It’s the world cup so let’s start with a football pun, June has a been a month of two halves!
It started with a trip down memory lane, to a little old lake I’ve not fished for years, which is just a short drive from home. It’s a little water, maybe an acre and a half, deep and clear. It’s clear by virtue of the fact it didn’t have any carp in it, which was lovely. I had heard on the grapevine that an enterprising bailiff had added a few thus rendering the pond’s uniqueness, a real shame when in the modern age of fishing, fining any water without carp is a joy! Don’t get me wrong, I like carp and carp fishing, but it’s lovely to have a water when you can fish really light, really delicate, and not worry about getting smashed by a marauding little pasty.
I didn’t let the addition of scale bangers worry me, apparently there weren’t many. On arrival you could see the lake was as neglected as ever, which I love. The gate is hanging off, although that does make getting in a bit of a pain. The track is beautifully overgrown which sets off all your parking sensors as you bump along to the little clearing which is the “car park”. The lake itself hasn’t changed a bit, a few swims, which amount to a few areas of bank that were dug out years ago to get you down to water level. No chance of any gravel on the swims here which I love, you can creep around quietly, and with careful feet, the wildlife in and around the water is completely oblivious to your presence.
It’s a deep water so a feeder would be the easy option, but I love slider fishing on deep clear lakes. I haven’t fished a slider for a while so was really looking forward to it. I quickly plumbed the depth (that hadn’t changed) and fished where the steep marginal shelf started to level out. I introduced a few balls of ground bait, compressed nice and hard so they’d get to the bottom without breaking up on the way, and added a handful of sweetcorn to hopefully attract the lake’s resident Tench.
The first indications on the float came quickly and in a just a few minutes the first Roach was coming my way. After a few of these pristine little fish, the float wobbled and then rose giving my a perfect lift bite to strike. The result was a heavier resistance but a lazy one and soon a nice Bream was sliding towards the next. A few more of these came my way and I settled into a nice rhythm, topping up the bait regularly as there were numbers of fish in front of me.
The next bites came from a different source, midges, oh how I’d forgotten about the midges at this lake! I’d moved my bug spray only recently into a different fishing bag and so my first line of defence was gone. I pulled up my hood tight over my cap, put on my glasses, leaving very little skin available for them to feed on, but feed they did. The fishing would have been glorious if it wasn’t for the midges, oh they drive me crazy. I fished on and eventually managed another bite but this time from under the water. The fish immediately fought hard and fast. At first I assumed one of the new carp had picked up the bait, the fish just wouldn’t give up. But after a couple of minutes a lovely rounded tail slapped the water which clearly belonged to a Tench. Now I really wanted to get this one in, like every Tench I catch. I wasn’t a big fish, far from it but it was a Tench and they are all beautiful. I lay the fish down on the soft grass, which is how it used to be done, before every lake was covered in gravel, making unhooking mats essential. The light was fading, the photos weren’t great, but the moment was magic. With the Tench quickly returned, I decided it was a good end to a lovely hour or so fishing and the midges had won, I had no more blood to give!
Next up we had some rain, remember that stuff, it falls from the sky and it’s what used to keep the grass green. So, with the river levels up a little, my Friday morning fish before work was going to be in flowing water. I pulled the little four weight rod from the garage stand, dug out some little brown, scruffy flies, some even had gold-heads, which would be ideal. I’d missed the better conditions by a day or two but there was still some decent water in the river so it felt promising. Every time I fly fish flowing water I say the same thing to myself, why on earth don’t I do more of this? It’s really not one of my stronger areas of fishing, I just mimic what I used to watch John Wilson doing on Go Fishing programmes all those years ago. It goes something like this; flick a nymph down and across the flow, mend the line so it doesn’t drag the fly, and watch the end of the floating fly line for any twitch or pause, and strike that. Not really knowing what you’re doing can leave you feeling low in confidence of actually catching anything, but that doesn’t really matter when you’re stood in the water at 5am, it’s all just gorgeous. But, when you do spot that line flicker, and you twitch the rod and feel that lively, yet lightweight resistance, it feels like a miracle! I pulled a few small, wild, beautifully marked, brown trout from a little glide that squeezed by the far bank. It was a text book little spot and I could well imagine a Salmon resting in there on it’s migration up the river.
All too soon my time was up and I needed to get back to the car, change out of my waders and into my work clothes, have a quick shower in a can (apply deodorant), tidy hair and drive to work a happy bunny.
The second half of the month was a salty one. I’m no hippy or druid but I do like the summer solstice, simply for the fact it’s light so early and there’s nothing like watching the sun come up not from from where it went down. I wanted to be in the sea and whilst the surf was very slight, I had seen birds working just behind the surf only a few days early when I’d been surfing. I had vowed to go back with the rod for a go and this was my chance. I arrived at low water in a glorious sunrise. Even with the small surf there were a couple of obvious rips through the middle of the beach that I just had to explore. This was in the opposite direction to where I’d seen the birds working a few days before but if you’re fishing for bass in the surf, you can’t ignore a rip, but I should have done. I fished for an hour in the wrong direction and didn’t see a fish. Then I went back to the other end of the beach and had my first fish follow the lure through the clear water. Not a big fish but it gets the heart racing and confidence goes through the oof knowing they were there. I then played around with the lure choice a little trying to find something they might hit confidently. That was always going to be hard as the water was gin clear and after a couple more follows on different lures you could literally see the fish inspect the wobbly bits of metal and plastic I was throwing at them. There was one particular moment when, as a wave approached which provide a window into the water, I could see the lure I was winding fast, and behind it appeared a good bass, fin up and in full attack mode. It was lit up on the sunrise light and time seemed to stand still in the moment when the fish was either going to strike at the lure or turn away and disappear behind the falling lip of the wave. It did the latter. I kept on winding in case of a follow but it wasn’t to be. After that I paused for a minute, it was a beautiful moment, it lasted maybe a couple of seconds on total but the image of that fish lit up in that clear water, in the wave face, I can see it crystal clear in my mind and it’ll live with me forever. I love fishing!
The month finished, I guess somewhere between salt water and fresh water, in an estuary, at a mark I returned to last year having not been there for around 20 years. In the last couple of years the mullet numbers have felt a little quiet but on arrival on this day you could see and hear that the river was bubbling with fish. Most of the fish were sat out in the tide but there were enough venturing further in, within bread range. I started lobbing in the sloppy bread mash, eagerly watching the water waiting for that first fish to break rank and go on the feed. Sometimes it can take minutes, sometimes it takes hours. This time is was somewhere in between. Lots of fish did pass by the float without touching the bait but enough stopped for a bite. But, like good mullet, the bites were proving hard to hit, the air soon turned blue, ha ha! After too many missed bites but with clearly a growing number of feeding fish in front of me, I opted to take the float off and just flick the bait, with a couple of split shot on the line, back to the same spot. In not time the rod tip trembled, pulled round and stayed there, fish on. It was only a small one but the change in tactic had worked immediately. I much prefer float fishing but sometimes a bait presented on the bottom, close to your weight can make hooking them much easier. I continued throwing in the bait and the fish kept on feeding. I didn’t catching anything big but the sport was brisk and really fun. There were one or two bigger fish around, including one great big bass that sauntered past the float at one point. I will of course be back, armed with my bread and perhaps a lure rod next time.
I wonder if it’ll rain again?
