"Sunk without a trace ..."

Choice is the blessing and the curse of modern life. Once upon a time going into a supermarket was a relatively easy task, but these days the choice is bewildering. It's the same with utility providers, white goods, computers- you name it and we're bombarded with more models and information than we know what to do with. Abundance of choice, it seems, is a fundamental human right in a capitalist economy. And even Walton's "gentle art" isn't exempt.

 

Take the spin-fisher's trace, for instance. In the days when I first started hurling lures (more in hope than expectation) into lakes, rivers and canals aged thirteen, there was no choice: it was simple, bulk standard tackle shop bought wire traces, with a choice that very occasionally extended to black, metallic silver or green. Buy half a dozen, and off you go.

 

These days there are specialist traces for heavy jerkbaiting and a whole plethora of lengths, breaking strains and sizes. There are wire traces that can be tied using conventional knots, many anglers make their own traces, and there's also the rise of fluorocarbon.

 

 

I've recently experimented with fluorocarbon, a material I've used before for "stiff rigs" for carping. I've had no problems, but must confess to not being entirely sanguine about its use. My interest was first piqued when trying to use a tiny snap bean style ultra light plug with a conventional wire trace. Basically it killed the plug's action, which kind of defeated the object. I made up a few fluorocarbon traces and on my next trip the lure (on which I've yet to catch a fish) behaved far better and exhibited the shimmies and wiggles its manufacturer had intended. I've also used the fluorocarbon with conventional Ondex and Mepps spinners. So far, so good, but I can't quite shake the fear that if a really toothy pike comes along fluorocarbon, for all its stiffness, might not quite be "man enough" for the job, and as the whole point of using traces is for the protection of pike I'm leaning back towards a return to always using conventional wire traces. Part of me wants to think "well, if Savage Gear make them then they MUST be safe", and their lack of visibility is certainly a "plus", but a nagging fear remains.

 

 

Internet research has, however, turned up a few more possibilities. I'm very interested in trying out a knottable trace material marketed under the name of "Knot 2 Kinky" (ha ha, see what they did there, "oh, how we chuckled"!), which comes in a variety of breaking strains which should, across its range, be able to cope with everything from ultra-lighting to more standard lure fishing. I'll definitely be getting hold of some, and I'll let you know how I get on.

 

It's all progress, I guess, but there is still a part of me that longs for a simpler era when you went into the tackle shop asked for a few traces, got the "one size fits all" items neatly rolled up in a little see through bag and went home without spending hours worrying about whether another brand or material would be better suited. Too much choice breeds uncertainty, uncertainty breeds lack of confidence, and lack of confidence is every angler's biggest enemy.

Which trace will I use next time? ............ that's a decision which might go to the wire!



Perch, pike and misadventures

 

5:00am on a Saturday morning, a time when normal people unaffected by the addictive compulsion to fish are still sleeping; the alarm clock sounds and a bleary angler rapidly dresses, picks up the minimal tackle required for wandering spin fishing and by 5:30 is good to go.

 

At the appointed 5:30 meeting time Pete pulls up outside the Vicarage, and off we head to the canal. The Grand Union is normally pretty beneficent to us when perch fishing, but on this morning it's a slow start. The first sign of things to come is when we realise that Pete, who'd done a tackle shop run to buy some traces for us earlier in the week, discovers he's left them at home. After ferreting around in my bag I find only two wire traces, which in a snag filled canal may not be enough; and so it proved.

 

We commenced fishing at a favourite spot, but after the best part of 40 minutes no perch were forthcoming. Of greater concern was the fact that in that timeframe we also both snagged and lost our lures with accompanying traces. Because the canal has a reasonable head of pike, Pete made the 40 minute round trip back home to recover the mislaid wire traces and I walked to another likely swim and sat around drinking coffee and waiting for Pete's return.

