Pond life

" There lay a pond, set in its little alp of green - only a pond, but large enough to contain the human body, and pure enough to reflect the sky ..."

I am a lover of ponds, and for me a small and intimate pond is second only to a river in my hierarchy of locations for piscatorial adventure. I concede the primary position to the river on account of its embodiment of life and movement, and its constant restless reinvention of itself as currents and floods scour out and redefine its gravel or silty bottom, an endless exercise in redefinition but the pond runs it a close second and holds a more venerated place in my esteem than larger lakes, lochs or reservoirs. Ponds spirit us back to childhood and their close confines envelop the angler in warm embrace. 

This past weekend fishing with friends all of whom are fellow members of the Christian Anglers club, a group that combines two of the passions that have guided and defined my life, saw me wet a line in two different ponds, one the archetypal farm pond of less than an acre that would have seemed familiar to Mr Crabtree and his young protégé, the other a body of water that I would describe as a pond but that possibly exists in the intersection between large pond and small lake. 

Both provided good fishing, the first of them so "good" that it was in danger of going beyond good and becoming banal, so unrelentingly frequent were the captures of small yet feisty mirror and common carp. In fact for a while I opted to wind in and wind down, covering my face with my hat and allowing myself to be overcome by sleep.

The second pond compensated for what it lacked in rolling fields and the noise of decidedly vocal sheep (the first was situated on a working farm) with mature trees lining the water's edge and an avian symphony replacing the ovine backing track. 

Although the second pond does contain carp it avoids being dominated by them and they mostly manage to evade the angler's baits and escape capture. This is a pond dominated by roach and rudd, silver and golden in sheen and a couple of evening's dropping a float into its margins resulted in plenty of roach and rudd. On the first evening I elected not to fish but sat chatting to my friend Roger, a veteran of all seven Christian Anglers weekend Retreats, who was giving its first outing to a split cane Wondrex. Fishing it in conjunction with a small quill float and using sweetcorn as bait the rod was soon being put to good use with the ubiquitous roach and rudd rewarding his efforts.

The following evening I shared a swim with my brother Andy. Both now in our 50's, this was a recapturing of how we often fished as youngsters- sharing a swim and talking as we stared our at our floats wishing them into submersion. Four decades on from those early days each fish is no longer accompanied by the excited high-pitched exclamation of "I've got one", which is probably just as well, not only for the peace of the pool's other anglers but also because these days our accumulated experience tends to lead to us catching far more fish in a session that we might realistically have dreamt of in those innocent halcyon days of childhood. 

Like Roger on the previous evening, I too was christening a new (to me) yet venerably aged cane rod, and my final fish after a succession of the expected roach and rudd was my first ever bream from this particular pond, despite me having fished its waters for the best part of 15 years. The rod bent into a gentle yet pleasing arc and  for a few seconds the centre pin sang before the bream rolled over on its side and succumbed in the lazy way that typifies the token resistance that the species are wont to show. 

As I tucked my rod back into its canvas bag and shouldered my small fishing satchel the first drops of rain began to fall and I was reminded of what Thoreau wrote about the nature of the pond beside which he briefly lived while attempting to manufacture a life of simplicity: "...it is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate in its nature between land and sky." 

I rather like that.

Coronation Carping

 

Saturday morning, May 6th. In London a carriage containing the newly crowned King Charles the Third and his Queen makes its slow way back to Buckingham Palace from Westminster Abbey to the impressive accompaniment of  the massed military bands, while in deepest Dorset two middle aged brothers are huddled under their bivvies, with the unrelenting rain tapping out a drumbeat so fast that even the most adroit drummer would struggle to replicate its time signature. The rapid onomatopoeic "splish-splash" noise of the rain on the bivvy roof is pierced by a shriller note as a bite alarm sounds and Tim, my younger brother, is on the rod and in the rain in seconds and playing his fourth carp of the session. I have yet to break my duck. 

We had arrived the previous morning at Bugley Pools in Dorset, a sweet little fishery located on a working sheep farm in bright sunshine and as we only get to fish together once or twice a year had opted to share a swim so that the long periods between fish that characterise "session carping" could be punctuated by conversation and reminiscing. We set up our respective bivvies, made our first casts and soon there were four rods pointing machine gun nest style into the lake. Traps set, we waited and waited but by late afternoon still no fish had graced our rods. We were not unduly perturbed by this lack of early action, carp are not stupid fish and we figured that the disturbance of two anglers arriving, setting up camp, feeding a few spots and casting into the lake had caused them to back up to the far end of the lake but if we employed common sense and kept noise and vibrations to a minimum we were confident that they'd return. 

