A competitive foray #1

My personal identity as an angler has always been pretty clear to me, "I am a specimen orientated angler who could could quite easily slip into that all consuming place where the biggest fish must be caught at all costs, but choose's not to as I value all the things that this would jeopardise too much to do it". Match angling therefore doesn't hold much interest for me. Well, that was until I began doing a spot of lure fishing when young BB was born. You see the two types of competitive match fishing are very different. Traditional match fishing involves drawing a peg, pitching up in that peg with nearly all the fishing gear you own and eeking the greatest weight of fish you can out of your prescribed swim within the specified time limit. Lure match fishing instead is about catching the greatest length of predatory fish out of said prescribed area, which could be many miles within a specified time limit. The latter is much more mobile and strangely you find yourself fishing areas others have fished and failed, only for you to catch.

I have not had much opportunity to explore this interesting facet of lure fishing before apart from a single foray a couple of years ago when I was asked to fish with the England contingent for the CRT International lure friendly, which is organised to build bridges between all nationalities of anglers in the UK. This was not the experience I expected as only a few weeks prior to the event I had surgery to remove a kidney stone which left me with a stent in my water works. A stent, for those who are unaware of such evil things, is a plastic pipe which is designed to hold open pipes inside your body and thus caused in my case, urinal reflux. This is where when-ever you take a pee, urine is forced back up the pipe from your bladder to your kidney. In short this feels like Satan is raping your pee pipe. Hence my first ever lure match involved me spending the day with a non English speaking chap, peeing blood into the bushes, being in a constant cold sweat on a burning hot day and generally feeling like death. I can't even remember the fishing and can only recall curling up on the bed once home whimpering with JB looking at me very worried.

It's taken a few years to get over that experience and conveniently I have been asked if I wanted to be part of the England team for this CRT event and after agreeing I have taken a dip into the world of competitive lure fishing to get myself prepared. Luckily for me a friendly event was organized by Tusses Lure Division a few weeks prior to the CRT event which it seemed might be a good warm up so I duly singed up for it.

Now I do not wish to give full blow by blow accounts of each outing as this would be terribly boring and might serve to share info with my competitors should they read this, so all I will do is outline the events, venues, catches and results with possibly conclusions should they be needed.

Tusses Autumn Friendly

Venue = All Tusses Lure Division waters

Total length = 151cm 

Finish position = 11th place

I did myself out of a couple of points through rushing to total my score, which is a lesson learned for next time. Though this wasn't the biggest lesson taken from this match. Throughout the match I lost four small zander of around 20cm+, two small perch of maybe 10cm+ and a better perch of at least 25cm+. All of which added up an estimated 115cm, which would have taken my score to around 266cm which could have jumped me two or even three places higher into the top ten. All of these lost fish were down to exactly the same thing, poor hook ups, and when forty five percent of hooked fish are coming off something needs addressing for the next time.

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After chatting with my good fried Carl Arcus who is a very experienced in this area, it became clear a practice session was a necessity to help pin down possible fish holding spots for the up coming CRT match. With limited time though and a cut off point for practice coming in before I had a day free, I had to reorganize a few things and skive an afternoon off to get some needed time on the water before the match day.

Practice for CRT International Friendly.

Venue = LACC sections bridge 18 - 30

Total Length = 111cm (In the CRT match only the best two perch count. So 51cm would be my perch quota)

Doesn't count.

Leave well alone!

As pleasing as the practice session was with me making up 51cm perch quota that I would be very happy with during the CRT event it was terribly disappointing on the zander front. With zander quota making up at least fifty percent of the fish you can submit it is imperative that competitors catch any they can. Even more worryingly was the fact that I only encountered two tiny ones both of which let go of the lure at the surface. On a better note a change of hook pattern seems to have helped increase my conversion of hits into fish. on the Tusses event where of sixteen good hits I landed nine giving me a 56% conversion rate of hits to fish. On this practice with a different hook pattern I landed eight fish out of eleven good hits giving me a conversion of hits to fish of 73%.

