Right, so how do you make a fishing blog interesting when you have spent most of the month away from the bank? Well here is my attempt and I hope that you enjoy it!
First of all I had better explain the reason for my absence from the bankside, which was because the dreaded flu virus that does the rounds most winters caught me early this year – and in a big way. I say ‘caught me early’ because most winters I end up with that year’s particular lurgy around the Christmas period as, after spending most of the year outdoors and in pretty limited company, the season’s festivities bring me indoors and into contact with a variety of people – and that is when I always pick up some bug.
However, as I say, this year I managed to catch ‘proper’ flu and it really knocked me for six. For the best part of three weeks I was confined to bed, for ten days I barely ate anything, and I dropped two stone in the process – the one bonus of the whole affair!
So, instead of doing battle with the zander and chub that had been my plan for this month I have instead been tucked under the duvet with soup and the cricket from India, which, with the way things have gone for the England team, has been somewhat uplifting, even in my parlous state!
In reality though, if I could have picked a point in the year to have missed I guess I haven’t done too badly. Even here in the Fens, where the whole river system is backed up to get rid of excess water, we have had some pretty serious rainfall and the rivers and drains have suffered accordingly.
The only two trips I did manage before becoming bed bound were both affected by the rising water. The first was a jigging trip on the Great Ouse and this was fresh from the first deluge. In theory this should have been good news because rising, running water with colour in it are pretty good conditions for catching zander, especially on jigs. However the very first run off of the winter in the Fens always brings with it masses of blanket weed that clogs up the line, covers the bait and generally ruins the fishing completely. After all with all that weed coming through it must be difficult for the fish, similar to us standing facing a gale when it’s snowing. I did manage one very small zander very quickly but after that it became ridiculous with Mike and I continually having to strip the jigs of cloying blanket weed and we eventually gave it up as a bad job.
Our other trip was again on a flooding river, albeit this time on our local river Cam. Chub and perch were to be our targets for the day, Mike deciding to go out and out for the chub whilst I was going to hedge my bets a bit, especially as we saw a number of fry scatter from the large near bank slack that we had elected to fish.
I started off by laying on a large lobworm and pretty much had bites straight off which I promptly missed. I put this down to over eager small perch and I was probably correct because over the course of the day I managed to catch a number of small perch in the 3-8oz range, not exactly the stamp of fish that I was looking for.
Meanwhile Mike managed to miss a clanging bite on his steak and mince attack for the chub before making contact with the second one which resulted in a nice chub of 3lb 8oz. Sadly though that was pretty much it for the chub as the pace on the river started to increase and even in our slack the dreaded blanket weed began to become a problem again, especially for mike on the feeder.
Things were slightly better for me on the float and as we approached the ‘witching hour’ for perch my floatfished double lobworm sailed away and I struck into something altogether more substantial. It was pretty apparent from the outset that it wasn’t the hoped for big perch or chub, but as I backed the drag off on my Stradic I was thinking that I had probably hooked a decent pike.
However, when my unseen adversary decided to slug it out in the same spot I realised that I was attached to a very out of season and completely unwelcome eel! Now I realise that the eel is both a protected species and also a fairly fascinating creature, but I cannot stand the bloody creatures. I certainly wouldn’t ever hurt one and this one of 2lb was unhooked and returned safely, but if I was never to catch another eel in my life I wouldn’t shed a tear, believe me!
So that was it for me for November, the dreaded lurgy struck the very next day and that was my fishing done for. Of course now that I am back on my feet, so to speak, everywhere is frozen! Still there’s a good bit of fishing still to come, especially as the Christmas holidays are almost upon us and a certain nephew will be itching to use any new gear that Santa may bring.
I also like this period of the year for fishing, especially for pike as the fishing tends to get a bit more predictable as they start to think about their annual spawning and, hopefully, we can intercept a big girl or two before the end of the season. No matter what way things have gone prior to the New Year, when the urge starts to get to the fish to spawn they will begin to make their way to certain areas – and if you know where these are they don’t tend to change year in year out – so there is always the possibility to save a season right at the end. Hopefully that won’t be the case this year, but the way that this year is flying by there’s always that possibility.
So it’s just left for me to say that I wish you all a merry Christmas and a fish filled New Year.
