankside cuppa. He brings a selection of high quality coffees in sachets, boils a kettle and presents himself (or me, if I'm fishing in the next swim and looking pitiful enough) with a wide array of lattes, espressos or coffees in various strengths from different provenances. I, by contrast, occasionally go to the bother of bringing a small jar of instant coffee granules and boiling a kettle, as in the picture at the top of the page, but far too often make do with a flask of cheap stuff from home, which incrementally gets less hot as the session progresses.

 

 

For a coffee lover it really is unforgiveable that I should be so wanting in the piscatorial coffee department. Every season I tell myself that "this year it'll be different- I'll buy a Kelly Kettle, bring a small cafetiere to the bank along with some fine, Fairtrade proper coffee, something dark, richly roasted and strong enough to make my eyes bleed." But I never do. Every year the rod licence, the day tickets, bait and constant replenishing of fishing essentials and consumables eats up my fishing "allowance", every Christmas or birthday sees new rods and reels added to the armoury, and the Kelly Kettle, the cafetiere and the quality coffees remain an unfulfilled aspiration. One year it'll change for the better, but it won't be this year, and (between you and me) next year's not looking too likely either. "Anyone for a lukewarm cuppa from the flask?" Thought not.

Fishing in the bright stream of memory

It was a left-field, and slightly macabre, question that led to the penny dropping. I was talking with an angling friend and in the course of the conversation he asked: "if you only had months to live, where would you fish?", and I suddenly realised that I wouldn't. That I fish as much to make memories as I do to catch fish. That angling, for me, is about an ongoing stream of consciousness in which there's as much pleasure to be had in the recollection as in the doing, and there's not much point in making memories that will hardly be harboured. My angling is propelled as much by downstream memories as it is by upstream hopes.

 

 

There are no photographic records of my earliest forays into angling, back in 1981. Sure, we took photo's (although not as many as today), but in a pre Computer era few have survived, the majority lost in the countless moving of house and rationalising of belongings that is a part of the emergence from adolescence into established adulthood. This picture of a teenage me with a pike being one of the few, grainy, pictorial records that remain extant from those carefree days. However, while the photo's may have gone, the memories stay, indelibly etched into my mind in pictures and sounds that carry the illusion of movement and seem almost audible. While the injuries inflicted through playing football or by girlfriends who realised their mistake and dropped me for their own "better catches" have long since worn away, the ache of a fish lost at the net over thirty years ago still retains the ability to evoke a pang of regret.

 

 

The photographic record re-emerges towards the back end of the 20th Century, as I, then still with a full head of not yet grey hair, and sporting a gold ear ring, grin at the camera. I was working through an almost exclusive lure fishing obsession at that stage, and the fish being held is invariably a playful jack, in this case one that had been hit by a much larger pike at some time in its past, prior to its own decision to hit my Arbogast surface lure.

 

 

As the 20th Century gave way to the 21st, the T shirts in primary colours gave way to Realtree, the ear ring was retired, a few lines were added to the face, a few hairs lost around the temples, carp for a while replaced pike as the quarry of choice, and the stream flowed on. Before long a new element enriched the memory collecting, the pleasure of passing on  to my children the thrill of plucking a beautiful wriggling thing from its environment, lovingly admiring it and then gently returning it to its familiar watery habitat.

 

 

And so the stream runs on, a current that collects not flotsam, jetsam and debris, but that draws together disparate recollections and makes a unified linear story of them, Some things have remained constant- my angling companionship with my brothers, Andy and Tim, a companionship now fuelled mostly by telephone, text and social media, but from time to time enriched by joining up for fraternal fishing sessions. The last such occasion when all three of us fished together proved to be another "red letter day" in the "bright stream", a Fenland piking expedition that saw us land 8 pike (4 of which were doubles, 1 a near twenty) and 2 zander on a sunny November day.