After only two dedicated outings trying to build up decent match scores I am having to quickly re-educate myself to not actually look for the biggest fish as I have been for many years, but to instead look for the most prevalent fish as this give better opportunity to build length quickly. With this in mind I felt I was on the way to focusing myself to think more like a lure match angler than like a specimen angler.

Don't leave me high...

...don't leave me dry.

I was quite a fan of the maudlin lyrics of Radiohead in my early twenties and so it takes very little for me to start droning away at some of their more popular numbers in a manner that sets off dogs howling across neighboring counties. And what brought about this trip down memory lane you might ask? To which I would reply that my recent session of caterwauling was prompted by me arriving at my intended venue to literally see that I had been left high and dry.

After the savage summer we have just had and in this Indian summer we are currently experiencing it never even occurred to me that this neglected old lake may have suffered, but suffered it had. After walking over to what should have been the edge I stepped down onto the lake bottom and walked some fifty feet out into it. Barely any water remained bar the single deep area around the centre of the once lake and now pond. I would have just left were it not for the pike sending hordes of roach scattering in the pond; seeing they were feeding I thought at least one cast might be worth it.

 One cast was made and one pike was caught but for as happy as it made me the realization that I might be causing damage to this fish or other by fishing made me rethink my actions. After a quick snap I spent a good ten minutes retaining that fish in the net assuring it safely returned.

With my only free morning of the week ticking away I quick change of venue was in order and luckily I had a few different lures stashed in my car boot which I felt would enable me to drop onto the river and fish effectively. So after a slight diversion through the lanes of Warwickshire I was soon trudging alone along the deserted banks of the Avon once again. Once in an area I knew was quite reliable for a predator here and there I began launching a ten gram jig head and Fox curly tail shad tight to the far bank cover; it didn't take long to get a hard thump transmitted back along the taut braided mainline, indicating something fancied my lure and it was now in its mouth. It turned out to be my second pike of the morning and what a stunning little monster it was.

The prey fish that seem to have been constantly present in the upper layers of the water on this stretch were noticeably absent as were the predators for the rest of the way back up the stretch. Persistence paid off and what seemed like hundreds of casts later as my lure worked its way out of the dark depths of the river, another unseen predator struck hard. This time after a very dirty fight, where the culprit dived into some marginal weed growth which was subsequently severed off by my line, I slipped my net under another lovely example of an Avon zander from one of the areas I will be definitely targeting over the winter.

Well, what can I say? After my initial plan was left high and dry having a few different types of lure to hand really paid off, enabling me to change venue and turn what could have been a real disappointment into a decent session that has further confirmed where I should be fishing in the coming season.

To meander after zander.

There's a distinctive hint of a smell in the air and I for one love those first whiffs I get. The sweet smell of summer has begun to fade as the plant life detects the impending season in those chilly nights. Autumn is afoot and hints of decay are happening. After a resplendent summer of unmitigated growth in the suns life giving rays, the huge maple under which I park my car is showing a streak of red and gold on its eastern exposure and the beastly thing has finally ceased spitting sap all over Doreen, my faithful Ford Focus.

If there is one thing I know, it's that if I am detecting the change of the seasons, those more in touch, i.e. fish, have long ago detected it and that ingrained instinct to stock up for winter has sparked into life. I love this time of year as everything gets moving after months of torpidity; this is the time of plenty when the predators really get focused. This is exactly the time I have waited for to begin searching for river zander, it's still a bit early to chase pike but zander, they seem to love this time of year on the Avon.

I didn't feel I did very well last year on a new section of the Avon I was targeting. Though I did pin point a few areas to focus on I don't feel I followed up on these spots quickly enough as I was distracted by the bloggers challenge. This year however, I have more time to give to this endeavour, so all I needed to do was check again that my info was good before taking aim.

Lure fishing has become my go to method for locating zander. The problem is with this bit of the Warks Avon is it all looks very zanderey and therefore given the length of the section in question, I could find myself having to fish lots of spots for a decent amount of time with baits before locating good areas. By lure fishing each area briefly and seeing which ones throw up zander to the lures, I can cross check that info with last year's similar sessions and see if any throw up multiple fish.

