Forty
- and still going strong
Depending on how you
look at it, reaching the age of forty is either the start of better
things to come or it's all downhill from then on. Well having
reached that milestone myself already, as far as I'm concerned,
it's definitely the former. But what about the big 4-0 in angling,
as this was my fortieth session of the year! It sounds a lot for
the middle of April - and it is - but I have made a lot of very
short trips to the local canal pursuing the perch. And it's amazing
how they have clocked up the sessions. But on this occasion I
was going to the other end of the spectrum, as I was about to
embark on a three-night visit to the gravel pit I have been fishing
lately.
Fishing
a new swim
As it was an extended
stay - plus rain was forecast - I packed my bivvy as opposed
to the usual Fox Evolution shelter that goes with me. My
bivvy is a Trakker 2-man Armo and is pretty substantial
in terms of size, and so with many of the swims being quite
tight on the venue, I really needed my first-choice peg
to be free. In six years of fishing there I have only ever
known another angler in there twice, and could you believe
it, it was occupied this time round.
But it didn't
bother me. It's an open water and other anglers have as
much right to be on there and fish where they like as I
do. So I simply carried on another 100 metres and found
that choice number two was free. It is a nice flat, grassy
open swim and so from the angle of pitching up a bivvy,
it's perfect. But what about the fishing potential? That's
what it's all about really isn't it, because at the end
of the day I am an angler not a camper.
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I
was very pleased to catch this fish
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Making
a map of the bed
I
set up my marker float and using a five ounce lead I started
to cast out and draw a map of the bed of the pit. With so
much open water in front of me, the last thing I want to do
is 'chuck it and chance it'. With three nights ahead I wanted
to know exactly what was out there. I cast out and drew the
lead back every few feet before releasing the line, allowing
the marker float to reach the surface. By measuring the line
that was let I was able to draw a map in my A5 notebook that
accompanies me on all my angling sessions. I'm always writing
things down, as far as I'm concerned it's good if you can
store information in your mind but even better if you can
get it down on paper.
What
I really wanted was to find that the area in front of me was
flat with a lovely plateau rising forty metres out. However
that wasn't to be.It was an undulating bed, with depths beyond
the margins ranging from 10 feet to 14 feet, but more crucially,
nothing that stood out as an obvious feature. I studied the
map I had drawn up for ages before I finally got round to
setting up the rods. Where would the fish be? Where would
their feeding route take them? Would they bear north at that
slope or would they continue to feed the rise? Lots of questions
that needed confident answers!
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Two
hours later and tench number two
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The
fish come together on night two
Anyway,
after great deliberation I eventually settled on a spot
8 rod lengths out, fishing a gentle slope that went from
10 feet down to 14 feet. I baited up a second area in the
margin, just beyond the drop-off, although by the third
night I was putting both baits out to the slope. The first
and third nights threw up blanks, but the second one produced
the goods, two very respectable tench. I put a lot of time
in, yet the only two fish of the session came within two
hours of each other.
Apart
from the fish, the only real excitement that I had was when
a mouse ran into my bivvy in the middle of the day. I tried
everything to get it out, and in the end had to empty the
bivvy and force it out with a towel. I don't mind mice but
I draw the line at having them in my living quarters with
me. As for the rats, well they were out in force. That goes
without saying on this venue.
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Rain,
rain and more rain
After a long period of relatively dry weather, the rain
made up for its absence with a performance that would have
had gardeners celebrating. But it meant that I was pretty
much confined 'indoors' for the session. I was able to watch
the birds though from inside and saw my first house martins
of the year, as well as numerous sand martins, barn swallows,
oystercatcher and several singing chiffchaff. It was a slow
session on the fishing front, but being in a new swim and
one that didn't have stand-out features at that, I was a
happy enough Easter bunny. Yes, I'd have liked another two
fish, but the same number the other direction and I'd have
been a blanker.
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