Following an evening meal of burgers, sausages and bacon all sourced from a local butcher and provided for us by the fishery owner, we returned to our fishing base and settled in for the night. We hadn't long been ensconced in the warmth of our sleeping bags when the rain began, a "shower" of fierce intensity that lasted from before the fall of darkness right through until 2 oclock the following afternoon. As we had anticipated, the carp regained their confidence, and during the night we were disturbed on three occasions with Tim landing three nocturnal carp, the heaviest this mirror of just over 14 pounds.

First light came, the rain continued unabated and Tim landed another carp before my bite alarm finally sounded for the first time and I happily drew my first fish, a "scraper double", over the folds of the net. 

From there on in, Coronation Day settled into a pattern. Casting was kept to a minimum, with baits positioned just inches off the far bank for Tim, and equally close to cover but in a small bay to the right for me. Rigs were fished with slack lines and back leads to avoid spooking the carp, and handfuls of hemp, tiger nuts, pellets and crushed boilies were scattered by hand around the positioned baits. Every couple of hours the silence (or more accurately "near silence"- as a busy woodpecker beat a staccato rhythm from time to time on a dead tree on the far bank) was broken by the sounding of an alarm and another beautifully scaled mirror carp, or more occasionally a common, would be reluctantly brought to the bank. The majority of these carp, it has to be admitted, falling to Tim's baits, rather than mine! 

By early afternoon the rain had relented, ceasing as suddenly as it had begun, almost as if somewhere a switch had been flicked by an unseen hand. Time passes slowly when carp fishing, but not in the same way as it does when engaged in some laborious and unwanted chore, but at a pleasant pace far more conducive to one's wellbeing than the frenetic one that typifies much of our modern lives. It was late afternoon when my bait was picked up by my fourth and final carp of the trip, which turned out to be my biggest fish and one that turned the dial on the scales to a pleasing 16 pounds and four ounces. 

The final night was a quieter affair with my bite alarms remaining resolutely silent, and Tim just adding one small common to his tally. Our conversations drifted nostalgically back into childhood and teenage memories, as is to be expected when two brothers with over half a century of shared memories get together, before sleep enveloped us as darkness had the light. 

The following morning we packed to leave for home (Tim's in South Wales, mine the East Midlands) to reconnect with our families and everyday lives. Predictably, Tim whose carp angling ability far outshines mine, managed one final carp while packing up, another mirror with apple slice scales typical of the type we'd grown accustomed to over the preceding 48 hours. Our final tally for the weekend was nine carp for Tim, while four succumbed to my rods.

The Sunday morning drive home from Dorset to Leicester was pleasant, the A34 being almost empty, and I basked in the contented afterglow of someone who, although somewhat sleep deprived, has experienced the re-energising effect that spending quiet time in the outdoors brings with it. I had neither worked in nor attended church on this particular Lord's Day, but rather had spent time in one of the Almighty's "outdoor cathedrals." Old time theologians used to talk about "the Book of Nature", seeing the created order as a secondary form of revelation behind Holy Scripture that pointed the "reader" to God. I can't help thinking that they were on to something.

Fishing in the son shine

The earth had just completed its 55th orbit of the sun since my coming into existence, and there seemed no better way to celebrate my entering my 56th year than to spend it fishing with my son. I find myself musing on the meaning of fatherhood far more now than I ever did when both of my now adult children were small. As they have become increasingly less dependent on me (my daughter married and a home owner, my son a firefighter who towers over me in stature) my happiness has become increasingly dependant on theirs. I have had my adventures, made my mistakes, momentarily basked in my mini-triumphs, but while I hope that there's still quite  a bit of life in the old dog, it is their flourishing that means most to me now. In my own imperfect way while they were children I tried to provide the shade under which they could grow, one day in the future as I enter my dotage I may come to rely on them to provide the shade that protects an enfeebled version of me, but now in the early autumn of my life and the springtime of theirs we meet as friends and equals.

We had elected to fish a local small commercial lake, largely for the sake of convenience and for its pleasant facilities. This was to be a day when the fishing would be casual and as much a backdrop to conversation and each other's company as a frenzied pursuit of fish, and while commercials are often much maligned, they have their place and the fishery we had opted for is clean, well managed and provides a pleasant angling experience.

