There’s something so special about the first day of the new fishing season that, even though I fish stillwaters all year these days, that first day on moving water requires much thought. When I get up even before the crack of dawn and quietly drive out of the village I feel like a child again …. a child going on holiday.
After much deliberation last year I decided to set my sights nice and low and just fish for the fun of it.
I decided to fish for gudgeon on the River Wey.
I knew a good spot, perhaps too close to the A3 to stand all that traffic noise later in the day, but it had produced some quite large ones and there was this one swim that haunted me with its dream-like perfection. It was where the river narrowed and yet rather than speed up, there is this reverse eddy that goes around and around slowly, seemingly forever. If I was a fish I would live there in the slow water and wait for all the food in the river to pass right in front of me, possibly several times.
I decided to take a cane rod and a centrepin just for the fun of it. I didn’t see me getting a blistered thumb from a gudgeon, after all. I took an Allcocks Wizard and a Youngs Trudex. The Trudex is a lovely little reel with a lineguard that stops me creating birds nests to amuse the wildlife and ruin my temper and my Wizard is not some beautiful piece of cane, but a battered old stick that even the dealer would only take £25 for! It’s shorter than it’s supposed to be, it’s loose ferrules have been ‘adjusted’ with a centre punch and I stuck an extra butt ring on to help me cast, so it’s probably worthless now.
I never seem to get moving quite as quickly in the mornings as I think I will these days and I fully expected ‘The Swim’ to be occupied as it was already light when I got there. In fact I was quite surprised to find I had the whole stretch of river to myself. I crept up and watched it for a while before walking quietly upstream and chucking in a few maggots to drift down.
I went back to my tackle and clumsily put it all together with shaking hands. I know I’m going to be like this so I have a darning needle trapped on the line with a bit of silicon tubing to quickly thread the line up the rod rings and I have ‘casts’ made up to just tie the line onto. The casts are shotted to suit their float and just need plumbing up, so I was ready to fish in minutes.
Some things are not to be and after two hours without a bite I gave up disappointed. Where had all the fish gone?
I went down near the old bridge at Eashing and was surprised to see the banks clear of anglers. Usually on the first day the banks are awash with men banging in banksticks to attract the chub and barbel. I set up in the best peg, nearest the old bridge where a feeder stream joins and flicked in some more maggots. I trotted that section for hours and hours sending many more maggots to their doom, but not a bite did I get. Somewhere up Godalming way there is a big fat barbel who thought it was Christmas.
I changed depth, I changed hooklink, I changed shotting pattern, but it made no difference at all. No gudgeon, no dace and no roach. And the traffic noise was getting a bit loud now too. I wouldn’t even have noticed it if there had been some fish around!
I stuck on a big shot and let the bait roll up to the marginal plants to see if I could tempt a chub out to play, but they weren’t there either. I tried some smelly oily pellets. No dice ( and no dace! )
Now If I’d had a bite I might have stayed, but I hadn’t….apart from one minnow that spat the hook as he left the water, I hadn’t even felt a fish. How come all the usual first day anglers had known to stay away? Where were all the fish?
Somewhat dejected I slunk off to Marsh Farm Fishery nearby and mixed a little ground bait. I lobbed it into the margins gently and looked up at the Sun muttering. It was bit late in the day to be starting in a new spot, but I couldn’t give up on the day yet, tired as I was. It was either fish or go to the pub!
I couldn’t be bothered to re-tackle and so I cast my home-made Avon float off past the ground bait, after plumbing up, and drew it gently back.
Within minutes it started to tremble and dip. Then it was gone and I lifted into my first fish of the day. Nothing special, but enough to pull hard and spin the reel under the ball of my thumb. It made a couple of runs and then I slipped the net under it.
I flicked out the hook, rolled up a couple of towels and placed the netted fish on top as I took a picture. Not much of a tench, true, but never was one more gratefully received. I nearly took the tench to the pub!
I had several more before I went home for a late afternoon nap smiling happily to myself.
And the last fish of the day?
Why it was a little Gudgeon.
