Dave Dowding (Mr Wriggles)
A column in which Dave Dowding writes about the volatile, often confusing, but nevertheless intriguing world of baits and flavours.

Dave heads the Suffolk based Mr Wriggles bait company where he constantly strives to devise effective new baits and flavours and improve on the well known ones.

He is affectionately known as Dave the Flave due to his love affair with baits and flavours and is a self-confessed flavour junky.

ROUTINE, RITUAL OR RELIGION? PART 1

It’s been difficult sitting bashing the keys trying to sound enthusiastic about what baits can/should be used at this time of year when all around me the trees have been leaning hard against the wind, the lakes are waterlogged and the rivers a raging torrent with untold flood alerts. So I thought I would venture on a slightly different path this time.

Although I fish all year round, as soon as we have seen January out it brings on all the old feelings of anticipation of what the coming year will bring fish-wise (it’s very similar to how I used to feel during the close season), and as the days get longer and the sun (normally) gets higher, this is when my year really starts, I get the urge to wander (it’s okay, the wife knows about it!) and check out what’s happening.

Dave’s Ritual

It is at this time of year when I feed even more avidly on information from customers or friends, what is being caught and where from and then I get the magical message “The tench are showing.” And that’s it, my year has begun!

It is then that I often do something that has been described by friends as ‘Dave’s ritual’ and it’s only when I meet someone whilst on my wanders and they mention that I am there with my offerings to the waters it makes me realise that it has become almost recognised as a ritual.

Let me explain in more detail, although I can only talk from my own point of view and maybe my decision to move into angling as a living has a lot to do with what I am going to say, but I am sure there will be many of you who will, because of your own commitments, be able to relate to what I am going to say. Those of you who cannot relate to the following are surely the lucky ones and I am pleased for you and I pray it stays that way for you.

Don’t forget to smell the flowers

I personally feel that angling has suffered the same as most things in this ever fast age we live in. Once the fishing season is well underway how many of us on arrival take in all the sheer beauty that the chosen venue has to offer besides fish?


My Pleasure!
Often before you even get to your venue in your mind you have chosen your swim and I have found that this decision can be quite hard to shrug off (more so on stillwaters) unless something blatant decides otherwise, such as fish showing somewhere else or someone’s beaten you to it. You head straight for the swim and become totally pre-occupied with the job in hand, setting up and getting the baits out.

Being someone who is never happier than when I have my hands in a mixing bowl and an array of various buckets and bags scattered around me, I spend the quieter period of my year mixing various concoctions together in the never-ending pursuit of another mix. This in itself is quite strange as I have full confidence in the mixes I already have available. They are extremely effective so it is not because I need to improve anything, it’s just that I love doing it.

If over this time I have managed to source some new pellets or ingredients I am even worse, I get almost like a hyperactive child, I just can’t wait to get on the waters as soon as their rising warmth signals activity.

Cooking for the fish

This year is an especially good one for me; I have no less than eight new things to try so it has been especially hard on the wife and her kitchen utensils so far. My apologies must also go to my children who feel very let down when they come home in the evening and smell the many sweet enticing smells that often waft past them as they open the back door only to be told by the wife “forget it boys, he’s cooking for the fish again”.

I think the worst example for them is when I cook my early season particles and stir in a good helping of Canadian Maple as they cool, apparently it starts the kids craving pancakes so I get grief from the missus, for she ends up cooking some. But it really works on the early season tench on my waters, so it is worth it.

Once again in my element

Anyway more on the bait front in a while; back to my ritual. Once I have heard of the sightings of tench out come the boilers for the particles and the groundbait bins. I am once again in my element.

Once all my preparations are done and the baits are loaded into the car I make a flask of coffee, grab the fishing chair, binoculars and camera and I’m off.

I try to make a point of starting the year on some of my local tench waters; these are normally well established and mature waters of many years, where the presence of carp as the major money earner is not an issue. This often means that there are no real designated swims with platforms and suchlike and often the winter rest has allowed nature to start to reclaim it. If it is a water I have not managed to fish for a while then my visit becomes even more ritualistic. I leave the gear in the car and approach the closest swim with the same level of almost juvenile anticipation that I enjoyed many years ago. Binoculars in hand I choose my route round the water, scanning for old reed beds and lily patches that offer the best refuge even in their deadened state.

Religious too

I will then go back and get the gear and return to the swim, and this is where it does get distinctly ritualistic, even religious. I make up a couple of balls of particles that have been bound with my favourite sweet mix and drop them into the margins. I tell myself that this is to check I have the mix right but it could be seen as an offering to the water for permission to fish, an apology for not fishing it and finally to appease the gods of angling in order that I may have a good season.

I know this could sound weird to some but this is how it has been described to me by other people, surely if it is how others put it then maybe it is more common than I imagine.

I will then walk around to my first chosen swim and settle the chair down, throw or fire some of my offerings out to likely looking holding areas, pour a coffee and sit. It may sound silly but it gives you an incredible sense of wellbeing just to sit in beautiful surroundings without a thing to do except soak up the serenity that may well have been missed by busying myself with tackling up and fishing.

There is an important side to my ritualistic wanderings

I can then have a coffee and watch for any telltale signs that the local residents appreciate my offerings, without a care in the world and totally relax in a way that’s quite hard to explain in detail. I may visit three or four waters in a day if they are local to each other but my main rule is not to rush it. If you already do something similar then you will understand what I have described but if not and you ever do give it a go then you will quickly become a convert and quickly establish your own ritual.

Of course there is another important side to my ritualistic wanderings; it allows me to check out the make up and reactions to any new mixes I have come up with over winter.

This brings me nicely onto the bait side of the article, as I mentioned earlier I have eight new things to try out in various forms and every one natural, what could be better?

Continues next week in Part 2.

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