The lake #19 Warm summer nights and baking summer days.

I fancy that Coombe pool fishery holds some monster eels. How can't it! It's a prime looking bit of big eel water. The only thing it has against it is the overflows exiting the lake. These two escape points could give any eels present in the pool an easy exit from the lake, thus so turning what I wish was a prison where trapped eels could balloon, into a... say hotel, where they can live the life of luxury plumping up on the veritable larder available, before slipping over the spillway once the itch to head off on a one way trip to the Sargasso takes hold.

For now though I am going to assume that this lake does in fact hold as yet unseen leviathan eels thicker than my arm. And why shouldn't I assume this as I know for a fact at least two eels reside in the lake as  I relocated them after finding them languishing in one of the drains. But these are not the only anguila-like leads that I have encountered over the last few years whilst fishing Coombe. Only two weeks ago reports of a four-pounder being caught from an area which looks very eelish graced my ears, and last year a trio of carp anglers reported nightly harassment when fishing with blood worm flavoured boilies at range.

All the information seems to point in the right direction and my gut feeling is that this lake has to contain more than just a few surprises. So all that remains is time - time spent on the bank waiting for a big old eel to sniff out my baits in the dark of night and rouse me from my (more than likely) dreams of eels.

The opportunity to do my first night had been a little pragmatic in arriving. You see whilst trying to work full time and fish part-time, I am at home removing and replacing what can only be described as a galleon worth of decking boards which make up the patio right outside the back door to our house. Its a beastly job, and as the good weather is here to stay and the impending date for the delivery of the new materials marches ever closer, I find myself lacking in time and excuses to sit lazily bank side waiting for night to approach. This in mind the ingenious idea to just actually sleep on the bank entered my head. 

It sounds perfect doesn't it? Get my gear ready the night before, go to work for the day, come home have a quick feed before back in the car with my gear head down the lake. Bait up/cast out then get my head down for the night, maybe land an eel here or there, then pack up head home and work in the garden all day ripping up bad wood...

Turned it was never going to be that easy or go that well. After huffing and puffing all my kit into the car I arrived at Coombe already sweating like I was wearing a fur coat in the Kalahari to find hordes of cars in the car park. By the time I had walked the bank, located an area full of small fry I fancied and packed my kit down the water side the sun was already worryingly low in the sky. By then I was in no mood to have to do what I was about too. But the gallon of wretched dead maggots wasn't about to spomb itself out any time soon. To top it all off the flavouring I was adding to the dead maggots is quite possibly the worst smelling additive invented my man and after I had sent multiple spombs onto two different spots the entire bank was humming with flies attracted by the stench.

Eventually after much business I found my toiling done and with one rod cast onto spot  far out in the lake which was liberally baited, and a second spot only a few feet off the bows of an oak tree which caressed the water, I went round to chat with and apologise to a very nice chap called Dave who I knew from another lake we both fish and who was bivvied up for a night of bream fishing just down the bank. 

Really I held no hope that anything would be forthcoming until the lake had been shrouded in dark for a good while. So when my inside line went off like a rocket just after dark I was little more than surprised. It never bleeped or stuttered once before melting off and forcing me to sprint through the narrow gap leading back to my swim. Even the excitement of a instant one toner could not override my expectant excitement of what might have consumed the quiet literally humongous ball of worm I had attached to my hook. Honestly how many fish are big enough or tenacious enough to consume four large worms cut into quarters before being threaded onto hair and hook?

The answer to that question so far is one... and a tench at that! some how this greedy male had been grubbing around over my lovely eel bait when it came across my golf ball sized bait. Where it proceeded to cram it in its mouth along with my size 2 hook and 40lb hook link.

Although it  was probably not what you could call a sporting fight on fifteen pound line and my three  pound rods, I should count myself lucky of the action considering the night ahead.

