The Hit
I have just returned from an afternoon’s lure fishing on a quite picturesque pit near my home.
It may be just be me, but I prefer to fish places that are appealing to the eye (I await admonishment from Derek Gibson who will doubtless now berate me for foolishly ignoring the featureless drains and dykes surrounding me…).
Anyway, back to the plot and five minutes after my arrival at a swim to the left of the car park, a group of three lads (ages 10-12ish) who had watched me set up from the opposite bank, some 80 yards away, came over, sat behind me and started the usual barrage of questions.
“Cort anyfink? What yer fishin’ for? Wot bait you using?” Etc. etc.
I replied to their enquiries as politely as I could: I obviously hadn’t caught anything as they had watched my arrival, I was fishing for pike (hopefully) and, motioning to the very large open box of lures beside me, showed them the ‘bait’ I was intending to use.
For their safety I did advise them not to sit so close behind me as I was swinging out a large plug armed with quite ferocious trebles (barbs flattened, of course) and after a few minutes the direct questions stopped, to be replaced by whispering behind my back. Then, and I must say much to my relief, they moved off.
Moments later the water in front of me was peppered with gravel that appeared to be coming from over the tree behind me. I walked up to the path to see the same three boys, who then took to throwing handfuls of gravel directly at my head. Now, while this may be some new, or experimental, treatment for dandruff or nits it was not a tonsorial treatment I felt I needed at this time.
I moved towards them and they then ran off through the gateway to the car park, treating me to various hand and finger gestures as they disappeared. I was puzzled as to what I could have done to promote this outburst, but thinking that would be the end of the matter, I moved a couple of swims to the left and continued fishing.
Two minutes later a fusillade of large rocks suddenly dropped both onto the water in front of me and into the trees beside me. I again walked up onto the path and the boys again ran off taunting me as they went. This time I whipped out my mobile phone and pretended to take photos of them as they looked back to see if they were being pursued. Although, even as I did so I wondered about the legal implications of being caught in possession of pictures of children, how perverse is that?
I packed up again and moved off further away from the car park, stopping around halfway along to see if I was being followed. The boys did indeed came back but because I was concealed by the trees along that bank they could not see me. After a while they did walk back along the road bank opposite to where I was and I took to hiding in the bushes so they wouldn’t pick me out (at last, a proper use for camo clothing when fishing….!). At this point I did start to feel slightly ridiculous and not a little angry at finding myself, a grown man, having to hide from kids!
I continued lure fishing and moving swims, for a couple of hours, until I was halfway along the road bank when I noticed that they had returned and were sitting in the swim next to the car park entrance. I was now concerned as I was working my round to that entrance as my car was parked behind that very swim and I most certainly did not want my car’s paintwork exfoliated with aggregate if they saw that it was mine.
Fate then smiled on me for once as the rain, which had started slowly a while ago, became a downpour and that was enough to send the little miscreants scurrying off. It is perhaps a modern dilemma that you cannot take any form of action against kids without bringing all sorts of retribution down upon your own head. When would defending yourself against attack become viewed as retaliation, aggression, or something even worse?
In this case the only thing I could have pressed into my defence would have been a stout landing net handle, and it would need to have been used at fairly close quarters to be of any use. But what use? I suspect that beating young kids with a six foot pole may not be viewed favourably by either the judiciary or the kids’ parents because had they had gone running home with tales of violence I suspect an outraged lynch mob would soon have been raised to avenge the poor little darlings.
Had I been ‘coarse’ fishing then my tackle bag would have contained a catapult or two. This would have allowed me to retaliate against the stone chuckers from a safe distance, but bringing ballistic capabilities to the encounter would no doubt raise the chances of a less than propitious meeting with the constabulary.
If this encounter happened thirty years ago, a very different scenario may have been played out as at that time I usually had an air rifle stowed in my rod bag (don’t ask) and I’m afraid to say that I side with Oscar Wilde in the view that ‘I can resist anything but temptation…’
The answer to the situation?
Sadly it appears these days the answer is to turn away from confrontation. A lone angler is hampered by his equipment, you can’t run too fast if you are carrying it, and if you leave your gear to give chase, you risk coming back to find it gone.
The Myth
The other side to this story is that I actually did get to do some lure fishing and, contrary to my usual exploits, I actually caught something, albeit that it was only a trio of very small jack pike. They say size isn’t everything though and the third capture made me smile if nothing else.
This particular young Esox had taken a Creek Chub Pikie which, as I got it in towards the bank, I could see was firmly clamped sideways in its maw. I could also clearly see the diving plate hanging out of one side of his mouth and the rear treble hanging out of the other.
The irony of this situation is that I had ‘improved’ this plug by removing the two middle trebles to reduce the chances of it picking up leaf debris. Therefore said young pikelet was able to spit out the lure two feet from the bank and momentarily seemed to stare up at me in disgust before shooting off.
A few minutes later I noticed a robin perched on a branch at head height not two feet away from me. I stopped retrieving my lure (one of the floating kind, fortunately) and turned to face Mr. Redbreast. He fixed with a beady stare and tilted his head, first to one side, then the other, almost as if to say ‘where is it then?’ Unfortunately I had neither bait nor even a crust from a sandwich to offer and, like an idiot, I held out an empty hand as if to show this. I swear the robin looked at my empty hand, looked back at me in what I perceived to be disgust and flew off, again in my eyes, in a huff.
I moved further round the lake and was casting around when I noticed a shape in the water right in front of me. Moving slowly from left to right was a huge carp, close enough to the bank that I could have prodded it with my rod tip. It’s always difficult to guesstimate size, but given the length and width across its shoulders it was well in excess of 25lb, and may well have been a lot bigger.
I was still musing at this when a passer-by stopped for a chat; he was a fellow angler and was enquiring about prospects on the lake. When I told him about the carp he said he had heard of a number of carp of over 30lb being landed and as I was lure fishing he said I could be in luck as there were also ‘monster’ pike of well over 30lb in the lake as well.
Ah…. the monster pike of myth and legend, isn’t there one in just about every lake and pond in the country? But it did get me wondering; this lake does have big carp, would it also hold big pike? Do these two diverse species happily co-habit when they get to specimen sizes? The presence of a large number of small pike means that pike must be breeding, but also I seem to recall evidence that removal or absence of large pike leads to an explosion of jacks.
Obviously there is local interest in the lake’s toothy inhabitants evidenced by the lure I managed to retrieve from an overhanging branch. Several yards of around 3lb nylon and a lack of any form of wire trace would indicate that the angler involved was not expecting to make contact the resident leviathan…
Perhaps a trip later in the year with some man-sized dead baits will see if the ‘mythtery’ is true in this case, and maybe I might just pack a catapult…