 

 

 The move to the new swim proved productive, with instant plucks and follows before Pete connected with the first perch of the day. Not a big fish, but on a day when the fish seemed reluctant and we seemed cursed, a welcome blank saver. I also managed a perch even smaller than Pete's fish.

Things remained slow, and after quite a bit of chopping and changing of spinners we walked back to the original swim, a classic "perchy" bridge with nearby moored barges and bankside piling - undoubtedly where Crabtree would have fished.

This resulted in a brace of bigger perch, one for Pete and one for me. Although not giants these were "proper" perch, with muscular shoulders and proud erect dorsal fins - perch with a belligerent attitude and classically good looks.

It was after this quick fire brace that the biggest excitement of the day occurred, which - in keeping with the session- had a frustrating conclusion. A marauding pike took a liking to Pete's silver spinner, and after a few minutes of thrashing around was just being drawn over the rim of the net when it threw the hooks, which flew several feet out of the water and scraped the side of my cheek before landing on the bankside grass. So near, yet so (annoyingly) far. Fish- particularly predators- can be a capricious adversary.

We finished the day with a few more casts in a final swim, which resulted in one more perch to me, leaving the final score as three perch each, not a bad result from a difficult day that was interrupted for 40 minutes by the "traces left at home" episode.

By 9:00am we were back at our respective homes, planning the return match. Pike be warned: this thing isn't over, yet.

Zander- the best fish I've (almost) never caught

It's not that I've never caught a zander - I've caught two, the fish pictured above being the bigger of them at ounces under 6 pound, but I'd love to have caught more, and while I know that the canal I lure fish reasonably regularly contains them, I only ever seem to catch perch and pike. Not that I'm complaining, but the odd zed would be fun. Perhaps I need to concentrate more on slowly edging soft plastics along the bottom or maybe to branch out into new areas on the canal, or perhaps abandon my usual predator fishing "percentage game" and seriously target them to the exclusion of pike and perch.

 

 

This was the first zander I ever caught, although the Canadian angler I was fishing with insisted on calling it a walleye, as is the North American way, a tiny, plucky fish that engulfed a soft plastic grub fished on a jig head as it bounced its way back to the bank. The fish was caught fishing in Clear Lake, an enormous expanse of water set amid pine forests deep in bear country. "Boys Own" fishing.

 

 

With the exception of those two fish, the nearest I've been to a zander (excepting the pewter walleye badge that I bought in Canada which adorns my fishing waistcoat) was netting this small "schoolie" sized fish caught by my brother on a late evening livebaiting escapade. I'm not sure if it's their unusual looks (that mixture of savage looking dentistry juxtaposed with those delicate looking spots on their spikey dorsal fin), their relative rarity or their notoriety (weren't they the fish that uninformed doomsday soothsayers told us would eat every last silver fish on the Fens?)  that most attracts me to them, but there's definitely something about them.

 

This Saturday I've got an early morning lure fishing appointment with the Canal, so who's to say what might happen? I'm confident of perch and hopeful for pike, but a zander would leave me grinning for the rest of the weekend. I'll let you know ....

Going Spinmad in Crucian Heaven

The plan was that having enjoyed a month of catching carp I'd begin my autumn predator campaign with a bit of a flourish. There turned out to be only two flaws to the plan, firstly,  the return of summer just when autumn seemed to have set in, the other the fact that although I whipped the water to a frenzy with a range of perch lures, the perch decided to be less than compliant.

There can't be many Vicars blessed with as many anglers in their congregation as I am (although in a religion where the founder didn't say "go and play golf" or "learn DIY" but instructed his earliest disciples to "go fish", perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise), and so it was that this morning I arrived at the "commercial" that I'll be targeting in the colder months for perch accompanied by Pete and Craig, two church members, who'd managed to scavenge a few hours off work. Many years ago Craig  caught a 28 pound carp (rumour has it that it was somewhere in the late Jurassic period) and ever since has been size obsessed, so he duly headed off to the Specimen Lake armed with a ton of tackle and a kitchen sink of bait, while Pete set up on the general coarse lake (also carp dominated) and elected to fish the Method with 6mm pellet hookbaits. I also fished the coarse lake, which is reputed to contain some very large (and hardly ever targetted) perch.

