The Friday before Christmas I was without a fishing partner for the day due to various circumstances so I thought I’d have a leisurely day on the Lea Valley water I’d had some good sport on the previous season. It’s only 15 miles from home so I didn’t have to prise myself from the pit too early; nonetheless, I was still on the bank before daybreak.
Five hours fishing with three rods saw no action so I decided to move to where I could cast to an island, a rather tall and steep-sided affair that screamed pike. I put out three sea-baits at various points around the feature, sat back and got to thinking: wouldn’t it be nice to fish from that island as well as to it? Despite putting in the hours I didn’t get a sniff all day but my enthusiasm for the area beyond the island, in open water, had been fired.
That evening in the boozer I spoke to The Hedgehog about it and, as the ale slipped down, we hatched a plan to paddle out to the island in a dinghy… “Thing is…” I said, “I ain’t got a dinghy, and neither have you”
“Nah, true…but the kids have got one o’ them rubber boats in the attic; I’ll get it out and see if there’s any holes in it. If it’s ok we’ll use it to get to that island”
It all seemed so simple. Great idea, I thought, and as the session wore on we got more and more excited at the prospect of getting on the island. Well, by chucking-out time all we were concerned about was would we have enough bait, having a mere half-hundredweight of mackers, herring and sard’s between us. We were worried we might run out because we were going to slaughter them. “It ain’t been fished before – we’ll ‘ammer ‘em!” said The Hedgehog, “They’ll be queuing-up!”
Anyhow, the trip was arranged for New Year’s Day (bad idea) as I worked most of the Christmas holidays; it was the only day I had off. I went round to the Hedgehog’s feeling like shite as you might imagine, but when he opened the door I suddenly felt quite well – he looked absolutely diabolical!
Anyway, in I went and after downing several cups of tea he and I were able to communicate. “What’s the boat like?” I asked without a great deal of confidence.
“Well, it had a couple of punctures but I’ve fixed ‘em”
At that, I just knew that my best course of action was to go straight back home and into the pit for another few hours – and so did he, but neither of us had the bottle to back out of a day’s piking or, indeed, to admit defeat. It would have been so easy…
On arriving and unloading all the tackle, the thought of trudging the mile and a bit across the iron-hard frozen ground on that bitterly cold morning with snow forecast was daunting to say the least, but we forged ahead, buoyed-up with the prospect of heaps of fish – hadn’t we, after all, had a great day the previous year when we fished into a driving blizzard on this very pit? Did we not have ten doubles between us? We could do it again!
Anyhow, we eventually arrived at our launching-spot and blew the boat up. Now, this boat is so ****ing small there was no way we could both get in it, so the plan was for The Hedgehog to get in and row over to the island while I hung on to a bit of 12lb line that was attached to the boat, whereupon he would get out and tie another bit of line to the boat so we could pull it to-and-fro between us to ferry our gear across.
This worked quite well, surprisingly. I pulled the boat back and loaded the tackle in it and The Hedgehog then pulled it back to the island and unloaded it. “Pull it back and get in and I’ll pull you over” he ordered. Well, I managed to get in – quite a feat for a seventeen stone fat bastard like me from a sheer, loose, newly-dug gravel bank straight into twelve foot of ice-cold water, only trouble was, by this time, there was a good half-inch of water sloshing around in the bottom of the boat. I started the day, then, with a soaking-wet and very cold arse. Anyway, he dragged me over and we were at last on the island. With great haste we assembled ten rods between us and chucked them all out and wondered if we might have time to pour a cup of tea before the first run came.
It was about 9 o’clock by now and nothing was happening. At 2 o’clock it started to snow heavily and the wind got up and we still hadn’t had a pull. There we were like two snowmen, frozen stiff and slumped in our chairs.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement. No, it wasn’t one of the back-biters twitching, it was the ****ing boat being whipped up into the air by the wind and landing about ten foot out from the bank… “****hell” I said, “we’re dead! I can’t swim and there ain’t a soul about! They’ll pick our bones up off this island in years to come and wonder who we were!” Honestly, I was ******** myself, running over to where the boat had been to find no more than 6” of the pulley line still on the bank but in imminent danger of disappearing! I grabbed it desperately and pulled the boat back in, thank Christ.
Anyway, after suitably securing the boat we resumed fishing but to no avail. By about 3.30 with the snow still falling we admitted defeat. Normally we’ll fish an hour into darkness but with the weather worsening and the prospect of re-launching The African Queen we thought we’d pack up while there was still a little light left. We stowed the gear and The Hedgehog got back across. I pulled the boat back and got in. At that moment, on my kids’ lives, the sky turned jet black, the wind turned into a screaming banshee, driving snow into my face so hard it stung and I was forced to close my eyes.
“Pull for ****’s sake!” I screamed to The Hedgehog on the far bank. He did, and with white-capped waves swamping the boat he gingerly pulled me back on the length of 12lb line. So grateful was I to get out of that rubber horror that I cannot describe the feeling of relief.
“Why do we do it?” asked The Hedgehog, safely back home that evening and now on the dog. “I dunno” I said, “we must be ****ing mad” But we DO know why, don’t we? On those rare occasions when the rod’s hooped over and attached to something unstoppable, at that moment, you know why you do it. Anyway, one last, quick tale of woe…
On 17/12/94 I hooked a fish the like of which I won’t attempt to describe, only to say that it was the mother of all pike. It was in a very snaggy swim so I was holding on with everything at bursting point; the spindle on my reel that the spool sits on has bent under the pressure and the pin that retains the handle snapped when I was trying to gain line to keep it from the snags. The fish was on for less than a minute I would say, when the 15lb line snapped clean. I felt absolutely numb and speechless when it broke. I don’t think if I live to be a hundred years old will I have the chance of a fish like that again.
Be good
******
