Woody’s Angle – Buck the Trend

Jeff Woodhouse

Jeff caught his first fish at the age of five, a mackerel from a Torquay fishing boat. That was the starting point 53 years ago and the sight of that living silvery image coming up from the invisible depths had him hooked for life. Since then he has practised virtually every type of fishing, although not always successfully.

He doesn’t just like fish, he has a love affair with them, in his living room, in his garden and at times, in his freezer. Lately he has spent more time either running clubs or assisting them to become successful. Now he admits to being too old to chase monsters, he’s happier getting as much fun as possible out of what’s before him.

In this monthly series Jeff indulges the rebel within himself, trying to think differently about the usual trends in fishing.

I suppose that in many respects I’m as conventional as any other angler on the bank, but I try to think differently about things, ‘buck the trend’ so to speak. It must be part of the rebel within me, the non-conformist, the anti-establishment anarchist and it could be another reason why I’m so against the close season, but that’s another story. Anyhow, here’s the first in a new series on my angle on angling.

Just think ‘Po’ and break the mould
How to think differently about things? Well, have you read ‘Mechanisms of the Mind’ by Edward De Bono, he of the ‘Lateral Thinking’ trend? No, I’m not trying to prove I’m more erudite than most of you. I’m certainly not that, but if I were to sum up this book it would be by the application of his word ‘Po’! Whenever you come across a problem that requires a rethink, you say to yourself ‘Po’ and turn the idea on its head. An example could be: instead of putting the groundbait in a feeder, stick it on a feeder and you have – The Method.

I don’t know if that’s what the person who invented/developed ‘The Method’ did, but that’s where I think I get my inspiration from. So whereas everyone else is catching fish from a fairly standard and well practised technique, yours truly has to look for a different way of catching them. Not only do I find it highly satisfying, but I feel I have also broken the mould.

I bear the curse of Cain
I’m a keen angler for the barbel, but until last night have never managed a fish of double figure proportions. This is partly because our little fishery on the Thames just didn’t hold many of them (if any) and only those jammy faced, lucky so-and-so’s, born with golden spheroids could have caught one. Whereas I bear the curse of Cain when I go fishing. Yes, if there is a clear choice of two swims to fish, I will surely pick the one that will blank, even if I were to fish the exact same method as the person that eventually occupies the other swim and bags up.

Red Band Conditioner (click for bigger picture)

Therefore I try that much harder, spend so much more on bait and pre-baiting. One of the particle baits I grew to like was ‘Barbicle’ by Haiths and guess who developed it for them? None other than Graham Marsden. However, I have just one bag of made up seed left in the freezer and although several Emails between Graham and myself have been exchanged I can’t find out what composition of seeds went into Barbicle. No matter, for now I may have found something equally as good and a lot, lot cheaper than Barbicle ever was. It is – Red Band Conditioner for pigeons.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT?

Okay, so the carpies have been using it for some time now, but I’d not heard of it being used for barbel before, at least not on our little stretch. Red Band Conditioner is actually a brand name, but several manufacturers make a similar product and that’s what I bought. Made up of numerous seeds with a great overall smell of aniseed. This is a smell that takes me back to the 1960s when we couldn’t (daren’t) use our mum’s fridge for putting maggots in. After a couple of days they started to smell a bit iffy and a couple of drops of aniseed oil would perk them up a bit.

Preparation
What about preparation? Soak them overnight with the same volume of water, just as you would with hempseed (you can always add some hempseed as well if you like), and next day into a pan, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes (30 with the hempseed in it). Add a little more boiled water from a kettle if you need to, but the consistency at the end should be wet, but not runny and sticky like a well cooked risotto. Let it cool and stand for at least another 12-24 hours and bag it up or bucket it ready for fishing.

I use it, as I did the Barbicle, in a 2 – 21/2 oz Drennan Oval feeder with further bits of plastic cut out between the holes. This was a method that came down from Mick Wood (I believe) via Colin (McMad) McHardy, only he used hempseed, sweetcorn, and finely chopped luncheon meat in the feeder. I have tried this and it can be very successful but the meat makes it a little greasy. Also, on our fishery the sweetcorn attracts the bream and they put the barbel off for some reason.

