Childhood dreams.

There is a pool etched into my childhood memories with such vivid beauty that I think it must have influenced how I see every bit of still water in adult life. How it became thus was down to that innate human desire to have what we can't get. You see this pool, or pond as it could be classed, was simply and very strictly off limits to the local kids where I grew up. So serious about this place being a no-go zone for possible young poachers such as myself were the club of pipe smoking, wicker basket sitting stalwarts, that they actually ring fenced it with boards seven feet high. All this left us bike riding monkeys with was the occasional stolen view through the knot holes in the wood, if you could balance long enough on the seat of your propped up BMX that was.

I remember pretty well the day I got that vivid view of my dream pool. Myself and a couple of equally fish mad friends Sean and Mark had ridden our mag wheeled steeds over to another pond now forgotten by time. On the way back one of our convoy breathlessly blurted out that he had heard from his brother, who'd heard from his mate's younger brother's uncle, that his next door neighbours kid had found a fallen down board round the back of the dream pool in the blackberry bushes. Well, hell, if the information was that accurate we had to go and see, so our little convoy veered off course jumping curbs, pulling wheelies and crossing gardens to get to the dream pool and our now assured new view.

When we arrived the wooden boundary as far as we could see was fully intact. So as inconspicuously as we could we skirted the fence all down the edge to the forest of brambles. Sure enough there was a gap in the thorny thicket! Our three bikes and fishing boxes were piled up near the entrance and we ventured further into the blackberry's. We couldn't believe our eyes when we finally found it... a large section of one of the seven foot high wooden panels had come loose and lay on the floor. This still left the top of the fence above our head height but well within our view if we got on each other's shoulders. First of all I leant against the wall and my friend Sean climbed up onto my shoulders via my cradled hand. 'Wow', was all he said again and again; that was enough to drive me and Mark insane down on the ground below. When he finally got down off my shoulders it was agreed that I would be next to get a look off his shoulders and duly I took my place peering into pure heaven. 

I had only ever seen such places in fishing books in the library. The dark mirrored water was circled by massive lily pads dotted with yellow flowers and the whole place seemed fringed with high deep green rushes. The occasional wooden platform broke the reed line and from them emanated gaps in the pads where anglers could cast. All over the pool fish dimpled the surface and huge dark shapes could be seen drifting around out in the middle. I was too busy enjoying the amazing sight to hear the kerfuffle going on below. It turned out Marks patience waiting for his go had evaporated and he was pulling the fallen panel of wood out of the brambles to climb up. Sean was seemingly against this and with me atop his shoulders was attempting to stop him. In the end the two began tugging on opposite sides of the board, I was left hanging from the top whilst they kicked off below, then out of nowhere came "Oi...what you little buggers up to!" Hanging from the fence I looked round to see a man standing by the pool looking straight at me. My friends were half way down the gap in the bramble track before I even dropped to the floor. All three of us legged it to the bikes and threw our boxes over our backs and began pedaling as fast as we could down the track that lead away from the pool.

It was years before I ever ventured near it again and thinking about it now with adult rationality what could they had done to us for just looking over that fence? Worst case would of been a hiding off of our dads and we all had our fair share of those for much worse things. The pool though like me got older and as time passed and I looked away from fishing towards girls, the old fishing club dwindled away, the boards rotted and the pool got forgotten until a while ago that is...

Some people deride it but in my mind social media is very useful to anglers for all sorts of reasons. It was whilst flicking through Facebook that I saw an image on a friend's page that sent me right back to my childhood. It was the pool, it had to be! I didn't even bother to wipe my arse or get off the toilet before I sent a personal message to him and instantly he confirmed it was exactly where I thought and that it was a free for all down there. Turned out most of the land it sat had been developed in the property boom times but the pool had remained untouched after great crested newts were discovered in it. That was all I needed to hear and as soon as a chance came along, I was there.

