Over the past couple of weeks I spent much of my time in helping newcomers to angling, in the first two days I taught six of them how to cast a fly far enough to catch a fish. In fact they all caught a fish or two during their second lesson. It was well worth the effort as I was able to end some cheques off to the Army Benevolent Fund. Remember fly fishing isn’t just for trout. I have by design caught barbel chub perch pike carp and rudd on fly fishing gear using imitative patterns either a dry fly or nymph. Why not go out and give it a try?
Some of my time over the past couple of weeks has been taken up with working on my new book, to date I have written two hundred thousand plus words. At the Waters Edge contains chapters on coarse game and sea fishing, there are chapters from foreign climes and Bits and Pieces, also various friends have written contributions Gary Newman, Len Arbery, Mick Holgate, Will Carter, and Martin Salisbury. From the United States I have Scott Richmond and Trevor Bross. Thanks to Len Arbery I have several classic black and white pictures from Redmire taken in the 1960’s early 70’s Pat Walker has found a great black and white picture of Britain’s Greatest Freshwater Angler Richard Walker as a young man. In fact the book is dedicated to the memory of this great angler.
Leyland Lancashire angler Brendan Ince and I have just spent a week on Badger Lake in the wilds of Gloucestershire. As we drove down the long tree lined drive Brendan said “It’s like visiting a place that time forgot” How true that statement was. It’s a little fished water being mainly used for duck shooting. It contains some huge bream, talking of bream builder Mick Clark must be congratulated on his big bream catch from Wasing’s Shalford Lake. Its one of the toughest waters I know of. Mick had fish of 16lbs, 15lbs. and 4 between 14lbs and 15lbs.
Back to Badger Lake we arrived to find no one on the water. Having sorted out our base for the week, we went off for a walk around the lake, often through head high nettles brambles and other vegetation. I took my rifle in the hope of getting a rabbit for dinner; we didn’t see a single one, most unusual for this place. On the west side of the lake we discovered a large badger set where I reckon they had just changed their bedding that morning. As we walked around the water we disturbed a couple of big common carp probably in the thirty pound class, certainly fish I would like to catch. The aquatic plant life this year was more prominent that last year. Some of the small clear gravel areas were now covered in weed. There was also a lot of blanket weed which I hadn’t seen last season.
Back at base we put the kettle on; Brendan loves his strong black coffee, while I enjoy a few mugs of Yorkshire Gold tea. While waiting for the kettle to boil, I put together an Avon action rod 11’6” designed for lines between 4 and 7lbs to which I attached a Mitchell match reel and 6lb Gamma line, without doubt this is the best line I have used, in fact I have been using it for at least eight or more years and not once in all that time have I had cause for concern. I was going to use a waggler float set up, fishing casters, gentles or Pallatrax strawberry squabs. The latter bait is fairly new from the Pallatrax stable I first used the cheese flavoured ones last season for chub. Having said that the barbel and roach were willing to pick up this bait at the backend of the season.
After a mug of tea a piece of cake that Kate had baked for me which is suitable for those who are diabetic, I put a load of Pallatrax method mix in a large bucket, to which I added 6 pints of dead gentles a hundred chopped worms, 4 cans of sweet corn, with about 5 pints of hemp and a dollop of molasses. After giving this mix a good stir we left it until we were ready to bait a couple of swims later in the evening. Our next job was to clean out the boat, I hate fishing in dirt and filth, we then sorted out anchors, I had my brother Tom in Cambridge to make me a couple of concrete mud weights. They were perfect for the job. In fact no way would the boat move off its mooring even in the strongest wind.
Checking my life jacket I changed the air bottle, I always fit a new bottle each season, sometimes I get asked why I wear a life jacket when I am only fishing a small lake, I reply “To stay alive”. Having been in the back streets of Belfast, Bogotá and other crap areas I’m no wimp, I was trained to stay alive and that’s what I plan to do hopefully for a few more years. Angling has lost some good anglers over the years from drowning I don’t want to join the statistics.
With everything in order Brendan and I sat around chatting until about seven pm when we went out in the boat and baited our chosen spot, where we could see some nice tench feeding in the area. Of course they spooked as we got close, having dumped a load of bait we made our way back to base. After fitting beta lights to our floats we had a final brew coffee for Brendan tea for me. At nine o’clock we quietly rowed the boat out to the baited swim, gently lowering the anchors we then plumbed the depth setting our float a few inches over depth. Baiting with red gentles we commenced to fish, Brendan quickly had a nice tench which proved a PB for him.
Suddenly three big bream appeared in the swim slowly moving over the gravel patch that was no bigger than a large farmhouse kitchen table, we sat spellbound at the size of the fish I reckon 15lb plus. Having weighed bream for Phil Chun of 15-8- from Shalford Lake on the Wasing estate water I know what a big bream looks like. Brendan had a slight lift of his float then it dipped. The answering strike didn’t connect; there was slime on the line close to the hook. How close can you be to hooking a big fish I thought? We fished on for another hour with no more sign of a bite or fish.
Next day we are back with another bucket of ground bait, which was spread over the gravel patch we had fished the day before. An hour later some tench moved in which we caught up to 5-12-0 on red gentles. The bites were extremely minute the float just moving a fraction of an inch. I don’t expect such shy bites like this so early in the season. Over the next couple of days we caught more tench but the bream didn’t seem interested.
We then moved off the water heading back home as we did so we took a look at the Bristol Avon where we had been invited to join a syndicate, as soon as we looked at the water Will Carter, Brendan and I agreed to join. We had been told it offered good roach fishing. It was then off to Redditch where I called on Garry Mills to record an interview for my At the Waters Edge programme on BBC Radio Lancashire. This programme can be heard for 7 days countrywide www.bbc.co.uk/lancashire click on listen again the At the Waters Edge.
Sunday 6th of June was not only the anniversary of D Day, it was also the open day for Prince Albert AS on the banks of the River Ribble at Ribchester and once again it was well supported. I gave an hour long talk covering various aspect of fishing from bass and mullet to barbel perch and chub, I also asked everyone to be careful when handling fish at the start of the season and not to use a keep net with the rivers low with little oxygen and a high water temperature. We are in drought conditions in the north of England. In fact I would like to see the EA close all the rivers until things improve .I have stopped all river trout fishing. Unless we get a lot of rain which I doubt before June 16th I will head south and fish the Kennet. Kind regards to all Martin