“Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it’s all right”
I am sure with the age profile of angling that most of us will know the words to that great Beatles song. I couldn’t think of anything better to start this month’s catch up, as indeed it has been a long, cold, though far from lonely winter. With no rain round my way and temperatures all over the place this winter has, for the greater part, and for me at least been a bit of a washout.
This has been made all the more annoying as I have had a little posse of friends and family this year that I have been doing my best to put onto fish as they have decided to take up our great sport.
Now this is something that I am very passionate about as some of my greatest laughs and life experiences have taken place through fishing; I have made some fantastic friends through the sport too and by and large can say that it’s possibly the best gift that my parents ever gave to me. My dad in actually taking me out and showing me the ropes and mum in letting us all go so much when, I am sure, she would have loved to have spent time with her two boys.
Fishing has kept me away from hanging around on the streets, and from getting into drugs and far worse trouble than that which I did manage and, in part, it has also given me a career and for someone that has taken so much it would be impolite at best to not try and pass on in some part that gift to others that may wish to share it.
The problem though has been ‘Lady Luck’ and ‘Mother Nature’, those two most flighty of females. Everything that could go wrong seems to have gone wrong; indeed once again I anticipated writing this month’s column about the woes which have befallen our merry band. But then, like most females, just when you think they are going to punish you some more they show a softer side and, just for once, give you the hope and anticipation that they will bestow you with some gifts – and finally they did.
I am going to gloss over the first three weeks of the month as they passed in little more than an exercise in how many layers of clothes you could wear in a day, how thick the ice would be or how deep the snow; in essence a write off. Two jack pike were the sum total of three week’s endeavor, hardly the stuff of legend. In fact I am sure that this, in part, lead to just the faintest sniff of mutiny in the ranks.
“Uncle Mark how come all these people know who you are?” said nephew, Adam.
“Well, because I write for publications that go all over the country.” I responded.
“So, people would know you all over the country” he responded in a slightly disbelieving voice.
“Well yes, those that read the columns would.” I replied.
“Well how come we never catch anything then?”
Out of the mouths of babes! Forget having an ego with a nine year old around!
But as the month drew to close so wondrous things began to happen. The mercury in the thermometer, which had resolutely remained around zero for weeks, began to stretch and stir from its winter slumbers. In fact it went higher, into spring’s territory and for a week we basked in mild temperatures into the mid teens but better still out came the sun, refreshed from her winter sleep and carrying warmth back to frozen digits.
So it was that with such lovely weekend weather to look forward to I would break the habit of recent times and fish all weekend. With time usually available to me in the week for a long while I have left the banks free on a Sunday for those less fortunate time-wise, but we had been somewhat lacking in fortune this winter so it was a case of every man for himself.
My first day was spent on the River Cam in the centre of Cambridge with my mate George ‘Dobby’ Day. Now George is better known to many on YouTube as the ‘Fenland Fisherman’, and he uploads videos of his exploits, in fact he is going to let me have a short version for this website on our trip as it was such a success.
However, success was far from our minds after a couple of hours in our first swim as rower after rower came down the river causing us to keep our rods low as they came within inches of us. The Cam isn’t really big enough for oarsmen, they cause nothing but ill feeling and think they have some divine right to be on the river, making life more difficult than it should be. Two hours of this was enough and despite George winkling out a 3lb chub it was time to move to quieter pastures.
Our move took us right into the heart of the city and, to be honest, on a fine, mild day that’s possibly not the best place to be especially from a peace and solitude point of view but you could have knocked me down with a feather when the first person we encountered was none other than a FishingMagic forum user: ‘Beerweasel’!
Despite the busy road behind us and the people making use of the fine day sport was hectic. My first cast saw my sliver of steak taken and a chub of about 3lb 8oz was duly brought to the net – a very good start but George was quickly to trump that quite spectacularly.
The Cam is known for holding numbers of chub and occasionally sixes and sevens are caught but five pounders are still considered very big fish for the river. So when George indicated that he needed a hand, and that he also thought that he had got a five pounder, it was quite exciting. That excitement only grew when I saw the fish resting in his landing net as I was certain that this fish was more likely to go 6lb than five. In fact on the scales it went as close as it could nudging the 6lb mark before settling on 5lbs 15oz, one hell of a Cam chub.
After getting the obligatory video for George’s site I wandered back to my rod. In-between the first fish and my little break to help George I had added two more chub, both around the 1lb 8oz mark and I was looking for more of the same. Sadly the absence of feed going into the swim meant that the fish had moved and it took an hour of casting about before I finally made contact once more, adding three more of similar sizes to the bag before the light began to fade and the loonies started to come out of the woodwork!
However, as darkness drew her veil over proceedings so the chub went on a final rampage as I added a 3 and a four pounder to my catch I saw George coming along the bank once more. Once again he reckoned he had another five pounder and once again the fish missed making 6lb by the smallest of margins, this time by 2oz. George and I giggled like schoolboys as we videoed and photographed the fish and decided that enough was now enough. Even the council slapping me with a parking ticket couldn’t ruin the atmosphere, it had been a brilliant day and I felt like a few demons had been exorcised from this winter.