First trip out was perfect! The temperature had dropped and the sky was overcast. There was such a chill in the air that I had to don my hoodie for the first time since spring. This session could not have gone any better. I had some of the new Fox rage pro grubs to try out and I was very confident these large life like curly tails were the perfect zander candy to fling in the river. It turned out I was right to be confident as the lure soon tempted a couple of micro pike before any small zander struck the lure hard in an area I hoped would produce.

For the sake of continuity I continued to work the lures hard even in areas I didn't think I would catch fish from and strangely it was satisfying to find myself correct even though I caught no fish. When I did finally get into an area I was hoping to get a result from I was overjoyed to catch another better zander of maybe four pounds which was so aggressive I thought I'd been hit by a big pike as I saw a big flash when the fish struck at the edge of a weed bed.

I was of two minds after this session. On one hand I could repeat that session a few times again as time allowed to get more data or I could take the small amount of data and add it to last year's and go on that. It wasn't until I double checked the spots with last years info that I found the capture of both fish came from exactly the same spots as last year. So as not to waste a valuable session I concluded to go with it and not bother with any more prospecting, just to hit the two target areas as soon as possible.

A week long holiday to the east coast later and I was back with a whole different set up of kit. A pair two  and half pound rods, buzzers and the lightest bobbins I could find. The water was so sluggish in the section when I arrived that the brisk wind blowing upstream seemed too have stalled the Avon in her tracks. The water was still a bit clear for my liking but the over cast sky and depth of water had me confident I could garner some action and wasn't just pissing in the wind.

The still present weed proved problematic as the line of lilies emanated a good six feet from the bank and then a few feet of streamer weed lay rotting on the surface just before the water dropped away to ten or more feet in depth. All this meant I had to elevate the rods skyward to keep the line out of the weed, which I didn't want to interfere with my bite detection. Really, I would have preferred to point the rod tips at the rigs to help reduce resistance, but hopefully the zander wouldn't be that fussy at this early point in the season.

Knowing full well how snaggy the opposite side of the river was, I was careful to keep away from those awful snags which we had the local rowing club to thank for after they chopped down loads of overhanging branches last year and just dropped them directly into the river. So one bait was placed mid river and the second just off the marginal shelf. Hilariously, I had only just cast out the second rod when the first one was away. I don't mind admitting that in a bit of a flap, I managed to get the bobbin wrapped around the line somehow and for few arse twitching moments I found myself trying to untangle cord from line as something tugged hard on the end. I really thought it was something good when I was playing the fish deep down in the water and it thumped away bending the rod right over. But as it rose up in the water it seemed to get smaller and smaller until I found myself looking down at a jack pike, thinking this thing must be on steroids.

Not long after my rod had been dormant for a good few hours and my flask of tea had run dry, the grey sky began to look thin and blue patches started to show through. Before I knew it the days wall to wall cloud weather prediction had become a bit too sunny for my liking. It was about then that I suspected that the zander weren't going to play ball but with another three hours at hand to fish, I wasn't going to pack up just in case they did feel an impromptu zander dead bait picnic would be nice on a sunny day. I thought my luck was in as well, when the downstream rod indicated a slow steady run, but it turned out to be an overzealous perch with eyes bigger than his belly that had picked up my small roach dead bait.

Next was another small pike which sent the bite alarm into meltdown. After overconfidently winding it towards the net it did that thing pike occasionally do when they just open their mouth and the bait just flies out and you realise it never hooked at all but was just holding on out of hunger or sheer belligerence. The session ended on the capture of yet another small jack pike that was basically about the same size as the previous two. Instead of yet another little pike picture I took a different shot of my favorite; pike view. I love seeing them in or out of the water like this as I always intrigued by their markings on their backs for some reason.

I don't actually think I did anything wrong on this session and I have confidence that this and the other area I have pinpointed to focus on will produce zander of any size. Simply put I think with the current clear water and sunny weather I was really just a little on the wrong side of them feeding. Once we get a bit of colour in the water and some more conducive conditions hopefully I can get to see the true potential of this section of the Warks Avon.