We opted to share a swim, happy to sacrifice efficiency on the altar of sociability and following the obligatory depth plumbing rituals began fishing in the margins, the bait no more complicated than double maggot. We were each employing the use of a centre pin, mine matched with a very light split cane float rod, while my son favoured a rod of the less romantic but arguably more efficient carbon variety. My first cast saw my float disappear and a brief tussle resulted in an F1 of maybe a couple of pounds being drawn into the waiting folds of the landing net. A couple of small perch followed before my son connected with his first fish of the day. By lunchtime we had landed a catholic selection of fish, with gudgeon, perch, roach, rudd, bream and small carp forming the supporting cast with the majority of fish being F1s. Lunch, which consisted of large breakfast rolls, was hurriedly taken in the onsite cafe before we resumed our piscatorial activity.

The weather, although mercifully dry, was cold and a brisk wind caused the lakes surface to be a rolling mass of small but constant waves, while beneath its surface an undertow moved briskly from right to left. Despite the challenging conditions a procession of fish continued to make their way to the bank, with numbers being roughly equal although my son's fish were consistently of a larger size than mine and included this diminutive but rather beautiful dark-backed little mirror.

As we entered the last half hour we noticed that fish had begun boiling near the surface as our loose fed maggots entered the water, and so despite the cold temperature we decided to experiment with fishing "summer style"  and shallowed our floats to about a foot and a half's depth and intensified the feeding, which resulted in a bite a cast and an increase in the rate of fish caught, prompting us to wonder how many more fish we might have caught if we had fished counter-intuitively from the start.

After four and a half windswept hours and with an estimated forty fish between us we decided to cheat the forecast rain, pack our tackle away and head for home. It had been a wonderful slice of father and son time and a fitting start to my birthday celebrations. Under my tutelage my son caught his first fish when he was just three years old, and I hope that there will be plenty more opportunities over how ever many years I have left for us to share a swim, enjoy each other's company, exchange thoughts and opinions and (occasionally) catch the odd fish. 

A friend once told me that fishing is his favourite way of wasting time. I disagree. Time spent fishing is never wasted, time spent with one's children even more so, which -by means of logical extension - leads me to conclude that time spent fishing with one's child has few qualitative equals. Today I feel like the luckiest of men. 

"All quiet on the Eastern Fens"

 

A fortnight before the close of the river season I returned to the Fens for the first time in two years and was delighted to discover that very little has changed. The horizon remains flat, the skies big, the wind biting, and my landing net an unnecessary accoutrement as I registered my  third consecutive blank on what had, until Covid intervened, been an annual pilgrimage. The Fenland waterways had seduced me into thinking that they were easy, my first two trips to these vast, straight and foreboding arterial waterways resulting in the capture of three pike and a solitary zander, but the rivers and drains were merely toying with me, causing me to fall in love with their teasing, but ultimately refusing to reciprocate.

I was, as in all but one of my previous forays East, fishing in the company of fishermen from the Christian Anglers group I belong to, and as ever we were hosted by our good friend Ray who owns the rights to the section of the Sixteen Foot Drain that we prospect for pike.

Shortly after we'd all cast our deadbaits into the murky depths the day's first pike was being drawn to the bank by Martin, a feisty cub of a pike that must have weighed about five pounds. and before much more time had elapsed Matthew's float was sailing away with purpose, a short fight resulting in a fish of similar size to Martin's being held aloft to be photographically captured for posterity.

The action slowed with only the occasional missed run bringing hope to the eleven wind and rain swept anglers before Andy joined the ranks of those who had avoided the blank with the first of a pair of pike both of which took a liking to a deadbait positioned just feet from the near bank.

Lunchtime saw us refuelling with our usual midday fare of bacon rolls and, with the sport having slowed, rods were periodically wound in as one or other of our number walked the bank to chat and enjoy the friendship and company that, more than the pike themselves, are the real reason we make our annual visit to the bleak beauty of this region rightly famed for its rich agricultural and angling heritage.

Both my float fished and popped up legered baits were untroubled by pike and my brief wandering with a lure rod was equally lacking in success. Andy, however, proved to be top rod on the day, his second pike (which tipped the scales at nine pounds exactly) completing his brace and making the journey from his Hertfordshire home well worth the early morning start.

By mid afternoon we were wet and, for the most part, fishless but as we posed for a photo and began the task of packing cars and vans for our respective return journeys home it was unanimously agreed that we'd had a fine time, had been hosted generously by Ray and that, God willing, we'd be back to resume our quest for pike next year. Hopefully in twelve months' time the waters of the Fens will treat me with the generosity and  beneficence that they showed on my first two visits and will once again yield me a pike or two, but even if that proves not to be the case my affection for their bleak exposed beauty will remain keen and undimmed.

