| KEVIN PERKINS | |
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. |
OF MICE AND REAL MEN Ah, the first frosts of the year have started to cover the country with a thin white veil. The sound of credit cards and CD covers being pressed into use as windscreen scrapers now becomes your alarm call in the mornings. This can only mean it is time for the big boys to come out to play for another year. By that, of course, I mean the pike anglers. This mean, tough, bunch of real men who laugh at whatever the weather throws at them. Before those wussy carp boys made bivvies and five-season sleeping bags de riguer on the banks, Pike Anglers would sally forth with nothing more than a moth eaten sweater packed away in their tackle boxes and that only ever bought out as a last resort for protection against the elements. Fingers frozen into a slightly odd, bent, gripping position, teeth chattering, all feeling in toes and feet just a distant memory, ears and noses glowing crimson, and more often than not, the tip of your nose adorned with a dewdrop. This to be wiped off on the back of your sleeve – real men don’t carry hankies! These were just some of the hardships brushed aside with disdain by those who claimed to be Pike Anglers. But none of that seems to matter when the bobbin drops off, or the buzzer coughs into life, and line starts to snake off through the rod rings and disappears into that inky water. Then you experience that familiar double emotion. Yes, yes, you’ve got a run, maybe a little jack, perhaps a real lunker, but either way it’s attached to your rod and in a while you are intending to pull it out of the water towards you! When it finally comes to the net, mouth agape, all savage dentistry, and flared scarlet gill rakers, even a five pounder seems to have space enough in its maw to easily swallow at least a pair of hands. Despite perhaps repeating this scene ten, twenty, or a hundred times, there is still a sense of apprehension when you come face to face with this primeval predator. This is a fish that commands respect, something that can actually inflict physical damage on you if you are not careful. It is not something you are likely to give a pet name to and considering all big pike are female, something like Edna or Freda isn’t going to sound quite right, is it? No, it needs to reflect powerful, intimidating women, such as Boadicea, Zena, Jordan (well, she scares the pants off me!). But what of the future for pike fishing? Will there ever be a need for commercial pike fisheries, if so, think of the possibilities for tackle manufacturers to exploit such new venues? First up will be the ‘Baggin Gazette’ bung. The peg used to trap the line is adapted to carry a cage under the float, around which you can mould mashed fish guts to act as an attractant. Pole makers respond by adding a ‘Predator’ model to their ranges. These are slightly up rated compared to the normal carp poles, of course. One reason is because the internal bore has to be sufficient to take the bungee rope that has to be used in place of the normal elastics. (Such strong ‘hauling’ gear will be needed, because as we all know, pike fight much harder than carp, otherwise we would have been using poles for ages, wouldn’t we?). This is threaded right through the pole and anchored to a stake banged into the ground two metres behind the angler. In addition the pole section walls have to be increased to take the strain involved by cupping in half-mackerel baits! Spinners and plugs will be fitted with tiny electric motors and with adjustable rudders. You just clip them to a length of line attached to the end of your pole and they will swim around in circles all day, or until the batteries run out. But do Pike Anglers want this headlong technological rush to invade their particular sport? I don’t think so. It really hasn’t changed much in a hundred years; they still chuck out fish or lumps of fish as bait, or haul in shiny chunks of metal, wood or plastic and by and large these methods will still work. Isn’t it nice that here at least, we have a branch of the sport that isn’t fashion driven and everything doesn’t change every five minutes. I am almost proud to say that I have bits of pike fishing kit in my tackle box that are over twenty years old, and I am not ashamed to been seen using them today. In fact, I will admit that going through my gear in preparation for a pike trip this weekend almost brought a tear to my eye. Not emotion brought on by nostalgia, but the discovery of a delightful series of nests made by an equally delightful family of mice, who have managed to de-construct nearly everything made of wood, cork plastic, nylon or paper they came across in my tackle boxes. As it is November, and very, very, cold, my wife has strongly suggested that I do not re-house the little darlings. Reluctantly, and I feel very compassionately, I have agreed not to evict the little sweethearts just yet. However, I am going fishing this weekend, and because I can’t get to many of my old bits of tackle, I have been instructed to go out and buy lots of nice new shiny stuff. Damn shame! |
