What a crappy week I’ve had. My car blew a head gasket; no longer the couple of hours job it used to be on a cheap Ford, so that’s emptied the wallet. I’ve got a stinking runny-nosed cold. The miserable, horrible rain and floods everywhere are really depressing and my tooth hurt so much last night I couldn’t sleep. My only salvation would be a fishing trip but I was a car short and grumpy. I’ve got Seasonally Affected Disorder apparently. I know this because my kids look at me and shake their heads and mutter ‘sad’. Billy emailed to let me know that Bury Hill is “fishing it’s nuts off” for zander. (Billy is from Inner London). He knows I need a bigger zander to stand any chance of winning the 2007/08 IAC Species Race. As the Bury Hill webmaster he has his ear to the ground and was just tipping me off. As with many things in life, it’s not always what you know, it’s who you know that can make a difference. I’m currently in the lead in this year’s competition but I’m under severe pressure from some of the best all-round anglers in the country. If I can get a double I’ll feel I can breathe a little easier. Wednesday is this week’s allotted fishing day but I have a car shortage. My wife needs her car in the morning but I can use it in the afternoon. Humph. That’s a lot of use. I call Simon in Camberley. He’s going south on weds. Humph. Can’t hitch a ride with him then. Don’t really fancy it in this weather anyway, it’s hissing down! Maggi heard me grumbling down the phone “If you’re not going fishing tomorrow then the dentist says he can fit you in at 12.20”. Okay. More money. I won’t go fishing then. Humph. Something is niggling me. I call Bury Hill, speak to the guv’nor. How’s the fishing? He convinces me.”Conditions are excellent. They won’t stay like this for ever. Listen. I know my lake. It’s PERFECT for zander today. Someone just caught a 14lber”. And tomorrow I have a dentist’s appointment at 12.20. And I can’t borrow the wife’s car till after that. And I can’t get out again until next week. So it’s a short session. A very short session. A fish or bust, a zed or dead!At 2pm the next day I finally arrive at Bury Hill car park, my face throbbing from the dentist. The sign says the fishery closes at 4.30. Arrgh! I have two and a half hours – and the day has been crystal clear and the temperatures are down on yesterday and falling. Not looking so good. I buy some roach deadbaits in the excellent on-site shop. The staff are great here, they really know the fishery inside out and always give me good tips when I come here for the crucians and tench. No time to chat today though, the clock is ticking. Pick a swim not too far down the bank – a long walk would infringe on the little time I have so it’s pot luck. I ask a couple of nearby predator anglers how they are doing. Only one zed, early this morning. What are they doing? Long range float-legering. Okay, I’ll do something different. Start with one rod set up with a float and pin in the margins, lift method. It’s flat-calm and freezing now. Bait is the head end of a small dead roach. The second rod is set up with a deadbait wobbling rig. The water is the colour of strong tea, not the best colour for this method but I believe in it and the continuous casting will help keep me warm because like a clot, I’m wearing my summer jacket instead of the heavy thermal one. Wobbling the roach, I cast in a fan pattern around the swim, then start at the beginning of the fan again. All the while I am watching the float whilst feeling for bites on the wobbled roach. Several times I get caught up on the bottom. I bring in lost tackle, rigs, bottom debris and other rubbish. Obviously not a lot of people fish this method here or this stuff would have already been dragged out. My confidence rises. I lose several baits on snags. My confidence drops. Then I feel a tug, I strike and my line starts kiting to the right. I can feel a fish but something is not right. My rig exits the water 30 foot out, tangled with another line. “I think you’ve caught my line.” It was a guy three swims down from me, to my right. He wasn’t really on the ball to be honest. I’d picked up his line about 25 yards straight out in front of me and I definitely felt a fish. What I think happened was that a fish picked up his long-range legered bait and kited around to his left, entering my swim but neither giving nor taking line, therefore not giving his alarms any indication. When I hooked up with his line I felt a fish kicking on the end but as his hooks hadn’t been struck home, the fish then dropped the bait. Amazing how that can happen. Only three anglers in 150 yards and two of us still managed to tangle our lines. Not to worry. We sorted out the mess and got on with it. The temperature was now plummeting and the time was getting on. The sun was dropping over the horizon and anglers were leaving. It was getting near closing time. A carper with a mountain of gear stomped past me, stopping only long enough to tell me he’d had one tench and one carp and lost another much bigger carp at the net. Blimey, I thought. That was a good result for a January day. Bury Hill Old Lake is an honest to goodness old fashioned proper fishery; it’s not like this is a hole-in-the-ground place rammed with easy pasties – mind you, there are other lakes on the complex that are easy but this is not one of them. The thought that this was challenging fishing was getting to me as I started to pack up. I packed away the flask and collected the rubbish. All the bits went away, then the wobbling rod was packed away and…then I noticed the float. I compared it to the bulrushes I used as a marker. It had definitely moved six inches to the right. I sat down and stared at it, willing it to move. Nothing. Five minutes went by. Then ten. Three times I reached for the rod to reel in and pack it away but I couldn’t quite bring myself to move. Then I realised that I was frozen stiff. The cold had seeped into my bones, through my back, and when my back is cold I know it’s time to go home. I reached for the rod and… the float lay flat. I struck and the swim erupted. The fish came straight to the top and turned the swim into a washing machine. I was using a centrepin reel and my favourite Drennan Super Specialist rod – purchased in 1986 and some of the best money I ever spent. This is a dream combination for playing a fish and the cold was instantly forgotten as the familiar thrill ran through the hooped rod and up my arm. There really is nothing to compare to that feeling, is there?
The fight didn’t last that long but it was very satisfying and as the fish went into the net the hook pulled and the rod straightened. That was a result to a man with frozen fingers! And they were frozen. They were white! I kept the fish in the net whilst I readied the mat, sling and scales – then had a very tricky moment trying to make my camera work with frozen digits. That’s something the digital camera designer guys ought to work on. At 5lb 10ozs this was not a big zander for any water. And for Bury Hill it was a rather small one. For a super-short session in frozen conditions however I really wasn’t complaining. I walked back to the car park in the gathering gloom a very happy bunny. In less than three hours Bury Hill fishery and its zander had completely turned the week around.
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