Winter Perching

One of my favourite poems is called "Adlestrop". At just four verses it hardly qualifies as an epic and, other than a train stopping at a station on a June day and a blackbird singing, nothing happens. Its significance lies in the date of its composition. Written in 1917, it describes a moment of poignant normality, a normality that seems incongruous in the light of the War taking place elsewhere in Europe at that time and the underlying and unspoken threat with which the poem's context is pregnant was sadly to be realised- its author was not to survive the war. A poem in which very little happens, but what little does happen does so beautifully. My favourite novel, Marilyn Robinson's "Gilead", is similar. It has little in the way of plot, no twists, turns or shocks but exists as a masterpiece of description. Perhaps my obsession with pursuing perch makes my literary tastes unsurprising - in my fishing too, very little happens but does so surrounded by beauty; I sit and wait, reposition my bait, trickle in loose feed, wait some more, light a cigar, take a sip of coffee, time passes slowly and occasionally the reverie is broken by my perch bob living up to its name and agitatedly bobbing before disappearing and inducing from me a reaction. Today was one such day.

Initially, the weather was as might be expected in early February, with the air cold and the boney fingers of trees still denuded of their summer foliage clawing at the grey sky but as the morning drew on the wan sky was transformed from smoky grey to duck egg blue as the temperature incrementally rose to a pleasantly mild nine degrees. My tactics for the day could hardly  have been simpler- red maggots fished under a sarkandas reed float and positioned close to the cover provided by the roots of a tree that had at some time in the past encroached into the lake's margins. A miniscule perch and a barely bigger roach were the reward for my first two casts, but thereafter the fishing took on a more leisurely aspect with bites being more few and far between than fast and furious, leaving plenty of time for conversation with my fishing partner David and for me to give my mind permission to wander in a manner that would have drawn approval from Walton who famously described angling as "the contemplative man's recreation." The American essayist, philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson advocated that one should  "adopt the pace of nature" observing that "her secret is patience" - I don't know if he was angler, but the quote leads me to think he might well have been, and if he wasn't he would have made a rather splendid one. 

Periodically my float dipped and disappeared but the hoped for perch failed to materialise in any sizeable form, but half a dozen small but feisty carp proved a pleasant diversion along with a similar number of juvenile perch and modestly proportioned roach. David in the next swim along caught double the number of fish but half the number of carp before we decided that the large perch were unlikely to make an appearance, and packed up for home following a pleasant morning characterised largely by soul nourishing  inactivity

The fish had been unremarkable in size and modest in number, but as I shouldered my tackle bag and reached for my bucket and rod to take my leave of the lake, as in the poem, a songbird sang only this time the avian troubadour wasn't a blackbird but a friendly robin who, for the price of a few maggots,  had chosen to keep me company throughout the session. In such small things is happiness found and I re-entered the busyness of the "real world" content with my lot and at peace with myself and the natural world that I'd had the privilege of immersing myself in for a few unhurried hours. If my middle years have taught me anything it's that contentment is a vastly underrated state of mind.

A palindrome of perch

 

"It's an ill wind" they say "that brings no cheer", but yesterday's squall brought cheer aplenty as a result of an upturn in my perch fishing fortunes. This winter's perch campaign had started slowly, my first two trips resulting only in the capture of a handful of very small perch which, following four years of almost constant success and the landing of a reasonable number of 2 pound plus perch, was beginning to feel mildly vexatious.  

Following the lack of success on my previous two trips to my favourite perch pond I opted to try a different lake on the same complex to explore its potential, and in the hope that a change of scene might lead to a change of luck. 

Clouds were scudding threateningly across the anthracite sky as I walked around the small lake to choose a swim, eventually settling on a pitch that had a line of reeds in the margins which looked as if they would provide just the sort of cover that a wily perch might seek as a base from which to launch its ambush. An attractive little perch bob float taking just 2BB was threaded onto the line, with a small prawn tipped with red maggot on a size 12 barbless hook completing the simple and unfussy set-up.

I was joined for this short morning sortie by two of my regular companions, Roger and Pete, and after a quiet first hour my float danced a little jig before submerging and I found myself tussling with a lively and determined perch. The fish was admired, photographed, weighed at 1 pound 11 ounces and then returned carefully to its watery home.