Down the hill round the corner and back up again.

I fear my finale at Napton may have been over dramatized in my mind. You see the way I kind of saw it was like the ending of some cheesy nineties movie, where upon beating all odds I had succeeded and was now walking away into the sunset having won the heart of the beautiful love interest with my dry wit and steely good looks. It was in reality me having caught the crucian after spending an inordinately large amount of time sitting next to a lake where I had over many months chucked in more sweet corn and ground bait than I feel comfortable admitting to. All that aside I had to walk away down the hill back into the valley of normality as I had practically given zero attention to the river and quite frankly risked missing an entire season on the Avon.

Honestly I don't think I had missed much by the general whining I had seen on social media about the lack of water. One thing I had read far too often, much to my chagrin, was how many top level barbel chappies were condemning other anglers for barbel fishing in the heat wave and making it very clear that barbel were unable to deal with the stresses of being caught in such conditions. Now I know these people only had fish safety in mind and good on them for sticking with their conviction, but the question that came to my mind re this was, what makes barbel special? Surely any species be it barbel, gudgeon or chub that is used to existing in highly oxygenated water is not going to appreciate getting caught in the heat. I suppose the answer to that is simple now I am reading it back and that is that they only care about barbel and all other species are merely pests to them.

Anyway on the subject of barbel I did find myself back on the river. ONCE THE HEATWAVE HAD ABATED, fishing for barbel. With the temperature down and a bit of extra water in the river I headed up to Barford to see if those hard fighting berties had come onto the feed. Joyfully they had and not long after settling into a favourite spot I got exactly the sort of bite I was after. Straight away I knew I was into a barbel but during the fight it steadily grew smaller and smaller until I landed a perfect miniature barbel of not even two pounds...

I couldn't quite believe it at first as I have rarely seen these youngsters before and the average of this area of river is generally 4-10lb in weight. Would you believe that on my second cast the PVA bag must have barely melted before bang, I was into another and then another straight after that! Things actually seem to looking good for this stretch of river with a few young healthy fish coming through the ranks for the future.

I returned to the river a few days later to search for the rumoured big preds that hide in the slack shady water on one of the sections I fish. Again and again I hear of this area producing big zander but after searching round all last winter I am none the wiser of the location of these phantom fish. Hence I wondered if I might be able to pin some locations down by mooching round with a lure rod in the summer. The cut and thrust of this endeavor was that none of the water I expected contained seemingly any predators. By chance I gave some of the faster swims a go and instantly was rewarded by a super charged little pike nearly ripping the rod out of my hand as it tore into my savage jerk bait that wobbled across the current.

I was really starting to feel the river now and I took the opportunity to search out a new section of the Upper Avon I had been tipped off about. Not wanting to go into specifics I have been told something very rare indeed swims in this secluded area high up the Avon. It's a rumour I have heard a few times from different sources, but all these rumours share a similar location and this was where I headed for a few hours one night a while ago. It turned out to be a cracking little secret gem where no one seems to fish; given its difficult access and it's that lack of attention, it could be the sanctuary of a real treasure. On this first foray though all I could catch were chub. The smallest being mere ounces and the largest maybe three-four pounds in weight.

That little bit of river has captured my attention and the possibility of what it holds make certain I will return to try again and again on its deserted banks. The weather though tells me the rivers are still way off their best and the conditions are more conducive to tench fishing, and the thought of what seemed to be big tench rolling at Napton drew me back. Really I didn't want to go back quite so soon but what I had seen was too good of an opportunity to turn down. Over my many hours lingering on the banks staring at floats bobbing in the edge I have watched some of the carp lads baiting their little hearts out. I have witnessed this so much in fact that I can now distinguish between brands of spods/spobs just from the sound they make flying through the air. But one spot that two or three of the syndicate members are baiting has become very obvious to me and time and time again I have watched big tench rolling over this spot. So armed with a couple of one and three quarter pound Avon style rods, as it is quite a chuck, and a marker rod, I went to have a lookie loo at what was attracting all this attention.

