Memories and monsters.

Everyone has important places in their lives, places that can be integral to who you become later in life. This is one of mine... I spent so much of my formative years fishing this small area of canal that I certainly got to know the bank side very well. I caught my very first perch sitting on a big square stone that I suspect is still  buried under the patch of black berries at the bottom right hand corner of the photo. My first pike fell to a spinner cast towards the big hawthorn bush at the back of the pool. I suppose what makes this place such an important place is not what I caught here but is instead what happened here. This where I learnt to fish!

Standing in the quiet of the morning I could remember right back twenty five years ago to when I sat being scorched by the sun and when my old boot sale special float slid away and a small spiny perch came writhing towards me. Waiting for my lift I pondered what my twelve year old self would have thought if he would have known what I was going fishing for on this day. I reckon I would have peed my pants with either excitement or anxiety if my twelve year old self new what I was about to catch. Saying that even having done this before I still find it hardly believable myself now at thirty seven.

My lift turned up and soon enough we found ourselves walking round the well trimmed banks of the fishery I refer to as area 51. Being the sort of fishery it is, it's not like any one area is better than any other and this I suspect is down to the repetitive nature of our quarry. I won't claim to any kind of expert on sturgeon fishing, especially as I've only done it a handful of times myself. What I do know from watching them in ponds and on this lake is that they pretty much constantly swim round the perimeter of whatever pool they are in. Hence fishing is as surprisingly simple as fishing large cubes of meat close to the bank.

I say it's supposedly simple but I found myself in that uncomfortable situation where my companion for the day Andy landed one within the first half an hour then followed it up with three more before I even got off the mark. Although I am suspicious of whether what I had been doing made much difference or not, I had been filling my inside line in with pellets and repeatedly casting to an island margin hoping to sucker one of battle ships in but had not had any response from any kind of sturgeon.

To make matters worse I had what looked like a decent Diamond back constantly parading within a foot of the bank all morning. I did all I could and tried my very best to be patent. Why they seemed so nonchalant about my baits was becoming a worry and that when Andy being the gent he is offered me some of the vintage flavouring he was soaking his meat in. CLICK! Next cast with the new flavoured meat my right hand rod which I had also brought in close sprang to life. Straight away in the shallow margin I spotted a very familiar tail. That meat had only done the trick and attracted that dam diamond back straight onto my bait.

It was mid-afternoon before I had any more action. All day long we had been watching the pools resident carp population going berserk on any free bait we threw in. Even on a man-made lake such as this seeing the individual clouds of mud pepper the surface as hundreds of carp hovered up anything food. It was during one of these fits of carp frenzy that I a big grey tail broke the surface of the water. I hardly had enough time to state it was heading for my bait when the rod tip buckled round and the buzzer sang the alarm.

What I think sturgeon lack in cunning they certainly make up for with shear power. Before I had chance to wind down the free spool it was off. I was just glad it was only us fishing in the area as this warrior of a fish smashed around the margins turning both our swims chocolate brown.

Eventually I got it under control and into the net.  It lookedto be a good fish. However it wasn't until we go it onto the matt and out of the net that something became evident. It looked suspiciously like Andy's first fish. A small but distinctive cut on the front dorsal fin was the main clue. But on the scales it weighed exactly the same. The weird thing was with this recapture was that when Andy hooked it first thing it fought like a wet sack and after only circling once went straight in the net. Whereas when I hooked it, it went ape. After realising it was the same fish it dawned on us both that we now had the same PB on the same fish!

Two days later I had myself a very early start and nipped over to fish a lake I haven't fished on in well over a year. I've been hearing reports that the tench had woken up and I seemed the right time to check and see what was going on. I arrived shortly after first light and found only one other angler already there. With practically all the lake free I was a bit spoilt for choice, but soon enough I settled onto a nice reed lined swim with the wind moving across it.

On most places my tench fishing is centred around ground bait, on this lake though I have had more luck fishing maggots in the past and so my attack was based on previous experience. To cut a long story short it was not an easy morning. Although the small resident perch of this lake seemed rather enamoured by my bait I struggled to find the tench. It wasn't until I deliberately increased my casting/feeding that I managed to hook into a small but excited male.

Seeing the upped feed rate seemed to have garnered a response I continued in the same vain until finally I hooked a bigger fish. This one ran me ragged diving into every possible bit of weed within thirty feet of my swim. For a heart stopping moment it did get pretty well weeded up. But by keeping the tension on it I gradually persuaded it out and into my waiting net. Given the clear water of this venue the colour of this chunky six pounder looked amazing and certainly made all the effort it took to catch her worthwhile. 

Even though the fish was in spanking condition one thing is a bit of a worry. The missing section of tail looked very fresh and worryingly like a bite or tear. There was even evidence of scratches on the other side of the wrist in the fishes scales. Unluckily this pool sits adjacent to another water coarse that is certain to have otters prowling its banks and although I've only just gone back and can't be sure, there seems a chance there may be something else after these stunning tench other than anglers.

Double bluff, triple bluff, warzone.

It is seemingly always the case that when you go to a certain place to catch a specific fish, you inevitably end up catching every other species in the water other than the one you are actually trying to catch. A year or maybe two ago I went to a commercial lake in an attempt to catch a big perch, and on that occasion using only humble worms I landed well over a hundred pounds of plump carp, much to the annoyance of every one on the lake who trying to catch carp using some very specific baits. Not long after  I was discussing this topic with Jeff when he confirmed he too had encountered the similar situations and promptly proclaimed 'why do all these anglers go to these fishery and try and catch carp! they should go and try to catch perch then they'd catch carp!'. It was this sentiment that rang through my mind as I mulled over how to get my lined pulled during the weekend. 

