Do Waters Have IQ’s?

Jack-sharping and then onto a cane rod

I have fished in various ways and places since I was very small. I recall being all agog when the jam-jars of those engaged upon ‘jack-sharping’ in the park lake were graced by a male stickleback in full livery, making my female specimens pale into insignificance. For some reason I never, ever, caught one of those jewels, preparation perhaps for the disappointments of later angling excursions!

Jack-sharping on the park lake

Then I cracked it

In my early teens I finally ‘cracked it’. I had acquired another whole cane rod, a much more graceful weapon than the first, with a real cork handle. I still had my small centre pin but the line was finer and the hooks size 16, and with this outfit and the knowledge and enthusiasm gained from reading Dick Walker and Fred J Taylor, I visited a park lake that had only just been opened for fishing. There, on a sliver of bacon (I’m not sure if it was Dick Walker, Fred Taylor or some other guru but I had read somewhere that bacon would catch fish), I hooked a bristling perch of about 6 ounces. What is more, I landed it, unhooked it and returned it to its watery home. I only caught the one but the delight of that catch made Newsham Park, Liverpool my favourite angling venue for some years, and it confirmed me as an angler.

That initial triumph, on a first visit to a new water, seems to have set a pattern within my angling experience which continues to this day: I often do well on my initial visit to a water.

First visit success and then…

My first visit to Mollington, a then well known small fishery on the outskirts of Chester, brought me a total of 19 tench and several crucians. Despite the fact that my two companions, who knew the water, had contrived to choose the ‘best’ swims for themselves, my catch more than equalled their joint efforts; subsequent visits never saw me catch more than 3 or 4 fish.

My initial trip across the Denbigh Moors to Trawsfynnyd Lake in Gwynedd saw me catch a huge bag of good sized perch, roach and rudd plus a limit-bag of excellent brown and rainbow trout, all on worm or maggot. I was then enticed into flyfishing, in part, because of my subsequent lack of success at Trawsfynnyd on the bait fishing methods that had produced such an astounding result on day one. My companions on later trips invariably flyfished and, equally invariably, caught fish whilst my catches declined markedly.

In 1978, my first visit to Llyn Brenig was a wondrous affair when fish seemed all but willing to crawl up the bank to hook themselves on whatever fly or lure I threw at them. The fishing was so fast and furious that on one occasion when I pulled out of a fish close to the surface and my fly flew back towards me, it landed on the water only a yard or two in front of where I stood and was taken immediately by another fish; later in the day a large brownie plucked my small black lure from the surface before it could sink. In all I took a double limit of 12 fish that day and I could have had many more. It was one of those days when you just had to take a break to savour what was happening and I took several breaks to save an early trip home. And yet in later visits I rarely took a six fish limit, despite long days on the water.

That sort of pattern continued on my return to coarse fishing on different stretches of the Severn, Ribble and Dane, plus many a still water, large or small.

The final day of two recent seasons saw me take memorable, though very different, catches on stretches of the Severn that I had not previously fished: in 1997 on the day-ticket stretch at Monkmoor I had an amazing mixed bag of barbel, to just under 6lb, chub to 4 lb, perch to 1lb 12oz, pike, dace, gudgeon and roach, a catch that included two personal best fish.

In 1998 as a guest on a club stretch I caught just two barbel, in the darkness after a long hard day, but both fish were bigger than I had previously caught. The curious thing is it that such enjoyable initial visits so often are followed by hard times. On many such waters subsequent visits have been, in comparison, disappointing. Not that I have not enjoyed those later trips but …… you know what I mean, I think.

The River Dane

Is it me?

Why should this be? Is it ME? Am I beguiled into fishing in the same way that resulted in my triumph, regardless of what the water conditions are? Is it just bad luck, poor timing or general ineptitude? Or is there something else going on?

Do waters that say “hello” in such generous terms have an agenda of their own?

Perhaps the purpose is to lull me into a false sense of capability from which I may never recover where that water is concerned. If I am not catching, the fish cannot be feeding, or the air pressure is wrong, or the water temperature unfavourable. In short it’s not MY fault. And thus I am, forever, condemned to scratch around on that water, never approaching the success of the first visit.

Some waters, on the other hand, have made the mistake of not responding to me first time and I have gone on to work on their mysteries and my catches, generally, have improved as time has gone by. If stretches of water can be said to have a form of intelligence, as these conclusions imply, it might be useful to devise a means of calculating their IQ:

Thicker waters being the ones to visit on a regular basis. Rings of bright water to be visited just the once!