All it took was a bit of walking out on the banks and few casts and I found a large clear spot in about ten feet of water. This was obviously what the carp lads were aiming for and it was more than likely that all the bait was not just attracting carp. For me though I didn't have time on this occasion to spend two hours filling it in with bait, so I instead went for a more opportunist approach and clipped up two method feeders at the distance and cast them onto the spot laden with fishy ground bait full of chopped 10mm boilies. Casting every fifteen minutes soon rang the dinner bell whilst tainting the swim with enough bait to interest fish whilst not pre occupying them with large amounts of food. I'd only made three casts before one of the buzzers sprang to life as a small tench made off with the bait.

A few casts later I got a big drop back which brought the left hand alarm stuttering to life. This wasn't a tench given by the lack of fight and I kind of hoped it was a huge roach. When it eventually surfaced I saw much to my suprise my first ever Napton bream. Literally in ten years plus I have never caught a single bream and here I was with very young looking four pounder.

Where there's one bream there's others and few casts later I second received a big drop back which saw me hooked into a much larger fish, and the dull heavy fight told me another bigger bream was on its way in. As per, the fight was nothing to write home about but once in the net this fish was special for a whole other reason. Literally this fish looked a hundred years old with nobbles front to back. It was lumpy and bumpy and very calm, like an OAP fish. In its hey day this must have been some fish and it certainly had to have been a double figure fish. Now though it had gone past its prime maybe ten years ago and was probably lingering on undisturbed in the depths waiting out its life munching softened boilies moaning to the skimmers about the war.

Although extremely happy to have firstly located some big bream in Napton for future reference I now find myself thinking are those big fish I have seen rolling on this spot the big tench I thought or a shoal of bream that I think is massive tench. I suppose it's just a case of fish and find out, mind that might have to wait as I broke one of my rod tips putting it back in the car after this session and replacing these rods is not a high priority right now so it will have to wait until funds dictate.

Old gold - part two

Should I go or shouldn't I bother was the question that bounced back and forth in my mind. It had been a busy weekend so far though; swimming lessons with BB early Saturday followed by breakfast in the pub with dad club, then a couple of stops on the way home before the true madness began. Being more of a fan of grubbing round near water than of formal occasions, getting glammed up for one of my brother's weddings was always going to a stressful occasion. Add to that the high temperatures and a three year old sans nap and you've got a rare heady brew. The wedding went well but never underestimate how tiring it is chasing an over excited child and his cousins around a country house in the mid summer heat. 

The next day was no cooler and our sanity came into question as we wandered around with the hordes at Jefferson Gardens 'Art in the Park'. By three pm I was in full doubt of whether it was even worth going out. I felt sure this heat would have the rudd in a frenzy to which they've been rather prone in these conditions. So straight away I knew it would be a last hour job but was it worth it in this heat...all the insects would be having a field day and no doubt the local kids would be swimming in the ressie in this heat, trying their best to make the evening news with their belligerent stupidity...'Bollocks to it', I thought-I had to make the effort if I wanted the prize. Even if I only fished for an hour or two it might be worth it!

I couldn't believe it when I arrived; there was no-one there bar a carp angler and a chap hidden in the reeds down the other end. I had kind of thought I'd arrive to a full car park and all the best swims taken, but here I was with the choice of every swim we'd been baiting up and the only thing effecting my choice was the conditions. Choice is the worst thing in these situations! I had four swims in mind and they all looked equally great. I decided to take my time in choosing, plonked my gear down on the path between the swims and began wandering back and forth between them, wearing my new Fortis glasses hoping something might come to light. 

It turned out half an hour just watching was the best thing to do. One of the swims had noticeably less rudd swimming round in it and that alone is an advantage at this time of year. I stood under a tree watching the water for a while and as I did, something big and golden rolled at the end of the reed bed I was watching. I couldn't decide if it was a big rudd or a crucian, but it was enough to get me fetching the gear to this swim and watching a bit more. Then again I saw another flash of gold as something big rolled further out. Now every time I have seen a crucian at Napton I have caught a crucian and to me it's a sign that they are up for it and all I have to do is get a bait in the right spot. This fish, be it rudd or crucian, seemed to be moving away from the swim I was in. That was it decided; the gear was on the move again before even setting up, to the swim at the opposite end of the small reed bed, thinking they might be going that way.

