No doubt a greater dedication to success in a different field of angling would have worked, but I’ve simply lacked the will to go back to basics, then to go through the self-humiliation of making a complete klartz of things. Take fly-fishing. This is something I’ve only recently started to do with any real conviction, largely because (I think) of my reluctance to start from scratch: should I use a UV Straggle Cruncher or a Claret Carrot Fly? The prospect of learning all over again was daunting; I mean, it’s taken more than a few decades to achieve my present level of proficiency in coarse fishing – could I really apply myself to a whole new art? Well, I’m trying, and to date I’ve taken a modest few small brownies from the Wye.
But MULLET fishing! Now I know they CAN be caught because everybody else in Britain, it would seem, has cracked the secret of their capture; but I have invoked nothing more than a single bite with my superfine gear and carefully prepared cloud-bait. I’ve fished the Sussex Ouse with veteran all-rounder, Dave Park, and watched, astonished, as a long, long line of grey ghosts has passed through my well-placed mist of breadcrumb-and-anchovy without so much as a sniff – not a sniff. I’d have derived a smidgin’ of satisfaction had those fish at least paused to taste the fruits of my labour for just a nano-second but they didn’t even do that – I might just as well have done nothing.
On this particular day I did manage one lightning bite on bread-paste beneath a quill but, of course, I didn’t connect, nor did I expect to. Numerous attempts at catching a mullet in the marina at Goldhanger, Essex, and in the Blackwater and Crouch estuaries, had brought nought but failure so why would the Ouse suddenly do me a favour?
I have found mullet fishing to be one long exercise in optimism. You arrive early when the tide is low and casually prepare your gear for the slaughter to come. Every now and then you flick your eyes to the water for signs of movement, the suggestion of a stir in the surface scum, but no…the water’s still out at sea.
After an age – and when you’re least expecting it – a patch of dirty brown bubbles becomes agitated and moves off in a trance. Yes, they’ll be on their way soon! You sit and watch, amazed, a spectacle old as time itself and consider its absolute reliability in a world so full of change. Gullies start to fill as mud-banks disappear; gulls regain the air as wooden boats shift and subtly clunk their gunwales. Soon the water’s running in fast and you’re ready with the mullet-mix. You get the wave from your pal upstream – they’re on their way! In goes a handful of marine ambrosia – irresistible for sure – and here come the ravenous, marauding mullet like kids in a sweet-shop. You swing out your pellet of paste / pea / shred of prawn / piece of bacon fat / maggot / red-worm / sweetcorn / crust / flake / mini-rag and watch every last fish in the 100 yard procession sail blindly by, utterly oblivious to all your hard work and expectations: they couldn’t give a monkey’s – not a monkey’s.
But at least they’re here now! The water’s still rising and bringing in more and more of the little odds and sods that keep the mullet interested. They’re beginning to show too; bow-waving over submerged hillocks then shooting across newly-formed pools in search of grub! Out goes your float on the 2lb line you bought yesterday; the quill cocks immediately while the bait falls slowly and tantalizingly through the murk… The water humps right by your float and you hurriedly mend the line and take a turn – any second now! But nothing happens. They’re all down the other end of the pool now, calling…calling…
You’re a sucker for this and you know it, but still you heed their cries for attention and dutifully creep up to where the fish might well be laughing at you. Out you go again and clunk goes the bale arm without delay. Red on brown, the float does The Crabtree Dither but remains proud. Another gentle sway, but it’s only the tow of a passing ghost and really no better than a wind zephyr…
After an hour of high hopes and backache the tide is well and truly on its way out – just the time for a hungry mullet to grab a last minute meal! With renewed zeal and bait, you unconsciously gravitate toward the harbour, casting at rise after rise and wondering what the hell it is these bastards eat for Christ’s sake…
Then it’s all over. All the water’s run down the plug-hole and the pungent pong of estuary mud returns to the nostrils. You meet up with matey for the inquest and form a new revolutionary plan for next time.
Anyone for Tenkara?