Twenty eight years later the area surrounding the pool looked very different. The boards were gone and the boundaries were now edged by various trees and the like. It seemed the thicket of brambles had run rampant and a thorny crown now protected the pool. It didn't take me long to locate a human sized run where anglers had been accessing the water's edge. So with my rod and landing net pole held above my head I ventured in. A short walk punctuated by several thorn removing breaks later I stood looking over the water and what a sight it was. It was the same place as in my memories but it had gone bushy whilst forgotten. The banks were very heavily over grown, so much so that I thought it would take a group of like minded chaps weeks to cut them back, but happily two spots seemed to be quite well trodden. The first was right by at the end of the path in and the other was down a small track along the bank and this was where I went. Under the cover hanging hawthorns beside the path the occasional pair of scaffolding poles stuck out of the water where the old wooden platforms once stood, though the wood was long gone. I followed the track till I came to a small clearing edged in ivy. In front of the clearing there was a helpful hole in the now rampant lily pads someone had cleared and it was here in the clear water amongst the weeds that I would finally fulfil my childhood dreams.

In my dreams I had always thought of the waters of this pool as deep and mysterious and I suppose to the average twelve year old most water is deep and mysterious. To a middle aged man with polarized glasses things are a little less mysterious. The bottom had climbed up from its original depths I assume with nearly thirty years of silt deposits. There were fish though I could see from the off and judging by the fizzing coming up along the edge of the weed there were a few tench in here to be angled for. I kept it very simple, fishing a light float rig over a bit of ground bait with a grain of corn on the hook. With my swim prepared and float cast out I sat back to enjoy the morning.

In a world of big fish and big catches I think we anglers have grown pretty cynical. Fishing here like this, that baggage just fell away out of my mind. A bottle of happy shopper lemonade and a few sweetcorn sarnies and I would have been twelve all over again. From the moment that first bite came, to the moment where I dragged myself away, this was one of the most fulfilling angling experiences of my life. 

The little pool of my dreams was stuffed with all kinds of fish. The tiny rudd attacked everything as it sank to the bottom, tench were obviously grubbing in and out of the forests of weed that filled every inch of the pool and three or four black backed old carp slid gently under the surface of the pool out in the middle. Those tiny rudd for all their effort could never drive me mad on a day like this and happily I swung one after another in again and again until finally I hooked something which made me work a bit harder, it bashed around the hole in the weed and turned out to be a perfect little wild born common carp who was already starting to go black in this clear water.

A few hundred more rudd later I found a bigger specimen, which for all intents and purposes could be used as the bench mark of what a perfect rudd should look like.

In my wildest dreams this experience couldn't have got any better, but it did! Towards the time when I had to away the rudd it seemed went into some kind of heat related torpor and shoaled up high in the water and stopped there ravenous ways. I feel sure a handful of maggots would have persuaded them otherwise, but this lull in their activity gave me opportunity to actually angle for one of those tench I so badly wanted. With the float now still, I waited patiently for any indication of a bite. Finally after the longest bit of inactivity all morning my float dipped away. At first the writhing golden flanks seemed to be that of yet another rudd, but I was quite wrong and it was in fact the most amazing finale of a fish. It was perfect little home grown crucian carp.

The one thing that stopped me crying with pure joy was this thought... If this forgotten old pool has got some pristine young baby crucian carp swimming around in it and it hasn't been stocked in probably thirty or more years, then it is possible that the pool of my childhood dreams might have some big old mummy and daddy crucians swimming round hidden by all those weeds and how stunning would one of those be...

Catch up part 4 - A 16th weekend

A few years ago I had the insanely genius idea to avoid the rivers on the opening day of the season. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made as I ended up practically having Napton to myself and having a red letter day to boot. Ever since that day I have continued this avoidance of the hordes of anglers desperate for river glory and destined for trickling disappointment; instead I have bagged up on loads of cracking fish by slowly sauntering down to a lake whilst everyone else is succumbing to bleary eyed boredom of the river.

Unusually this 16th turned out to be a rather cloudy and chilly occasion round these parts. Normally it is bright sunshine wall to wall to get those barbel and chub scurrying for cover. I actually had to get my old hoody from the car boot to keep warm on the breezy Napton banks as I angled after another vintage crucian. The one great thing about this overcast and cutting breeze was that if I got into a decent and fish-able position the fish should feed for as long as I could keep them in the swim.