 

 

 

Over the last few years my fishing has become an increasingly social affair. I rarely fish alone these days, and the company of other like minded anglers, the conversations, the escapades, adventures and misadventures become a part of the story. A story that when retold contains farce (no-one who was there will ever forget "Ginger's" lavatorial mishap while nightfishing back in the mid 80's), adventure (my angling exploits have taken me to Canadian Wilderness, American lakes and into Tanzania), near tragedy ( an ill advised trip in a small boat in the Indian Ocean nearly ended very badly) and the usual mixture of achievements and failures that any angler will recognise. Perhaps it's the fact that I now realise that I chase memories with as much purpose as I do fish, that accounts for why I tend to be fairly sanguine in the face of a blank- even a fishless day begets memories. The stream has at times, as all streams are prone to do, been diverted into little eddies- periods when a certain fish or style of fishing have predominated, has seen a number of personal bests upped over the last few years, has seen crucian carp and perch become my new favourite fish, and now has the Thurnby Church Fishing Club, the UK Christian Anglers setup, and the blossoming ability and enthusiasm of my son for fishing as central elements in its main flow.

To the extent that any of us knows what the future holds, I'm now in my middle years (or, unless I live to be 96, slightly beyond my middle years!), which hopefully means a few years yet to add more memories to the bright stream. Here's to memory making, and within it all, to a few more fish!

 

 

It's all about the bream (... or mostly, anyway)

For the previous twenty four hours it had rained. And rained. Hard. A whole day's diluvium deluge. Today, however, after an uncertain start, the weather decided to be kind. The sun shone and the previous day's rain appeared to have added  lustre to all of nature, and the bankside foliage seemed somehow renewed and refreshed. Creation singing a joyful song in praise of its Creator, reminiscent of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem:

 "Earth's crammed with heaven,

   And every common bush afire with God,

   But only he who sees takes off his shoes."

She may have been a hypochondriac and a demanding wife to Robert Browning, but the girl could write.

 

Four of us, Pete, Paul and fellow Anglican minister Carl, were at the excellent Homeclose Fishery, engaged in a reconnaissance mission for this summer's Christian Anglers weekend Retreat. Homeclose will be one of the venues we visit, and we wanted to acquaint ourselves with it, and begin to ponder its puzzles.

 

 

We sat in the sunshine, strung out in a row in adjacent pitches and Carl, who was tucked away in a corner swim with a nice bed of lilly pads to fish to, was the first to regularly contact fish, with an early flurry of small carp on float fished maggots. Although the reed fringed lake cried out to be fished on the float, I elected to begin on the Method with hair rigged pellets, partly because I had a hunch that it might prove more selective and avoid the smaller fish, but mostly because I was trying out a new quivertip rod and 3000 size baitrunner. I missed one screaming run (no mean feat on a self-hooking rig!), but soon Pete, Paul and Carl were catching regularly on the float, with bream being the predominant species.

 

 

 

After about an hour and a half of sitting watching a motionless quivertip, I set up a float rod and centre pin reel and dropped a float into the margins, tight to the reedbed. Mainline was 4 lb, hooklink 2lb bs and a size 18 hook baited with double maggot. Bites were constant, and soon a steady stream of bream were being brought to the bank. The lakes (there are four on the complex, which is a working farm) are superbly kept, and we had this particular pond to ourselves. Pete and I both had spells on the float punctuated by switches to the Method, and it was the latter that was responsible for Pete landing this tench, modest in size but with the lovely, silky sheen that typifies the species.

 

 

Bites slowed as midday gave way to early afternoon, and as we entered our final half hour's fishing I hooked and landed my best fish of the day, a very respectably sized golden orfe, that took my float-fished maggot and for about thirty seconds gave a convincing impression of a carp, putting a healthy bend in the rod and drawing line from the centre pin, before deciding to lay on its side and suffer the ignominy of being pulled to the net without offering further resistance.

 

 

My final fish of the day was a bream, a fish noteworthy because it was the only one that succumbed to my Method feeder approach. The float had certainly outscored the Method, but at least my new rod and reel had seen some action.

 

 

As we, reluctantly, packed up at the end of about four and a half hours of fishing our combined total of fish caught must have been somewhere slightly in excess of one hundred. Most were bream, but three carp, three tench and two golden orfe provided a touch of variety. The company, conversation and banter were excellent, the fishery was picturesque, and the fish proved themselves to be reasonably compliant. Not a bad way to spend a day, and a welcome anticipation builder for the forthcoming Retreat.

