The Alternative Angler

Never mind smelling the flowers, don’t forget to take time out to see the satirical side of fishing life and grab a laugh along the way as well. So here’s a regular column from Kevin Perkins to remind us that life is for laughing at, or taking the p*** out of, whenever we can.

There had been a little rain for the two days prior to the trip and the feeder streams running into the three separate lakes we fished were carrying just a tinge of colour. All in all, perfect conditions all round. Apart from one tiny thing to spoil the day, no fish! Let me qualify that by saying that, despite using just about every lure in the box, and I am talking plugs (surface, mid-water, rattlers, deep divers) in single and double jointed, spoons (all shapes and sizes), Flying ‘C’s, spinnerbaits, Mepps type spinners, even the Devon Minnows got a run out, result – zilch!

Not the merest sniff of a take, no fish following in, turning away, nothing. And this on three lakes all held in high repute for their pike and perch populations. But not falling to artificials, a fact confirmed by the bailiff who admitted he was very surprised to see people spinning.

So why not? Having fairly recently decided to take up spinning as a more sporting (and active) alternative to sitting about all day doing nothing, I felt slightly let down to say the least. Let’s face it, with spinning, like fly-fishing, you are only fishing when you bait is travelling through the water. It’s not catching anything while you are casting, cooking up bacon butties, having a pee, kipping or sinking your thirteenth can of Stella whilst watching telly in the back of your bivvy (preferably not all at once!).

A far more sporting and civilised method of angling altogether, and one which has cost me a small bloody fortune in lures! Surely with that much investment I should expect some sort of return?

So what of these lake predators, have they gone soft? Can they no longer be bothered to get up and chase things that go whizzing or rattling or whirring past them? Have years of prebaiting with deadbaits or even boilies (to a pike, what is the difference between a dead fish and a fishmeal boilie?) dulled their senses.

Will evolution dim those gimlet-eyed pike, will that binocular vision become of little use as they just have to swim round with their mouths open in order to find food? In fact, such is the stocking density on some of these fisheries, that if a pike yawns, it will probably be unable to close its mouth, as several small fish will have swum into the vacant space! It must be like living in a bouillabaisse.

These predators will probably soon adapt to life on the bottom, the pike will lose their dappled colours, no need for ambush camouflage. Their teeth will probably fall out through misuse, and they will grow fat through lack of exercise, in fact they will probably turn into catfish! The perch won’t need those stripes to conceal themselves in the weedbeds, they will almost certainly become vegetarian, and spend all day hoovering the lakebed. Let’s’ see then, a green coloured bottom feeding fish, that’ll be a tench!

As a complete aside, how come we haven’t had to supply fish with the choice of ‘organic’ baits? It surely won’t be long before some group of tree-huggers insists that we only use natural products in our preparations, and everything has to be gluten, wheat, dairy product, and lactose free. And what about nut allergies, what if the poor fish build up a product intolerance, will the anglers have to be charged with causing unnecessary suffering? Will our home-made baits have to carry detailed contents lists showing all the flavourings and additives, and their respective warnings? Course they won’t, will they……..???

Back to the predators, is it a non-aggressive, almost tame, type of fish population that we are hoping to achieve on our (relatively easy to fish, particularly for long periods) stillwater fisheries. I wonder. All in my mind, you may say. But I feel that the current predator/prey ratios on certain stillwaters has now been engineered to be well out of proportion in favour of the prey, possible to the detriment of the predators.

It is certainly a very different case on the weirpools I fish on the Upper Thames, there, dare I say, untouched by human intervention, the fish biomass has achieved what appears to be the correct balance. In this fast-running water the fish are lean and mean fightin’ machines and soon learn to grab what they can as it comes past their noses.

This seems to promote a higher percentage of predatory/aggressive fish, and therefore a spinner’s heaven! So much so, that I would welcome any suggestions as to how to get past the ravenous hordes of three and four pound chub, jack pike and eight ounce perch that seem to engulf every lure I put in the water! It obviously isn’t a fish every cast, but certainly enough action to keep you interested in what you are doing, rather that the monotonous cast/retrieve/nothing that I been experiencing on lakes lately.

Will the continued proliferation of commercial type, high stock density stillwaters become a no-go area for anglers who, like me, want to go spinning?