Browning Syntec B840

Free-spool reel
I also recently purchased a Browning Syntec B840. I wanted another free-spool reel that wasn’t the size of the Shimano 6000s that I use for carp. I’ve always felt that a reel should be as small as possible, but large enough to just balance the rod rather than dominate it. The 840 fits onto my Harrison’s Chimera beautifully, not as big as the 6000 and yet seems perfectly balanced with it and Browning do make nice quality tackle. It didn’t cost an arm and a leg either.

Well now comes the time to test it all. I had one bash with the reel the previous week, but blanked whilst Charles, one of the other members, had a nice fish just a nudge under the ten pound mark. He’s a had a few double figure fish now and he was starting to make me feel inadequate, but he is a vicar by trade and I will swear he’s offering prayers before he casts out. He denies it of course.

THE PRIZE

Anyway, this is Sunday and Charles is keeping it sacred by not fishing, so I have the place all to myself. I put myself up at the top end near the weirpool, not that there’s a great deal of choice about it and the lower swims have really let me down these past few visits. Tackle up and settle down with feeder after feeder full of the sticky mushy pigeon seeds going in just on the very edge of the white water. As night falls I am cursed with some of the PIDs on the hotel building setting the lights off so that every few minutes, on comes this 1000 watt halogen lamp putting my silhouette across the water.

When the lights go out…… (click for bigger picture)

Striptease?
To add to this, there’s a party of hotel guests come out onto their balcony in the warm night air and one nice lady, liking the benefit of the extra light, is setting off another PID by waving her b**** hand in front of it. That cast a silhouette in the other direction. Hopefully this madness will soon end. Perhaps, if I do a striptease whilst the lights are on…..

No, there’s more madness to follow. Some drunken kids have got across the lock lower down, walked along the gantry that stands above most of the weir and then climbed down to walk on the sill of the weir itself. This at night with the river pushing something around 21/2 million gallons of water per hour over the weir, a slippery sill and a twenty foot depth of water to fall into with strong currents is a recipe for disaster. They can’t hear my shouting above the roar of the water even though I’m flashing them with my head torch, all I get in return is the two fingered salute. So, a call to the police (999) and explain to them, but before anyone turns up the kids fortunately get bored and leave.

Algae problem and a few plucks
Oh, fishing wasn’t I? Ah yes, and another few feeder fulls of the magic seeds, but there’s a problem with the filamentous algae that’s been loosened with the recent storms. It’s coming off the weir and hitting the line and at times feels like a bite until I realise the rod goes heavy under the extra pressure. Now this is really ****ing me off and I still haven’t had a fish, a few plucks that I would swear are bites though.

Charles Overton’s beautiful 9lb13oz barbel (click for bigger picture)

I usually make a point of packing up most nights when the floodlights go out on the church opposite, that’s around 11:20. When they did that tonight I looked down and there was enough seed for about three last casts. So the first went out for 10 mins and again at 11:30 another feeder full went out, but not for long as yet another clump of algae hit the line and buried both the feeder and the meat. (Did I mention the luncheon meat? Well that’s what I was fishing).

A barbel at last, and it’s a double!
The last feeder and a promise that in five minutes I was packing up. How many times have I said that and had a fish, but tonight I thought no more about it. Two minutes past and the line started to travel almost like another load of weed had hit it, but this time is built up and became much stronger until there was no doubt. It was a barbel, at last.

Hold on to it first though, you have to land it, I thought. This was now the test for the reel, slacken off the clutch a little. No you fool, that’s the free-spool. Confusing now, but I guess I’ll get used to it. The reel winds in beautifully and smoothly even under pressure, grab the landing net and after a bit of lining up (because here, the current is going upstream) and I have the fish in the net. Boy did it feel heavy when I lifted it.

Onto the mat and right away I could see it was probably going on for 10 pounds if not over, so out came the scales. Zeroed them with the now wet weigh sling, test, yes zero. Put the fish in, secure the Velcro sides and lift. Around the dial first time, that’s 6 lbs, and again past the 3, then the 4 and 12, maybe 13 ounces? Not quite, but I give myself 10 pounds 12 ounces easy.

Wonderful! Camera? Oops!

No need to lie
Well, never mind the memory is just as good (just about) and you will just have to believe me (remember Walker’s book, “No Need To Lie”?). It had a few scratches and some scales were missing on it’s right flank where it may have cleaned itself on some gravel in the past. Pike do this as well. It also had another distinguishing feature, it was blind in it’s right eye. I thought to myself, “That was lucky then. If it had been going the other way it would have missed my bait completely.”

I’ll get me coat now, but at least the pigeon feed seemed to do the trick. Try some.