 

Here come the girls!

This has to be one of my favourite fishing photos from last year; my friend Pete and his wife Brooklyn, the only female member of our Church fishing club, playing a fish on the pole. Their faces are a picture, and it's one of those photos that's crying out to end up as a "caption contest". When we recently placed an order for a whole batch of hoodies from UK Christian Anglers (www.christiananglers.co.uk ), most were in the standard greens and drab olive colours beloved of anglers, but Brooklyn had other ideas and now sports the only fuchsia pink Christian Anglers hoody in Britain!

 

All of which, via a circuitous route, takes us to South Carolina. In 2013 I caught my first ever fish in the USA, a skate from the sea in Charleston and quickly followed it up with a flounder. Fishing from a dock in the blazing "deep South" heat, it was a day to remember, and a memory that I still treasure.

 

 

 

My guide for the day was Susan Dalton, who I'd met through a church contact, a lady angler of considerable expertise who, along with her sister, Be Be (she's probably got a proper name, but everyone calls her "Be Be") run an organisation called "Angling Women." With sponsorship tie ups and support from fishing giants Berkley, Pflueger and Pure Fishing, they work predominantly with women and children and have developed an extensive range of programs designed to introduce newcomers to angling.

 

 

Although they offer a one to one guiding service, much of their work is group based, perhaps an acknowledgement of the fact that women are often more socially adept than us males! They run basic introductory courses for groups of women, one-off "taster" events and even birthday parties which are, predictably, popular with children but also with adults. They are also very committed to working with children (boys as well as girls), and in addition to the beginners courses and parties  regularly find themselves invited into schools. Their approach is holistic, concentrating not only on fishing techniques and skills, but also on the whole aquatic environment and even uses art and craft in addition to time on the dock or shore or in the boat.

 

 

Based in the Mount Pleasant area of Charleston, Be Be and Susan and their staff should be numbered among fishing's pantheon of "unsung heroes" for their commitment to drawing newcomers into the delights of angling. Fishing isn't just for the boys, and don't take my word for it, or even that of the Angling Women guides or Pete's wife Brooklyn ..... just Google  "Britain's record salmon" and you'll discover that it was caught in 1922 by a certain Georgina Ballentine, a feat that for almost a Century has not been bettered by any of us chaps.

Angling Women are on Facebook and at www.anglingwomen.com

 

 

 

 



"It's a boy thing" ...

Suddenly fishing has become like London buses- none for ages, then two turn up at once. After a six week angling hiatus I've visited the bank twice in the last six days. Admittedly, this evening I didn't fish myself, but chose to accompany my son and plonk myself in his swim to chat and enjoy some quality father and son time.

 

Within quarter of an hour of his return from school, the car was packed and we were en route to the lake.  We selected a nice swim with clear water in front, and some enticing looking marginal overhanging trees and roots on the left, and soon a pole was being wielded with maggots, a bristle float, 2 pound bottom and size 18 hook, while a carp rod with a hair and bolt rigged high attract fruity boilie was flicked out close to the near bank cover. It wasn't long before the pole line started producing, with perch and the very occasional rudd providing the action.

 

 

Foreigners who wonder why the English are able to talk at such great length and with such vigour about the weather would better understand our predisposition for meteorological conversation if they had experienced this last seven days. Last Saturday while fishing, after a week of frosts and low temperatures, we even had a flurry of snow, but after several days of much warmer weather, this evening was as balmy as Summer. The perch continued to provide a welcome distraction, but it wasn't until a change on the margin rod to a Method and Krill mini-boilie approach that the carp turned up; a brace of "pea in the pod" commons.

 

 

After the second carp we decided to pack up. The overnight bivvy brigade were beginning to turn up, and home beckoned. The final tally was 21 perch and rudd (and one solitary gudgeon) on the pole, and the 2 carp. Glorious weather, the best company, dipping floats and screaming bite alarms. It doesn't get much better ....