After pitching up in a swim with the wind on my back I deployed the weed rake to confirm the swim was clear enough to fish and went about setting up stall to keep under the wind and fish tight to a nearby reed bed. The rake always clouds up the swim nicely and in the clear waters of Napton this is like ringing the dinner bell. The roach were first on the scene and after a few annoying plucks I finally got a decent bite which resulted in me hooking the first of several nice roach between ten ounces and a pound.

I knew if the roach were that quick to arrive that the tench would soon arrive and when they did things really went off. The first fish got off but after quickly re-baited and getting back on the spot I was straight away into another tench which couldn't resist my sweetcorn hook bait sitting temptingly amongst the scattering of pellets and dusting of pungent ground bait. This fish gave me a right run around and quickly informed me of all the weed beds in proximity of the swim. Being careful and gently pulling it out of all of these weed beds soon saw me netting a stunning first tench of the day.

The tench kept coming all afternoon with the crazy smaller males charging here, there and everywhere and the much bigger and powerful females really pushing my gear to the limits as I tried to weave them in and out of the maze of weed beds along my bank. Most of them ended up in my net but a few managed to dive so deep in the weeds that all my tugging only served to pull the hook and leave the embedded tench to find their own way out.

As per normal it turned out to be another of those sessions where I probably didn't get within half a lake of the precious old crucian and thus it was filed away with the hundreds of other sessions just like it. I did end the session on a high by landing a large stunning female tench that was a decent step up in size from most of the fish I had caught so far this year. Her capture adds credence to my theory that the tench in Napton, though reduced in numbers, are becoming bigger.

Sooner or later I had to get down the river and after a reccy lure session along the Barford AA stretch of the Avon with a lure rod, I concluded that although low and clear there did seem to be fish holding in the faster oxygenated water. So the night after the day before I returned armed with a barbel rod and a bucket full of fishy bait to hopefully garner myself a bite or two. With the conditions being sunny and the river very clear I guessed things were going to be hard and that any decent fish would more than likely being hanging out in any cover they could find. This in mind I pitched up in a swim with plenty of beds of streaming weed thinking this was my best chance of teasing out a few fish in such dire conditions.

After watching for a while through polarized eyes I started to see the occasional dark shape drift from one weed bed to another. With as little disturbance as possible I dropped my rig along with a golf ball sized PVA bag of freebies in between two weed beds where I thought I stood a chance of extracting a hooked fish. I was kind of thinking I would have to wait for a bite and I went about busying myself making a few more PVA bags of pellets. I'd barely got half way through the second one when the rod which was trapped between my legs pulled hard over and the butt was pivoted up in my nether regions. In the panic the bucket of pellets went flying, my tube of PVA stocking fell precariously close to the river and a small yet pungent pot of bait glug was spilled on my lap as I tried to get the rod butt out of my groin.

From the savagery of the initial bite I was under the impression I had by sheer luck hooked a early season barbel, but it turned out to be a chub who did an amazing impression of a barbel. It turned out to be quite a nice chub in reality...

My luck however was seemingly spent on that first chub as for a lot of interest from the first fishes shoal mates I suspect, I received no more savage bites on this first river outing. Though for the records purposes I will mark this single fish session as a total success as there's been plenty of early session sessions when I have had the dreaded blank. Thinking back now the capture of that single chub, after spotting several drifting around deep in the cover on a sunny day when not a lot was doing, seem aptly pure to me.

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Catch up part 3 - Searching for a speck of gold.

Summer fishing for me is all about tench and crucians. Occasionally carp take my fancy and the river calls me away, but for most it's all about warm early mornings, hot summer nights, bubbles around floats and the sticky smell of sweet corn on my hands. With my tench and crucian mojo now in full swing it was a happy coincidence that a trip south to the Marsh Farm fishery with my good friend Martin Oxley had come around. It's been a few years since I originally went and it was Martin's first time but both of us had high hopes for this little trip. 

With baking weather predicted for the day the pair of us set off south about as early as I like to be out of bed, to make the gates of Marsh Farm for opening time. Our organized start and clear journey saw us first in the queue with half an hour to wait before the hallowed gates were opened to let us onto the well manicured banks. It was actually very quiet angler wise and after paying our day ticket fees we had the choice of most of the Harris Lake to choose from. Picking a peg on this lake is not an easy prospect with so much choice on this occasion. In the end we headed for a pair of end swims where the wind had blown most the flotsam off the lake and several tench were obviously rooting around, judging from the fizzing along the scum line.