Shortly afterwards, the weather, which  had carried an air of menace from the moment of our arrival, decided to make good on its threat and the heavens opened to ensure that the remainder of the session would be not only cold but also wet. Unperturbed I continued to feed small handfuls of red maggots and broken pieces of prawn along the edge of the reedbed and about an hour later I once again found myself connected to an angry perch which several times sought the sanctuary of the reeds before eventually conceding and allowing itself to be drawn into the waiting folds of the landing net. A heavier fish than its predecessor, the second perch of the morning (and last fish of note) pulled the scales to a pleasing 2 pounds and 2 ounces. 

I fished on in the rain for another hour, but only managed to add a couple of very small perch to the tally, and by half past eleven was ready to bid Roger and Pete farewell and pack up to depart for the warmth of home. 

The fishing had not been easy and the weather inclement, but I was pleased with my brace and there was a certain tidiness about the fact that the weights of both of the fish were palindromic- or perhaps it's just a symptom of the peculiar way that my mind works that noticing a mathematical pattern in the capture of two fish pleases me. Whichever of those options is the case, I'm not bothered- we go fishing to be pleased, and I was more than happy with my pair whose numbers read the same whether written backwards or forwards. If this session's 1 11 and 2 2 can lead to a 3 or 3 or even a 4 4 at some point in the future then I suspect my joy will be almost complete!

 

The Perch Match

Autumn: chill air, burnished bronze leaves, and a time when Gerard Manley Hopkin's observation that "the whole world is full of the glory of God" and his assertation that "it (God's glory) will flame out like shining from shook foil" seems hard to gainsay. Creation is singing a song, and its creatures would do well to attune their thoughts to the Maker behind the melody. 

Autumn is also the time when my thoughts turn to the pursuit of perch, although if truth be told, even in high summer and when fishing for tench, carp and rudd my thoughts are rarely far from perch, even if they only amount to a wistful longing for the calendar's colder months. The year's third season is also when the annual John Rellie charity Perch Match is held, a trophy now in its fourth year, and of which I have twice previously been fortunate enough to be the winner. A casual affair, the prize is awarded to the captor of the day's largest perch and is competed for by fisherfolk from the Christian Angler's Club in memory of John, our late member.

As tradition requires, the day commences with a lakeside breakfast of bacon sandwiches before the draw is made for swims, each angler disappearing to choose his own pitch when his name is drawn from the hat. This year my son was also fishing the event, and as it was over a year since we'd last fished together we decided to prioritise sociability above efficiency and opted to share a swim, with whichever one of us emerged first from the hat getting to choose the spot in which we would sit side by side. James and I were lucky with the draw bag being the second to be plucked from the hat and elected to fish a swim that has proved productive for me in the past. Today, however, it proved less than generous to us and we only managed a handful of  small perch in the 4-6 ounce class. We did manage a few nice sized ide which took a liking to our float fished prawns (two for James and one for me) but the opportunity to spend some quality father and son time more than compensated for the absence of perch.

As the morning wore on none of the ten anglers dotted around the lake were finding the going easy and bites were proving hard to come by. As lunchtime was reached only four perch of noteworthy size had been landed, a brace apiece for Garry and Matthew, with the best of them being a magnificent stripy denizen of the deep that tipped the scales to 1lb 14oz which found its way into Matthew's landing net after a spirited tussle.

As morning gave way to afternoon it was as if someone somewhere had flicked a switch and the fish, already reticent to feed with any enthusiasm went on hunger strike and, with the exception of a plodding procession of bream which took a liking to any bait offered by Paul, the lake's inhabitants obdurately refused to offer any encouragement to their land-based adversaries. As the appointed three o'clock finish drew near there was a brief flurry of activity with Pete landing a barbel before Loz threatened to snatch a last gasp victory with a last cast perch which when subjected to the scales transpired to be just 3 ounces lighter than the winning fish. 

It had proved a testing day for the intrepid and windblown piscators, but no-one blanked, 5 perch of significant stature had found their way to the bank, and a new name will shortly be engraved onto the trophy, with Matthew being the well deserved winner. The cash donations on the day from the participating anglers totalled £157.00, with a couple of further payments either by cheque or online promised and yet to be collected, all monies raised to be donated to the Christians Against Poverty (CAP) charity. 

As ever, the conversations, friendship and company were every bit as important as the fish caught and an added piquancy was added by the fact that Matthew's winning fish was landed on a rod he had inherited from his grandfather who very recently passed away. The fishing may have been anything but easy, but the aphorism had once again been proved true: "there's more to fishing than catching fish" or, if you have a penchant for your proverbs in an ancient and now dead classical language: "Piscator non solum piscatur."

My training regime for next year's match begins tomorrow- perch and fellow club members: you have been warned!