Fifteen minutes later and I was set up, plumbed up, the ground bait was down and the trap was set. Then the nightmare began. Every time my corn hook bait entered the water the mass of ravenous rudd descended on it, hammering it away before it reached the bottom. My only choice was to employ the loaf of bread I had bought along to pull in the hundreds of ducks that seemed to push the rudd away momentarily, buying enough time for me to carefully drop the bait in place.

Time was ticking away quickly and the rudd were doing there damned best to ruin this session. I wouldn't have minded but the majority of the rudd in my swim were around an ounce too two ounce in weight. I'd be happy with a few big ones here or there but this lot were just pike bait and were basically ruining my chance to actually fish effectively. The rudd went at it constantly the whole session but somehow I managed to get enough hook baits down to the bottom to root out a load of the small younger tench that have appeared recently, as well as a couple of very nice four pounders which had moved in under the rudd madness above.

Having spent so much time at Napton of late I have literally become a human sun dial and can pretty accurately tell at least how much more time I have left to fish. With the sun nearing the dam end of the lake I knew I had forty five minutes to an hour to fish before my gaudy float tip began to blend into the murk. Thankfully the rudd seemed to have shoved off or at least simmered down and now my float sat motionless protruding from the waters mirror-like surface. As I sat there willing either bubbles to rise or the float to slide away, I saw a disturbance just beyond my float indicating a fish had made a big movement just under the surface. It was as I pondered the culprit that a golden head appeared to the right of my float. It rose from the water in almost slow motion till half the fish was exposed to the warm night air before it did a little roll onto its side and disappeared...In no uncertain terms it was a crucian that head and shouldered by my float and instantly I knew I wasn't going home till I had one.

The moments after seeing that fish were some of the most exciting and joyful of my angling life. Bubbles now dimpled the surface and they were not those made by tench. These individual bubbles the size of peas rose and held on the surface film until three or four more rose around them, then they popped almost audibly. I knew it was going to happen; everything was perfect and then the float stuttered under like some pecking little rudd had made off with my bait. I struck expecting nothing and was surprised by resistance, and hard resistance at that. The fish zipped around just like the small tench had done before it but then began circling, holding deep. I dared not believe as I applied gentle pressure to raise it to the surface, but it did not want to come and it dived back deep sending oily swirls up to the surface. Circling again I applied pressure and somewhere in the depths I saw a huge golden shape through the clear water before it broke the surface, a huge golden slab of crucian carp...

I bent over to stare into the net and could hardly discern it from above, it's colour so well matched my net and the bottom of the lake. I could barely catch my breath after holding it so long and it seemed to be totally out of rhythm with my thumping heart beat. Thinking a moment, I stowed it safely in the margin and prepared a suitable place away from its environment for such special prize. The hook was removed in the net and then I lifted this amazing fish up and it suddenly grew bigger as it turned onto its side. On the mat it was huge, bigger than any other crucian I'd seen firsthand from Napton.

This was it! This was the fish I d had been searching for so long and there it lay in front of me nestled in my net atop my unhooking mat. For so long I have studied the previous captures by myself and other anglers. I collected images of all the caught fish and begun to see the individual traits of each. The repeat offenders have become known and with their identification the obvious signs of predation borne by their fins has saddened me. This fish though was new to my eyes and even though it bears the same wear and tear all of its generation does, it still seems sprightly. So long have I theorized that we haven't seen truly how big these fish could grow in this water and again and again I have spouted ideas that bigger fish still could remain un-captured in such a large water and now here I was with the crucian of my dreams in my hands, my heart again thumping, finding myself unable to stop smiling at the sight of such a resplendent fish.