The warm night passed with little disturbance from anything under the water. The creatures above the water were a different matter entirely. As I tried to calm my mind and get to sleep the little owls began a a lake wide conversation. I then heard what sounded like a daddy long legs buzzing on the roof  of my bivvy only to discover when I turned the light on that it was in fact a mosquito that looked like a prop from Jurassic park buzzing around my head. After a few hours sleep I was roused by three beeps on my right hand rod which after I hovered over it for ten minutes came to nothing and was followed by Dave getting a run from a nice bream. By now it was three so I decided to recast both rods just in case and after doing so a pair of tawny owls began hooting in the woods over the lake which was followed by a male muntjac deer barking for a while. Some how I did manage to get back to sleep before the dawn chorus began.

By six the sun was already up and getting very hot. The lake was flat calm and from my bed I had a good view of a large swathe of it. Surprisingly nothing was rolling anywhere in sight and that's when it struck me. All night even with a load of bait spread over my swim I had not had a single liner on my long line which was fished taught and popped up of the bottom. The bream should rightfully have driven me mad passing through my swim but nothing had seemingly moved through it.

As I packed up for an early exit the carp anglers started stirring and news came down the bank that it had been a very quiet night all over with My tench and Dave's bream the only action all over the lake. I think the closest I may have come to an eel was that three bleeps in the night. I also think I may have gone a little over the top for just a single night by putting out all those dead maggots. Next time I think I will be a little more frugal and try fishing an area with a few more features rather than targeting an area full of prey fish

Through the weekend the temperature soared as I slaved away sawing old decking boards into manageable chunks. Always in the back of my mind I fancied I might have another session. But the savage sun made the prospect of even a short session at Coombe seem pointless. So instead I opted to link up with Andy and head down to my old mate Lanny's lagoon to do the only thing that seemed a viable prospect in the near thirty degree heat, surface fishing.

We weren't disappointed on arrival either, as close round the island was black with carp. By the time Andy turned up I had already bagged three powerful commons in three casts, fishing a free lined hunk of crust just off the massive patch of scum collected in the corner of the lake.

Sometimes it's just fun to leave the challenges at home and just head out to have a laugh with your mate whilst putting some serious bends in your rod. Which was exactly what we did bagging countless commons and mirrors, with a few strange hard fighting little wild carp mixed in for good measure.

Old rivers.

Rivers by nature are reborn all the time. Courses change over time, the winter floods wipe them clean and change their features year on year. Though most places will look similar there are undoubtedly changes that can be seen if a lifetime is spent walking their banks. On the other hand there are places on most rivers that through time, stand still and hardly change at all. These spots that never seem to change have a strange feeling of age about them, and the stretch I had chosen for my very first trip to the river of the new season feels old, very old indeed!

Ask anyone who fishes Saxon mill and they will tell you that once you cross that bridge and step onto the ancient cobblestone path you undoubtedly feel as if you are stepping into history. The graffiti alone reveals just how long the weir has been channelling that water into the weir pool and just sitting next to it, the notion of how many other anglers for hundreds of years sat in exactly the same spot before me, doing just the same.

I don't know exactly what it is that causes that distinctive smell that weirs produce, but I do know that smell is food for the soul of the early morning angler. Later in the day it dies away as your senses become accustomed to it, but by then usually the mystery of the turbid waters takes hold and you become immersed in your surroundings as you try to fathom where, in such a complicated environment, might be best to drop your bait. 

I think it is mystery that draws us to weir pools. Its obvious what sort of fish we seek in what areas of them, but you can never rely on what you know with a weir pool. You might cast into a slack hoping for a carp and catch a tench, or run a float down slow water looking for a roach and catch trout. Either or any way you never quite know what will come next and this is the mystery that draws us to them.

It was that mystery that turned my head the other morning. I should have walked straight on by after looking from the bridge on my way to my intended spot, but I just could not do it as the lure of the weir was just to much. I just  had to have a go. Ask yourself, could you walk by when it looked this good...

