Into the Valley, Pioneering? – Part 6

Into the Valley, pioneering? – Part 6

What a grey miserable day it’s turned out to be, sitting on the bank with a sprightly east/south easterly, whipping up the surface. Autumn is here and this is probably my last trip down, certainly as a pioneer, as the pub club has joined me.

Well, I’ve met up with George, at long last. As an arable farmer, it would appear to been a good late summer for him this year. No complaints thou, but it has been very busy. The weather’s been good up here on the Wolds to. I gave him my views on the lake and the fish contents, as I’ve found them, and he’s off to think about it.

In the meantime I’ve asked him to allow the pub club to have a ‘match’, so as to see how the fishery reacts to numbers. Probably unfair I suppose, as we are now into autumn and perhaps not the best time for a real test. He agrees, so we line it up for Sunday 15th October fishing 9am until 4pm. George says he’ll try and get down for the weigh in.

It’s down in the trees!

My advice to him is that he should sell season tickets for the water, say £ 50 a year to people recommended by friends, that is initially our club, and friends of our club members. This would enable him to see how he likes the idea of people arriving at the lake at all times of day or night, or alternatively, only allowing dawn ’til dusk fishing, as with the trout lakes.

The water would effectively become self-policing, with only known fisherman in attendance. As for the stock, I feel that, although there are too many rudd and carp in the lake we should let it stay as it is for a year, and then get a consensus view from the members fishing.

As I mentioned in my earlier pieces, there are two trout lakes. George appears to be unhappy with these as they are fished on trust. That is anglers leave their day ticket money in the fisherman’s hut and restricting themselves to two fish. He has become somewhat mistrusting, you can guess why, and just can’t afford the time to police the lakes. These could well be available for future expansion of the coarse fishing, if he decides to expand into a full-blown fishery business. We shall see.

Number 2 Trout lake

Anyway back to the match! 8am Sunday morning, as usual only 9 of the 25 members show up. I identify the swims we should fish, and the draw takes place. I’ve given nobody clues on how to fish, save as to tell them of the rudd population, the size of the carp and generally, what else to expect. By the way I didn’t draw my swims. I’ve also insisted, expecting many good sized fish to be caught, that any fish appearing to be in the region of 3lb, should not be keep netted. With the benefit of hindsight this could have been a bad decision, as we don’t obviously have a nets man, but the only coached match fisherman amongst us, has the scales and weigh sling!

During the match our nets man has the call eight times, the first within 15 minutes.That was from old Doug, he’s the old boy, who along with his elder brother Bob, turn up to every match rain or shine and sit there all day catching, or sometimes not, each with a ledger rod out with a worm or a chunk of cheddar!

Doug by the way, is in for the biggest fish trophy this season, and holds the all time club record for a mole, caught when a cast of his, ended up on a far bank and his worm attracted the poor creature!

First decent fish to Doug, a common of 5lb 10ozs, as it turned out, his only fish. To cut a long story short, the rudd had obviously lost interest in feeding, on what was a bit of an on/off day. The 9 of us weighed in a total of only 76lb3ozs, the nets man winning with a total of 13lb 10ozs, despite his eight trips up and down the bank.

The biggest fish a 7lb 10ozs common carp, Bob’s only fish. Two very nice tench at 4lb each, and a surprise chub that looked all of 2lb, but weighed in at 3lb2ozs.No crucians caught.

George did turn up for the weigh in, and was pleasantly surprised with the standard of the fish caught. As a country boy, he knew what the species were too.

I may well go down again this year, as I still have the small pond to test out. I will let you know if I do. As well as that, I suppose I should also let you know how George wants to treat his fishery. As far as the club goes, they want to go again. The variety of fish caught and the quality was commented upon, as the main reason.