Well this is it, the end of a crucian quest for another year. Going back after more would only serve to taint such a wonderful experience so it's best I think to let the sun set on this campaign knowing full and well that this winters dreams need to be of even bigger ones if they're to draw me back again next year. That's not to say though that I won't go back for a few sessions here and there at Napton, as I have seen a few nice tench rolling during my summer on its banks and of course there is the matter of those roach and pike which could do with addressing in colder climes.

Old gold - part one.

Obsession has been my fuel the past hazy few months as the country has burnt crispy in the incessant heat of June, July and August. This obsession was born long ago and it's something I ruminate on traditionally over the long cold winter planning for the summer months. You see I think I am inclined as an individual to always dream of the seasons to come for some reason. For example, when it's hot I dream of cold crisp mornings and winter fishing for chub or pike; whereas on a cold winter day when I can't feel my hands I cannot help but think of baking hot days and summer fishing for tench and crucians. I don't know whether it's because I am a natural dreamer or whether it is simply because I am English that makes me like this. Whatever the reason, I know that this winter just past I dreamt of nothing but massive ancient old crucian carp. So much so that I feel sure that if telekinetic power is real then I cleared several spots of debris ready for fishing in summer through January alone just by thinking about them as much as I did.

I suppose that if you are reading this then by now you'll have a good idea of where this is going and what I have been doing since the start of this season and you'll have realized that by 'old gold' I mean the few rarest of fish that inhabit Napton reservoir. The whole situation seems this year to have been intensified by my failure last year to bank even one of those precious crucians I so much desire and seeing others catch one here or there was a very bitter sweet experience indeed.

The start of my obsessive campaign was an odd one as not long in I actually caught a crucian carp and quite a big one at that. But this elating experience left me in a unexpected position of target achieved very quickly. It was at this point when I suddenly found myself thinking, do I just leave it here and go and do something else, or do I actually take that as a win and follow the path of obsession for the summer and try for more. Even after catching my target so quickly it seemed too much of an anti climax to walk away at this point and even knowing how fruitless the summer might be crucian wise I made my decision to go with it and continue to obsess, safe in the knowledge that I had already caught and therefore could not fail from this point on. So with a crucian in the bag I went headlong onto this campaign to try and catch another crucian carp from Napton and thus spent most of my summer watching a float bobbing around in the clear margins of this moody venue.

I think that the fact that I adore tench fishing, love catching them on a float even more and that they are most of what you catch in this venue is a rather happy coincidence for me, and this tends to keep me pretty occupied as I angle after a crucian carp throughout the summer months. How many tench I have caught over the last three months or so is unknown. If I was to say on a bad session catching two or three might be about right and on a good day ten to fifteen is quite common, then I am sure it would be about right. I suppose therefore given the shear amount of sessions I have done this year then hundreds of tench have fought hard in the margins under my bent rod.

I have grown to love my 15' Greys Toreon rod so much this summer

I must have seen every sort of tench that swims in this water, from big females to tiny males. Happily I can say it seems that Naptons tench populations are in a very healthy state; even with some of the older fish looking a bit battle scarred there are loads of pound plus fish both home grown and stockies coming through to replace them.

One of the best captures of this campaign has to be a huge male tench, which along with looking quite young and very fancy with his huge fins, weighed in at close to six pounds. Now although I've always thought that old tome that female tench grow to twice the size of males to be a little of an over exaggeration, I do know that females grow bigger and this could point to there being some near double figure tench produced from this venue in the future.

Just recently I sat fishing at Napton and I spent some time trying to calculate the numbers of mornings, days and evenings I have spent at there. It took some time and brought back memories of all sorts of things, from seeing the otter chasing all the birds off the water, right through to the guy who thought the goose shit crusted banks were the best place to woo his lady. I've driven the country lanes so many times that I reckon my car could do it of its own accord. I've seen just about two thirds of the types of weather you can experience up there; from thunder storms to temperatures so hot that the air almost burned going into your mouth. And hand on heart it's been one of the best summers fishing I have had in years. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Surprising to me as well is that I still feel as obsessed at this point as I did at the start, as the sun set once again on wonderfully tench filled failure of a crucian session.

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...