'Just a quick cast then on I go' I told myself.  'You probably wont get a bite' I said in hushed tones trying to reassure myself I would move on as intended. Then moments after the lead found hard bottom; tap tap bang! A small chub engulfed my meat. That sealed the deal, I was staying a bit longer than one cast. The next one again found a lovely clear spot towards the tail end of the run. With tension on the line and the random patterns of flow tugging gently at my rod tip, I sat back to wait. 

It didn't take long for a single knock to indicate a little interest and sit me upright in my seat. Even knowing a fish was around, it still came as a shock as the rod buckled over and the spool began to spin. My strike met solid resistance and hooped violently over. I cannot and will not deny verbalising my thoughts out loud to myself that I had hooked a barbel. However the initial violence subsided and when no savage runs were forthcoming my hopes of a barbel, or a carp for that matter, faded.

Whatever it was, it was giving me some serious stick in the powerful water and I had no idea of its identity until it seemed to pull backwards. Cursing myself for forgetting, I remembered this had happened to me before many years ago on the first peg downstream of here; the same situation only on the first day of the season, and that day it turned out to be exactly what I now suspected this was. A big river eel.

Two casts into the Avon and I was going to get royally slimmed up. If it wasn't that I actually quite like catching eels I would of been livid. With my expectations adjusted I was very happy to see a thick green body spinning in the current attached to my line and this one, like the other, was no boot lace ether.

Self takes are not easy at the best of times and self takse holding small eels are impossible. Trust me I know from experience. But once they get above a certain size eels seem to behave not too badly on the bank, and this 2.7lb one was almost cordial as it lay in the folds of my net in the long grass. The hook was right in the centre of its bottom lip and once that was out it kept quite still as I gently lifted it up for a quick picture.

I don't know why I cast again. I know that normally where there is one there are others, hence my next cast ended much the same way only with a smaller eel on the hook and that one ruined my hook link irreparably. That did move me on.

My next intended port of call was the very first peg of the downstream section and the very place that I had been duped before. Even though I knew there was a chance the same might happen again I still ventured forth as other more special fish have grace my net in that spot. I had not though taken into consideration how much time might have changed this swim and after forcing my way through the head high nettles and cow slip, I was confronted with a much altered swim that seemed not to be a good option, with a large log only a few feet out and dead centre of the swim.

With little choice I carried on downstream using my seat like a shield to defend myself from nettles,  trying to limit my already growing collection of stings. The only real option for a cast was right at the bottom of the run where the river breaks hard left at forty five degrees, in a swim known as tramps corner. Its a bit of bleak place as its name implies. Most of the chancers and poachers that sneak a cheeky day here spend their day drinking Special brew or Tyskie under these trees. Apart from that its not a half bad swim; carp and tench often can be seen in the shallow slack on the opposite side of the river where lily pads grow out of the flow.

My first job was to scatter a liberal amount of pellets into that slack to hopefully get any passing fish to stop and have a feed. Whilst that brewed away I amused myself by fishing worms for perch just off the flow. In the past I have had some decent perch from this swim but I don't think I, or anyone else, has ever seen the true potential this swim has to offer.

A few casts in and the perch dutifully turned up, possibly attracted by the maggots I was distributing upstream or maybe by the flashing of silver fish intercepting them as they fell. After an hour I was building the swim up nicely and the fish did seem to be getting bigger, up to a pound and a half. Then out of nowhere there was an awful commotion and the swim erupted with dace flying in all directions. At first I suspected a pike had arrived which is not unusual here, but the the worst culprit possible popped out up right over the spot I was saving for later. A huge cormorant with a white throat bobbed up with a still wriggling dace in its beak. It pancaked, flapping desperately to get airborne just as I was scrabbling for a projectile to throw at it.