From the off I stuck by my plan which I had pre-formulated prior to coming down; bait a tight area close to a feature, fish an over-sensitive rig on that spot and hit even the slightest movement of the float. For a proper tinca head like me, Marsh Farm is a winner even if I didn't catch my target crucian as the tench are actually the pest fish in this lake. Literally you can observe them approach your bait by watching the small patches of fizz rising intermittently ever closer to your hook bait. This was exactly what happened pretty much immediately after I cast out for the first time. Three or four different fish where quickly homing in on the bait before my Drennan antenna float rose gently up out of the water and I struck. This tench cleared the swim in two violent charges back and forth over the baited area and scattered its compadres far and wide.

It seemed as the morning ran on that the all the fish seemed reluctant to stop in the shallower water we were fishing at the end of the lake. My swim had been devoid of fish since that first tench had smashed the place up and the obvious lack of fish had me itching to move to new pastures. Martin though had had several crucians roll on his spot and was keen to press on with his swim. After a quick recce up the bank I located a swim with a large lily bed tight on the right had side of the swim. The sun was now high in the sky and baking down and this cover seemed the best option to keep the fish going.

A couple of exhausting yomps later me and all my kit were settled in the new swim and fifty inches of umbrella was erected to offer me some shade from the savage rays. The plummet revealed a decent depth just the other side of the pads and a tempting mixture of ground bait, pellets and casters were potted out to the edge of this feature. It was a perfect spot as there was little more than eighteen inches from the rod tip to the edge of the pads and this enabled me to fish as if I were using a pole while using a rod and this was something that would soon come into play.

It wasn't an easy afternoon given the steamy temperatures but there were bubbles rising intermittently from my swim and I was certain a crucian might well slip up. The bottom of this swim must have been different, that or the tench feed differently here as I wasn't getting any tench fizz at all but every forty minutes or so I would receive a very tentative bite, that every time seemed to be a crucian , but always resulted in a screaming reel and a chunky tench battling it out with me all over the swim.

I might not have been getting anywhere near the target for the day but as far as I am concerned catching tench on a float close in is about as much fun as you can have on this fair isle on a day like this in my opinion. The condition of these fish as well is a credit to Godlaming Angling society as everyone is perfect and fighting fit, which considering the popularity of Marsh farm is a real feat. The size of the fish I was catching was pretty mind boggling too, with an average of four pounds plus and some easily over six pounds. Even without any crucians involved just travelling down to Marsh Farm is certainly worth it when fish like this are on offer all over the complex.

I never did catch that crucian from Marsh farm, but a few days later I was back on the crucian hunt in my home county of Warwickshire. This time I was fishing the lunar scape crater that is Snitterfield reservoir. Traditionally Snitters, as many people call it, holds a stock of old stalwart crucians that have lingered in its depths for years. A little while ago the controlling LAA began a stocking program. At first a few native fish were extracted and a small number of young born of them were released along with their parents back into the pool, but more recently an injection of new blood was added and batch of spritely newbies were added and I was keen to go back and see what was going on with the crucian population. 

Having heard of large bags of crucians being caught I was hoping it wouldn't prove hard to tap into the golden vein. Snitters never changes much apart from the fish populations which seems to go up every year. I used to use maggots when fishing here but nowadays maggots can't even get halfway down to the bottom there's that many fish. Unusually this venue has a habit of producing small tench. These tiny bars of soap were introduced along with the most recent crucians, but unlike other venues where small tench just disappear until they are over a pound, these tiny green menaces have been caught constantly since stocking. The little buggers do great impressions of crucian carp by giving tiny lift bites and circling fights. Between the tench and the silvers I couldn't keep a bait in the water long enough for a crucian to find it.

I persisted though and pushed on fishing through the tiny tench and silvers until finally not long before I had to leave the float did a little lift and I struck into a lovely little crucian that was quite literally ten times smaller than the last one I caught, but certainly was the speck of gold I'd been after.