Oh, how I panic in the last week of the traditional season. The clock ticking down to midnight on March 14, me wondering where to fish and fitting brief snatched sessions in among the commitments of everyday life..
Today the pressure is off, it’s March 15 and the season is over. How lovely not to look out of the window and think……perfect conditions, I should be on the Stream, the Ouse, the Colne, Gade or perhaps the Lee, or perhaps the Lea for those oldies among us.
I always leave the last week of the season reasonably free of work-related meetings, but it never ends up thus. This past week has been fraught – a business trip away Monday and Tuesday when my mind was elsewhere, lost in watery ringlets on some tranquil stream.
I wanted to get to the Upper Ouse for that end of season perch, to the Nene for a larger than average redfin, to the Lea for a really chubby chevin – for I had set my sights on a fish to eclipse my pb of six two. And to the Colne, or my Gade or Bulbourne for a last cast, just one last cast, well a hundred last casts. For one is never enough.
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..an obliging native spotty brown trout.. |
Wednesday came and went in meetings and paperwork, the panic and grief overbearing. Though I did find an hour for a symbolic trot to meet up with my angling partners who had ventured over to the stream in search of perch and chub. Thursday dawned, meetings in Broxbourne on the far side of Herts… would they last all morning..? Could I join my angling buddy Mole Pledger who was on the Weir of Kings on the Lea at Wormley? Could I run a line through, just a few trots, possibly my last cast. I could. I did. And to keep the story short I had two bites. Just two bites – using my Brough Roach Superior, 11 feet of super sensitive cane, a Paul Cook balsa and cane, and three maggots on a 14. I sprayed maggots every five minutes for 40 minutes before casting. So, several hours later; two bites and, ye, oh yes…two fish. The first an obliging native spotty brown trout of about two and a quarter pounds. But the second, oh the second, boring deep, holding hard in the fast current, running powerfully to reach the snag tree….. I’ll cut the battle short. Glorious. Pristine. Six pounds eight ounces of extremely chubby chevin. Old Loggerhead, Dick-kopf – a new pb. Wünderbar!
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Six pounds eight ounces of extremely chubby chevin
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I slept well, my season complete. Or was it? March 14th came, mum’s birthday and a lunch date beckoned. But I still had a yearning. 3pm. Back in the office. Work. But hang on… the next nine hours would fly by, the season would be over..but, I thought, work would still be there on Monday. But by then my stream wouldn’t be there. It would have gone, disappeared from my sights. For three whole months. But, I hadn’t fished my Bulbourne all season, I should go there – I’d seen a shoal of small roach while dropping my daughter at the station before work. Trot some maggots or a pinch of bread, finish the season with a dozen small redfins, a modest chub, perhaps a half pound perch.
4pm. Still undecided, oh hell, panic setting in again. Then a chance call with a good fishing friend of mine from Germany. The voice was clear, crisp..and to the point.
“Go to your stream. You started the season on your beloved stream pre-dawn last June 16th. You should finish the season there, not with a symbolic last cast…but with a fish.
“The conditions are excellent, mild, you know there is water in the stream; it will still be carrying some colour – go, fish hard…. and find your barbel.”
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Old Loggerhead, Dick-kopf – a new pb. Wünderbar!
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4.45. decision made. 5.15 on the stream. I wandered down to see Graham and Mark – Mark having had a 5.11 chub, a beauty to end a fine season. Small stream fishing; to many of us you just can’t beat it. They had searched hard for the perch much of the day. I cast a lobworm around some likely haunts but to no avail, so I went downstream. 6.00pm In went some maggots as loose feed and I left the swim alone for 40 minutes before temptation was too great. 6.40pm A 1953 fine tipped B James trumpet handled, green whipped, Ealing Avon, already rigged with six pound line on a 1930s walnut Milwards Zephyr reel was still made up from the Kings Weir visit. On went a big fat lob, courtesy of Barbel Dave, and it was tipped with three white maggots, if only to hold the lob on. I like to feel confident when fishing a lively bait, and three maggots would surely hold it in place.. 6.50pm. Was that a tap? Another hour max and I would have to be off the water. The season gone.
One last cast; I’d had a dozen last casts but obsession runs deep, the addiction too great. Just one last cast dropped in perfect position. 7.15pm, the ratchet clicked, the reel turned. No wrap round but I hit it. Fish on. Last cast. It went for the tree roots. I bent hard, ‘Jeffery’ , for that is the rod’s name, it having been supplied to a discerning customer by Jeffery’s tackle shop of Salisbury the year after the current Elizabeth was crowned Queen.
Jeffery took on his wonderful arching curve.. oh what a wonderful last cast, and what a fight. Too powerful for a chub, and unlikely to be a carp. Could it be a pike? Doubt it, but I was conscious I was fishing a lob, the most universal of all baits. Who needs boilies? 7.20. Side pressure had brought the fish out of the snag and downstream and to Graham’s waiting net. Barbus Barbus. Just one last cast. Yes.. and it was a mighty fish for the stream.. six, seven, eight pounds. It was my third largest this season (well last season now) from the stream. The scales settled on eight pounds two ounces.
The stream had thanked me in the most marvellous way for the care and attention I had given it all season. For teaching our young members some bankside etiquette, for the weekly litter picking, for having the nerve or being stupid enough to take on some local undesirables. For being head bailiff. For being custodian.
7.45. I sat and poured myself a coffee. And wallowed in the glory. I was fulfilled, satisfied. Content with life. I picked up my rod, net, my bag of bits and walked across the field to my car.
One last cast. And the river had smiled on me. And I smiled back.
Gary Cullum