I got home late that night and after a quick takeaway, a good mug or two of tea and Match of the Day it was a weary angler that finally crashed out – only for the alarm clock to sound again all too soon the next morning for round two.
This time I was joined by my little group of apprentices, Mike and Lydia and my nephew Adam. Since Adam had taken an interest in angling a few months earlier we have been trying to catch him his first pike, which he managed at 7lb, his first zander which he hadn’t, and his first double figure pike, again still waiting. The targets for the others had been the same and whilst Lydia and Mike had both caught pike, neither had done the double, though Mike had lost at least three, but his tardiness with the pike had been made up for by catching a 10lb 11oz zander that appeared in my Christmas column. Hopefully things were going to change today on their own little scorecards.
Our venue was a stretch of the Old West River which is the river I grew up fishing on. The area we were fishing sees a lot of pike and zander arrive around the back end of the season as not only does it harbour a lot of prey fish but also holds the spawning grounds for the pike.
Unfortunately my day was being slightly blighted from the start as my back, which has developed a horrible habit of going into painful spasm in recent years, was playing up and it was hard work getting the gear the 150 yards along the bank. However my discomfort was apparently nothing compared to Adam’s at having to use his old Pokémon camp chair rather than my old Fox one as I couldn’t carry his and mine in my condition!
As we set up under beautiful blue, dawn skies it certainly looked like the weather was at least going to be good and on days like this it rarely matters whether you catch or not but as it happened today was destined to be just a bit special. Hardly had our baits hit the water than Mike’s alarm sounded the first interest of the day and, with Adam manning the net, he drew back into what seemed like a decent looking fish. As the fish got to netting distance I heard the cry “it’s a zander” and the net was rather forcibly removed from Adam’s grasp so Mike could do the honours himself!
Mike’s affinity with the species had held out and there looked likely to be double number two on the mat for him, however the scales made it a weekend of near misses when the fish registered 9lb 14oz, still a lovely zander though and we photographed it in welcome strong sunshine.
As we basked in the rising temperatures so the thick waterproofs were discarded and the general mood increased, though Adam was doing a good job of raising my blood pressure by continually missing runs by forgetting one part or the other of the striking procedure.
In the end, on the next run to his baby bluey, we resorted to talking him through every single point and then shouted…“STRIKE!” at the appropriate moment and at last he made contact with a pike. After quite a spirited battle which ended with Mike heroically (or stupidly whatever your perspective) taking a boot full for the team Adam netted a new personal best of 9lb 3oz, close to the magical double but as yet no toy cigar!
There followed a lull for the next hour or so when Mike and I, who by now were acting as ghillies, managed a cup of tea and a muffin before it all kicked off again. Lydia missed a run much to Mike’s chagrin but on her next chance she made no mistake and this time the rod went over and stayed there. Lydia hung on like a trooper and, little by little, the pike came back towards the waiting net with Mike concentrating on netting it; I gave Lydia some words of advice as she has a tendency to let the line go slack when pumping a fish back, an error that has cost her a few fish over the season (Adam too). But this time there was no mistake and a substantial amount of pike was engulfed in the net.
Here the fun and games really began as the pike decided to fight as hard on the bank as it had in the water and Lydia was not, initially, very keen on holding it; in fact she was shaking like the proverbial shi**ing dog if truth be told! But, much like the scene in ‘Airplane’ where the passengers form a queue to slap the hysterical woman, so she endured the taunts from three males before handling the fish like a pro and with a beaming smile to boot.
Of course now Lydia had caught one Adam was champing at the bit to catch a big pike; oh – and if we could get a big zander whilst we were waiting that would be just fine!
The runs kept on coming and though both Lydia and Adam were missing a fair percentage Lydia managed to hook into another big pike only to lose it at the net. Adam managed to do slightly better and land a 7lb fish but then it happened…
Once more the Nash Siren let out its battle cry and Adam was getting his usual coaching from the sidelines, “wind, wind, wind, STRIKE!” and as he did so the rod bent right over and this time it stayed there. This time I knew that he had finally made contact with the fish that we had been after all winter. The pike though wasn’t so keen on being Adam’s first big fish and was determined to stay out at range. There were lots of groans from both my gear and Adam and at one point the clutch on my Shimano Baitrunner struggled to keep up with a searing run, almost flat rodding him in the process, but eventually the pike tired and it lay in the bottom of the net.
The look on Adam’s face as Mike lifted the net from the water made all the blank hours, the cold and the expense worthwhile as his eyes came out on stalks at the sheer size of what he had just managed to catch.
We weighed the fish in at 16lb 3oz and lay them both out on a bed of soft, dead reeds and after a bit of coaxing and calling of names we finally convinced Adam to put his hands into the gill and hold the pike properly for the photos, his beaming smile and sense of achievement lighting up the fading light of a February day that one little man and one much bigger one will remember for the rest of their days, that’s indeed fishing magic!