 

 



The complete absence of pike meant that I could forgo the usually obligatory wire trace, and I set about fishing likely looking spots- the edges of reedbeds, snaggy tree branches, and anywhere where the bright sun wasn't shining on the water. I started with my standard "go to" spinner, a size 3 Ondex, but despite a couple of follows no perch were forthcoming. After a number of lure changes, eventually a couple of very small perch attacked a small Spinmad tailspin spinner, which I was using for the first time, and looks set to become a favourite pattern; unfortunately, it eventually attached itself to a snag, and now sits embedded in a tree root beneath the water's surface. I was extremely impressed with its action, though, and will be ordering half a dozen replacements later this week. No further perch were forthcoming.

The day, however, was far from a disappointment. Pete caught not only a feisty common carp, but also a lovely brace of quality crucians. Now, I'm aware that these days there are very few "true" crucians around, and that fish biologists pore over photo's, counting scales along the lateral line and measuring "this distance" and "that distance", and I know far too little about the species to enter such debates. What I do know is that neither of Pete's fish had barbules, both had the right shaped dorsal fin, and there are no F1's (a species I detest) in this lake ...... are they hybridised with common carp or feral goldfish? - I don't know; what I do know is that my maxim is that if it looks like a crucian, I'll call it a crucian- simple as.

 

 

We only fished for three hours before work and family duties called us away from the lakeside idyll, but despite the lack of plentiful perch for me, and of any carp for Craig, all three of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and will be back as soon as we can co-ordinate our diaries and clear the decks for another try. The lake looked enchanting, Pete made friends with an inquisitive robin, and I'll be back with a load more Spinmad spinners and hope in my heart. 

 Perch: be warned- this is just the beginning!

 

 





Autumn - and thoughts of pike ... and perch .... and zander

And so, after four sessions (including an overnighter) in three weeks, and a good number of feisty, rodbending, but modestly-sized carp it's time to pack away the carp rods, boilies and buckets full of pellets and return to the perch and pike that fuelled my spring-time fishing. I've enjoyed the cyprinid diversion, but after a casual spring of spinning for small perch and the occasional bonus jack it's time to get slightly more serious. (although only "slightly"- after all, it is only fishing, and life's too short ...)

 

 

                                              "farewell to all that ..."

 

My pursuit of perch and pike since my move to Leicestershire has predominantly been a fun thing, a couple of hours snatched in a busy day to fish with small spinners or plugs in a section of the Grand Union Canal near my home, and with the exception of the odd two or three pound pike, the fish have all been perch of less than half a pound in weight. However, I can't fight off the urge to spread my wings and try slightly harder. There have been times in my fishing life when I've fished quite determinedly for predatory fish, and while time will be my biggest challenge I'd like to, once again, tangle with pike like this one, not by any means a monster, but a size that I once caught regularly, and that are a worthy and exciting adversary.

 

 

 

I've also discovered a commercial fishery where the perch are rarely fished for, but that has turned up specimens to three pounds in weight (I have seen an authentic photo!), and have secured permission from the owner to be made an exception to the "barbless only" rule so that I can lure fish for them. That, along with a new stretch of canal, with the familiar stretch as a small perch "banker" to fall back on, should provide me with enough projects to ensure a happy and challenging autumn and winter of predator fishing.

 

I'm looking forward to learning more about using Ultra Light lures, and to broadening my Leicestershire horizons as I hunt for predators, mostly with lures, although I haven't ruled out the use of deadbaits and livebaits every now and then. (I may even find the confidence/inquisitiveness to try the infamous "kebab rig").

