Well, the river season has finally come to an end. Good thing too, had it lasted any longer I would have come to an end myself. To think that I had looked forward to that last week with the river all to myself and chub and barbel crawling up the rods to get at my carefully prepared bait. Little did I know that most of the population of the Western hemisphere would be camped out there too.
It was tough old week on the ‘officer’ with little to show for my efforts – the carefully prepared bait has now taken up residence in the bin and I’ve walked my little legs off trying to find somewhere to fish. At one stage, having already visited three different stretches trying to find space to wedge a bank stick in, I came across Jimmy ‘The Finch’ Finchley who had just set up. Having never met him before, it was a little disconcerting when he blurted out my name in a cheery greeting. You know the thoughts that race through your mind at such times:
Who’s this then?
Do I owe him money?
How can I have a conversation with this guy without letting on that I haven’t a clue who he is?
In the end it seems he had recognised me from my FISHINGmagic portrait on the forum so I needn’t have worried.
“How have you managed to turn up at dinnertime and get the best swim on the stretch?” I asked him.
“Beats me!” he replied. He nodded towards the next angler some thirty yards up the bank, “I mean no disrespect to Numpty Boy there but he’s going to catch feck all in that stupid swim!”
I wondered just what words he would have chosen to show disrespect as I trudged off along the bank but a brief chat to ‘numpty boy’ confirmed that he’d had nothing in four hours fishing.
I eventually squeezed in next to an old mate of mine and we blanked with style together. It was a scary evening though, with both banks lined by blankers (I said blankers). The leads whistling past our ears all night made me wonder if the second Gulf war had already started.
The next trip was, if anything, worse. We managed to find a stretch that was receiving little pressure and we had our choice of swims. That may have been something to do with the fact that Sammy the Seal, on holiday from the Irish Sea, had scoffed all the specimen chub and barbel in the stretch – still, we live and learn.
I shared a swim with the insufferable Barry Scholes and an evening of cut and thrust banter ensued. I had showed Barry a photo of my latest catch, a 5lb 14oz chub. Of course Scholesey had gone one better and caught a six pounder the week before.
“Bit skinny towards the back end, that fish of yours.” He pontificated.
“So was that one of yours.” I countered.
“No it wasn’t, my chub was thick all the way back to its vent!”
“Yes, it must have been!” I smirked.
“Bitter, bitter, bitter” came the predictable reply.
I spent the evening biteless again but at least I had a bit of company. I had tried to squeeze into the same pool a few days earlier with somewhat less success. The pool is fifty yards long and the river was in flood making it the only fishable area. There was another angler fishing the head of the pool. “Ok if I drop in at the tail of this pool?” I asked him.
“I’ve got a bait there!” He said in an unfriendly manner. If I tell you that this guy has a reputation for catching lots of big barbel off the river (including the river record), you’ll know who he is. I look forward to returning the favour for him one day. Another mate, Jeff, had talked to him the day before and had asked him the secret of his incredible success with the barbel. “I fish five nights a week,” came the reply. No substitute for watercraft is there?
It’s all got too much for me. At three o’clock this morning the platform I was fishing from tipped over, sending me sliding gently into the river. I was conscious of two things as the inky water rose silently about my ears. The first was a voice on the bank behind, “It’s quite alright, he’s a trustee of Lamb Angling Club. He has major properties on the riverbank.” The second was a weak plaintive cry, a thin wail which gradually became louder and louder until it woke me with a start.
“What was it this time?” asked the wife.
“Oh it was awful,” I told her “I fell in.” She consoled me with a snigger.
“Why didn’t you give me a nudge?” I said, “You could tell I was having a bad dream from the wailing I was doing.”
“I was having a dream of my own thank you.”, she said. “Anyway, it serves you right for writing that article about Vinnie Gelfick falling in.” It was true, I did write a spoof about poor old Vinnie. His name’s an anagram so you can work it out for yourself. I told her about the rest of the dream, particularly the other voice I had heard.
“That’s typical of Lamb Angling Club” I told her “While I’m expiring in the river they’d be carving up my assets!” This left her giggling uncontrollably and unable to get back to sleep.
“Serves you right!” I told her “Next time, give me a nudge.”
Scholesey and I had a bit of fun with Vinnie a couple of weeks back. We motored past his boat on an exclusive fishery and passed a few unkind remarks about his likeness to a gargoyle. In retaliation, he cast across our lines and managed to snag Scholesey’s in an attempt to pull his lure in. He hadn’t banked on Scholesey using hundred pound braid though and being the tight arse git that he is, he never gave Vinnie an inch of line. He dragged Vinnie’s lure all the way to our boat, pulling up the other boat’s anchor in the process, and I snipped through Vinnie’s line before jamming the engine into gear and making off with his jerkbait. We were off and running, with Dot and Ethel (our nicknames for two of the country’s top pikers) in hot pursuit. When they eventually caught up with us, they decided to get their revenge by filling their bailer and throwing the water over us. Unfortunately, they hadn’t accounted for the gale force wind that was blowing into their faces at the time and the trick backfired somewhat!
“Didn’t your mother tell you never to piss into the wind?” I shouted.
I spent two weekends on working parties at Lamb Angling Club waters. This is a requirement if you want to fish their waters in the close season. I suppose it’s not a bad idea if you want to get well-attended work parties but inevitably, it ends up with too many workers and not enough work. I took my lad along and we got told to rebuild a peg that had collapsed into the water. “That’ll take you until dinnertime,” the organiser had told us. Unfortunately, two other blokes joined in and helped. One of them was a real grafter and virtually did the job single-handed in half an hour. “Gets the job done dunnit?” said Dai (he was Welsh). I watched him, bemused. “You’ve not been on one of these work parties before have you?” I asked – though the question was a rhetorical one.
“That was quick!” said the organiser’s voice from behind. “You can rebuild the next one now”. Dai looked crestfallen but he set to and did the next one. By dinnertime we’d rebuilt almost every peg on the fishery and the organiser was finding more and more pointless work in an attempt to fill up the allotted six hours. Meanwhile, other, more astute members had filled the time by trimming a few twigs that were overhanging the water before embarking on a two hour pub lunch – they got credited with their six hours just like we did.
Dai never turned up for the second work party. Pity really, because we got given a job and finished and we were all home by twelve.
Well, now that the river season is at an end and the pike fishing is over I can finally put my feet up. Then again, those big tench down at the sand pit should be feeding in this mild weather and if I get some more work parties in I can fish that big mere…..