That was it for tramps corner. Every fish had scattered in a panic to get away and my once highly active swim swim seemed dead as a dodo. Going downstream where it had emerged from seemed a senseless move and with the two upstream pegs not much of a better option, the weir or higher seemed the only prospect. Just as I packed up Baz let me know he had turned up to trot on the mill race so my only option was the still free weir pool.

Luckily no one turned up as I raced through the undergrowth, though once ensconced again Baz did come down for a chat as the white throated bugger had circled the field, landed above his swim  and pulled the same swim ruining ruse to him. As for the weir, its time had passed and not much action was forthcoming at all on my meat line. The last hour saw me contact a slew of beautiful perch fishing a light rig out in the slack area but as for the chance of anything big, I did not hold out much hope.

A few months away from the Avon and I had forgotten how fickle it can be. If you're in the the right swim and the fish are on the feed you can bag up, but it does seem like when its low and clear as it is right now, there is only a small window to catch. Add a few predators into the mix and and the fishing can be over and done with in the blink of an eye.

The Lake #14 and a little bit more to finish.

Ever had something stuck in your mind, like the annoying first song your hear on the radio in the morning that you whistle all day? I for one am quite prone to getting images stuck in my head. Like the time a few years ago when I saw a pure white Koi swimming along the upper Avon. That fish was my white whale. Like Ahab I became a little preoccupied with the thought of catching it. Which I never did! But at least it never dragged me to my death as the whale did old Ahab.

The little weir pool hooked me when I cast into it. In all the years I have peered into it, I never thought it could hold so many wondrous fish. In only two or more hours it's secrets bewitched me. If catching those little tench was not enough to do so, what I saw definitely was, and may well become, my new white whale.

Along with a pair of small carp and an odd bream, I spied a big tench. Now the carp were by my estimation maybe 5-8lb, although carp weights can be hard to truly assess. Rock hard running water carp will weigh more than a flabby commercial cyprinus any day, but these looked around that weight. The tench I saw with them had a quarter more length, but was no where near as rotund. At a guess I suspected it may of been a five pounder, but the constant mulling of my mind had me pondering the possibility of a larger weight.

I had no choice, I had to go back. So even with a myriad of other possible angling scenarios that I could have embarked on this bank holiday weekend. My heart wanted the little weir pool. 

This time I had kit more akin to winkling winter chub, and also I had enough worms to last the entire day when I stepped into the wood and followed the trail round to the head of the weir pool.

Looking into the water through polarised eyes, I could not see so much as a tiny roach in the early light. But sometimes it's better not to see your quarry, as there's less distraction that way. 

I wanted to get some bait down and try and focus the fish into the one deep area at the centre of the run, but this had to be very subtle. So I began to sprinkle red maggots into the run ten at a time and held off casting for the first half an hour so as not to disturb the occupants. After only half that time I was desperate to make a cast and had to remind myself to hold fast.

Eventually the time came, and rather than trot a float down I flicked out a tiny link ledger with only two swan shot as weight. It barely made a sound as it broke the surface and only enabled me to just hold tension on the line in the flow. The first taker of my lobworm obliged immediately. My seventh mini tench from the weir pool was the first and two more followed before the forth strike hit something very solid. In moment of sheer madness a much bigger tench rolled in the centre of the pool and freed itself from my hook instantly. 

I had to calm myself as I sat firing more maggots into the run waiting for the tiny swim to settle down. That fish looked about big enough to be the one I had seen, and I had just lost it! Again I swung the rig out and settled back to see what effects this short lived fight had had on the swim.

A tremble of the rod tip followed by a hoop and again I hit something solid. This fish bored deep towards the reeds at the end of the run. But low hard pressure turned it around and it then charged across the swim towards me. I saw it shaking its head under my feet angry as hell at being hooked. Time and time again it ploughed around the pool but my resolve held and a decent tench was in the net.

I was sure this was not this fish I had seen originally. Not massive, but fighting even this three pound fish in the a tiny pool no bigger than your average car is a nerve racking pass time.