 

What I'm not expecting is to catch a fish of this size, just two ounces shy of twenty pound, and caught by my brother Andy when I fished with him and my brother Tim five years ago. On that day between the three of us we caught eight pike and two zander, of which four of the pike were doubles.

Here's dreaming ....

 

 

E= mc 2

Einstein's theory of relativity superceded 200 years of Newtonian physics, and to the extent I understand it (which is basically, "not at all") it has something or other to do with curvatures in time and space and the speed that things move being relative to the position of the observer, although I may have got that totally wrong.

What I do know is that angling has its own theory of relativity, which goes along the lines of "you can only catch what's in front of you." In other words if the lake you fish contains 40 pound carp, a 20 is nothing to write home about, whereas if the average carp is only 5 pound a 12 pounder is a monster. "Big" is relative to the water being fished.

 

This month has been "carp month" for me, with four trips to a local lake, two with my son, one on my own and one with my friend Roger. In those four sessions (one of which was an "overnighter" with my son, the others of which were either short evening or afternoon trips) we've had fourteen carp, three of which were probably around the 8 or 9 pound mark (I only take scales with me if there's a chance of a PB, which isn't going to happen at this lake!), the rest of which were between 3 and 7 pounds, which- relative to the lake- is a fair return. The lake contains a few low to mid doubles, and has produced one carp of 18 pounds, but the average size is probably about 5 pounds, and so I feel satisfied- after all, you can "only catch what's in front of you."

 

                                           Roger and my son with typical carp from the lake

 

However, despite the modest size of the carp caught, the sessions have been great fun, and have contained everything that's the essence of what angling is all about. The fish are tremendously hard fighting, with a determination and power that belies their size, the time spent in the company of my son and Roger has enhanced the enjoyment of the fishing and fish caught, the lake is pretty and peaceful, and we've seen and heard a range of different birds that would be enough to bring a satisfied smile to the face of any ornithological "twitcher."

With the exception of all but the biggest fish, I'm fast coming to the conclusion that there's almost something demeaning about reducing a beautiful creature that's provided the angler with pleasure to a mere "pounds and ounces" number.

This month's carp may not have been monsters by modern standards, but they've been more than enough for me. Piscator non solum piscatur.

 

 



"Doing the night ..."

Night fishing is a "rite of passage", a "coming of age" experience in the narrative of an angler's life. Much of my growing up was done around the club lake near Reading that my brothers and I fished in the early 80's. Back in those halcyon pre-computer game days lots of teenagers, particularly from working class or lower middle class families like ours, fished and there was a large community of young anglers. Most of the time we got on, occasionally we fought, but it was all good "life lessons" stuff, and best of all was fishing overnighters. "You doin' the night?" was the question we asked each other when we met around the lake.

 

A couple of days ago I "did the night" with my 13 year old son, giving him his first experience of night fishing. He's been doing well with his carp fishing of late, playing fish like a "seasoned pro", and coming on in leaps and bounds in his fishing ability, and so it was that we arrived at the lake at 5pm for a 14 hour session.

 

 

It's been a few years since I last night-fished. I had a spell of regularly doing overnighters with some carpy friends when we lived in Devon, but that was when I was in my early 30's, and now in my mid 40's I was back experiencing again what my son was now experiencing for the first time.

 

Night fishing is about so much more than just fishing, and certainly much more than merely catching fish. It's about watching dusk turn into darkness, and in the morning seeing darkness turn into dawn; it's about the sounds of foxes and owls calling out, of rats scuttling, of carp crashing and clooping somewhere out in the lake during the hours of pitch darkness; it's about camping, and cooking on the bankside, a whole "boy's own" adventure in an angling context.

 

 

It's about playing fish with the rod hooped and silhouetted in the moonlight, about head torches and whispered conversations, and about battles with fish that seem far more evenly balanced between hunter and quarry than they do in daylight hours when- if using the right gear- you always "fancy your chances."

 

This was the world I inducted my son into, and we both loved it. God willing there'll be many more such nights to come.