I've been off the carp fishing for a few years now, but I feel a relapse is on the cards this year. So why not head off and try and get that first carp of the year under my belt by doing a spot of perch fishing on my mates woodland lake, and hell, if a big perch happened along, well I would just have to live with it wouldn't I.

My confidence that the double bluff would work was high, and why shouldn't it of been; every time I go perch fishing on a lake that contains carp they usually stick their nose in at some point. Only thing was that I did not predict the lake pulling a farcical triple bluff on me, leaving me agog.

You see I began fishing for perch to try and catch a carp, but couldn't seem to raise a bite from a carp whilst fishing for perch. So in the end I settled that a perch would do, so started trying to actually catch perch. But in trying to catch perch I instead caught chub. How chub got in the lake or equation I don't know, but it was chub that I caught. Five of them in fact and every one was long, cold and ever so thin.

The best was just over three pounds, but all were so long that if they were river fish two might have been five pounds right now.

I left not unhappy but slightly confused and pondering what I might need to do to catch a carp using this double or triple bluff technique. Maybe fishing for barbel or bream might catch me a carp! 

The 'chuble duff' wasn't to be my only session this weekend, as a previous date to fish a chalk stream had been called off and the day was still marked down for a spot of angling. So the day was duly used to go and check out a new fishery I fancied for something a little different.

Different it certainly was, which soon became apparent upon arrival at this seemingly war torn fishery....

Ascending the long rutted drive in a non four wheel drive was an experience alone but when we arrived at the parking the scene was really set.... on the edge of the car park amongst the rusting empty containers of various unidentified chemicals was a patch of burnt earth not that dissimilar to the shape of a human body. It was not that hard to imagine the blackened bones of a fallen resistance fighter filling that space. And we were only at the car park!!! 

As I scanned around the fishery it only seemed to get worse. A pair of mongrels bred of mongrels seemed to be picking at the scraps of god only knows what in the long grass to the left of the lake. What seemed like a tyre fire or barricade burnt constantly behind a sinister old building.

If an armoured Toyota Hilux loaded with militia men brandishing machine guns suddenly appeared on any of the random dirt tracks around, it would not of surprised me one bit. In fact I had my plan in place ready for such an occurrence, were I would simply offer Andy over as hostage or sexual slave, whichever they preferred, in exchange for my freedom and possibly a days fishing if they were prepared to throw that into the deal.

I love the smell of napalm when I'm fishing

The general feel of this fishery very nearly inspired me to call this post something along the line of 'The art of rebellion angling by John Conner'. Conversely the chap who came to meet us was a really nice bloke who could not of been more helpful really. He pointed us in the right direction, gave us the full low down on all recent captures and of what was in the lake.

Ready to have a few casts we made our way to a quiet corner of the lake and began unpacking our kit. About five minutes in a shot gun sounded from the next field; shots rang out intermittently throughout the rest of the day. Whoever was pulling the trigger was dug in hard and doing his very best to kill every living thing in that field.

Our nervous smiles had gone by dinner time and even with little action we were becoming quite amused by the herb fuelled antics of a couple of chaps over the lake. One seemed to chuck his feeder onto the island every time he cast out, the other, every time he hooked so much as tiny roach, let it run through his mates lines.

It must have been mid afternoon when the next strange occurrence unnerved the pair of us. From somewhere beyond the no mans land where the shot gun was still smoking, something let out a call neither of us had ever heard before in our lives. I mean I have heard just about every strange noise you can hear on a dark night fishing in the woods, but this sounded dreadful! It was a guttural sound that built up slowly into a shrieking gargle. It sounded neither human or animal for that matter. My best guess would be a human horse hybrid and not a cool mythical centaur way either, but the opposite way round,  like a humans body weighed down with a horses head, and this sounded like it did not deserve or want to be alive, locked awaya in whatever held it hopefully captive.

All day we waited, swapping between big pieces of meat and chunk of oily mackerel and herring hook baits, But not one sturgeon felt inclined to pick up our baits. One thing that did keep us going was the relatively regular liners we both seemed to be getting, which I have been lead to believe is a common occurrence whilst trying to catch these prehistoric beasts.

The water was very cold still and not much in the lake moved at all. In fact we did not see one single fish top all through the day. Then just as the sun sank towards the horizon the lake seemingly came alive and the wind dropped. Not long before this I took a shot in the dark by casting out a big worm and after only minutes of being in the water had garnered some interest, but not from what we sought. After loads of sharp and dropped runs a float rod I had with me was deployed and the culprits soon became evident. The lake as well as having a few sturgeon and load of carp was heavily populated with perch, which I would dare say are totally ignored by most anglers and were well up for an evening feeding session.

Even though we hung on till the very end as all anglers are prone too, that last bite never did come and we eventually left the war zone fishery. It might seem odd considering the atrocious conditions I have described but I really want to go back once it warms up a bit. I know I might not have painted it in the best light but something I can't quite put my finger on attracts me back. Though when I next go I might blend in a bit better if I were to bring half an ounce and an AK47 along with me for camouflage.