He is also a very keen angler, having come back to the sport in 1995 following a break of several years. In this regular column he will tell us about his progress as an angler – his thoughts about the sport, what he learns, the fishing trips he makes, the anguish, the humour, in fact everything he experiences as his angling career develops. | |||
ONLY ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE IT – HARD! My fifth session of the season on the Dove took place on another hot and sunny day. The river itself was particularly low and clear. But experience has shown me that this is not a problem on the Dove, and this was confirmed within an hour of casting out. A good barbel had decided to sample my boilie and I was into another arm-wrenching fight, of which I have become accustomed to on this particular Trent tributary.
Suddenly, the line went slack Then suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, the line went slack and the fish was gone. Retrieving I discovered that the hook had straightened slightly, the angle increase allowing the fish to evade capture. The Drennan Boilie hooks have never let me down before, so I put it down to a freak incident. One of those inexplicable things, that does happen from time to time. Within another hour I am again into another good Dove barbel. Once more the hard work was done, by preventing the fish from reaching the safe haven of the tree roots. And again the fish was brought into the middle of the river. But the parallel with the previous fish did not end there though, because once more the line went slack and the fish swam away. This time it was the hook length that had broken. This is line that I have used to catch most of my doubles on and has never let me down before. Again, another inexplicable freak event. But would it be third time lucky with the next fish? I’m afraid it wasn’t, as there wasn’t one! So instead of returning home with two really good fish under my belt I was a blanker. In specimen angling, the difference between ‘success’ and ‘failure’ is often a very fine line. But to lose two good fish under the circumstances described is, I hope, a one-off event that will never again be repeated!
My recent comments about the quantity of barbel in the section of the River Sow I am fishing will, I feel, become prescient. Following the capture of my recent double, the next two sessions did not produce even a hint that there were any fish remotely interested in my bait. I did however, hear the odd one or two decent fish topping in the river once darkness descended. Of course, it doesn’t mean to say they were barbel, but at least it’s encouraging I suppose! Still, we are all different in terms of what we want from our angling, and I’m more than happy to sit it out with the anticipatory hope that there may be a few more decent fish around. This is the great thing about angling – it can be to us whatever we want it to be. A couple of hours a month gudgeon fishing on the local canal, with a fish every cast, or dozens of hours pursuing specimen fish, with very little activity from them – the choices are ours. As long as we enjoy what we do, that’s the main thing. Severn series As August drew out, I made my first visit of the season to the Upper Severn. I intend to fish it later in the year for chub, but I was ‘forced’ to make a visit earlier than expected. (I use the word ‘forced’ purely and simply because, how can any fishing trip, no matter what the circumstances, be considered a hardship?). Anyway, I had recently had a call from James Holgate, the editor of Coarse Angling Today. He asked if I would write an article for the magazine. I sent off a list of topics and he chose ‘The River Severn’. I composed an article, which I duly sent off. James then got back and said they liked the article so much, could I do it in two parts. This I promptly did, only to receive a further request for the article to be a three part one instead. This made it all very convenient as I could now very neatly divide the river into its three natural classifications – upper, middle and lower. The only problem was that my photo library is somewhat lacking as far as upper Severn material is concerned. Hence the need to make a visit. And of course, one can’t travel all that distance without taking rods – killing two birds with one stone and all that! However, I should have stuck to the camera work! The fishing produced an absolute blank! Mere bream As we entered September I felt like a last crack at some decent bream. So, pointing my car in the direction of north Shropshire I headed for one of the meres. Although often referred to collectively as the Cheshire meres, the reality is that many of them are actually in Shropshire. Due to family commitments I got there just in time to set up and cast out before darkness fell. It was a mild, dry night and so I had only taken the Bedchair Brotel, as opposed to putting the bivvy up. Lying there resting, as darkness fell, I spotted a large silhouette in front of me. I knew what it was straight away and my heart sank. Switching the head torch on I illuminated a big rat that was feasting on bits of food and bait that had been dropped on the floor. My mind instantly went back to just over a year ago when I had an encounter with rats while fishing a gravel pit in Suffolk. On that occasion I ended up with holes in the bivvy as they chewed through to get to my food. But here I was in Shropshire, exposed to the elements – and the rats.
Five sessions and not one fish to report! So, you may ask, why am I bothering to write an article based on blanks? Well, I think when one writes regularly, you need to honest, transparent and open. I’ve had some very good catches recently, but the reality is that I don’t catch a 10 lb barbel every time I go fishing! To create that impression would be false and misleading. The world of the specialist angler involves hard work, many a long session without bites and oodles of patience and perseverance. To say otherwise would be telling lies. Yes, I’ll report the good catches when they come, but I’ll also be honest when things are more at the other end of the spectrum. In fact, there’s only one word to describe my fishing at the moment – hard! | |||
Next Thursday it’s back to pure barbel when I tell you how ‘THE DOVE IS EASY, BUT THE SEVERN PLAYS HARD TO GET’. As the title suggests I’ve been struggling on the Severn. However, I have had another beauty from the Dove. To find out the details, check out FISHINGmagic when all will be revealed. The Reverend Stewart R Bloor Pilgrim’s Progress – read it every Thursday! |
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