After this a string of small perch preempted a second coming by the micro tench brigade, and my tally of tinica reached twelve. The sheer amount of tench trapped in this pool was unreal and more was still to come, and not by way of a leviathan either. To the left of the pool is a shallow sandy bar where the the flow bends slightly with the natural curvature of the river and the pressure dissipates. Quite often shoals of roach or rudd are seen passing over it. Today the shoal looked different for some reason. Both roach and rudd in this clear pool have bright red fins and this can be clearly seen in the gin water; these fish however were very dull and moved in absolute pure unison. After reeling in my rod, I crept right into the thicket to try and get a closer look. Peeping from between the grass I could see exactly what the were; twenty to thirty tiny, finger long tench. Although it is perfectly feasible that as surface dwelling fry they may have washed over the weir I was beginning to suspect that maybe they were pool bred. This place was beginning to blow my mind.

What happened next was a proper shock. After sitting on a cast for an age, I received a couple of slow taps on the rod tip then nothing. Thinking I had been cleared out I lifted the rod to re bait and found myself snagged solid.  I had ether cast over an unseen branch or a small perch had probably dragged my bait into one. All I could do at this point was pull for the break. After locking down the clutch I walked slowly backwards shielding my face with my had in case a couple of flying swan shot should crack me upside the head. I was expecting a snap when I suddenly felt the dull slow movement of whatever I was attached to moving. Then something kicked and I was fighting a fish. Straight away the fight gave its identity away. It was an eel, and a strong one at that. As eels go this one was almost well behaved and just tried to swim backwards for a few minutes before I slipped it into the net, where it promptly went absolutely insane. Luckily the hook was right in the corner of its mouth and a quick twist from a pair of forceps had it unhooked. It wasn't a huge but still weighed in at 2.5lb. But importantly it was the right sort of eel... Anyone who has ever read anything about eels know there are two different head types found on our native eels. The first is the narrow snout and small mouthed type which feed predominately on invertebrates. But this was the other wide mouthed variety. Which are mainly predatory fish eaters, and are most associated with becoming big snigs. 

This was definately going back in the lake, hopefully trapped there for forty years or so, growing massive, hidden in the weeds eating passing roach.

My patience was about to truly be tested when a small jack pike moved into the swim scaring off every other resident and proceeding to grab every worm I cast in. Twice I hooked it and twice its surging fight and sharp teeth bit me off. The third time it was not so lucky and I hooked it right in the scissors. This jacks days lording it over the little weir pool were over. Up it went to the lake were it would suddenly be a small fish in a big pond.

A few more small perch and the forty lob worms I had taken were gone. My feeble attempts at fishing a Medusa's head of maggots on the hook just attracted all the little silvers, who where having a party since the pike had been relocated. Roach, rudd, skimmers and some hybrids that were an combination of the three, battered my bait senseless.

Had I more worms I would have stopped on indefinitely. But trying to hook small stuff on a tip would drive anyone mad. But as I packed away I did realise that I had landed seven species from a swim no bigger than a snooker table and carried on with my re population of the lake with small tench to boot.
Then just before I left I spotted the two resident carp doing there rounds around the pool followed by not only the one big tench but two. The carp carried on off along their route but the two tench stopped side by side on the bottom facing me. I could see there yellow down turned mouths clear as day as they just sat there mocking me as I had literally no bait to cast at them.

Sadly at this point my relationship with the lake must go on hold. I have had an amazing time being monogamous with this fickle water, and the things I seen have been nothing less than revelations. No matter what anyone says about the state of the fish populations, I have seen with my own eyes what lies beneath the surface and held some of them in my hands. But for now my neglect of the Avon weighs heavy and the babbling water calls to me. So the next month or so will be spent sitting on its banks with hope that a barbel and a few zander will come my way.
I cannot rule out the odd session back on the lake here or there, although for now I keep telling myself I won't be back until the green leaves of the trees turn a hundred shades of Autumn