As expected May (the month, not the evil politician), has provided few fishy opportunities but I
managed a couple of short sessions. The
first was more of a reccee than anything but I managed a solitary Roach. This was the first visit of the year to a new
favourite summer Tench haunt. A second
trip a few days later saw a couple of Rudd hook themselves on fake corn but I
was on the water at the right time to photograph a well deserved PB Tench for a
fellow blogger. A beautiful big fish
that provided a much needed confidence boost on a tricky water.
Saturday was a father and son day which meant ten pin
bowling in the morning, a typical American game, all brute force and ignorance
but I’d forgotten how much fun it is.
Neither of us are any good but that wasn’t the point, we had a good
laugh and that was the only thing that mattered. Back home for cow pie ‘Desperate Dan’ style then
Isaac disappeared into his room while I spent the early afternoon sorting a few
bits and pieces out for part two of the day. It's a bit of a drive to this water and as we raced along Isaac's 'Guardians of the Galaxy' soundtrack was playing. We both sang our hearts out to "Mr Blue Sky" and the heavens responded in kind.
By 1630 I was rowing a laden punt into a weedy corner, the
fresh south westerly wind made this a good work out and it took two goes before
I was where I wanted to be. A few balls
of an Expo mix, laced with maggots and corn, were plopped out in front of us
and we commenced fishing. Isaac used
maggots on a whip while I used a waggler with a grain of corn on a size
16. After a showery day the evening was
clear and bright but the wind meant a jacket was required. Nothing happened to begin with so I had time
to set up a second rod baited with fake corn and a 10mm tutti. This was dropped into another clear patch and
the area fed with half a dozen pouches of mixed pellets. The baitrunner on the ancient Shimano would
alert me to any interest while I concentrated on the float rod.
The session began slowly; Isaac had a little trouble
controlling the whip in the wind to begin with but soon got the hang of it. After half an hour or so fish began topping
in our swim and soon after Isaac started getting bites. At first they were intermittent but these
became more frequent and he swung a succession of Rudd into the punt. On my side things were much slower but the
one Rudd to suck in my corn was bigger than most of Isaac’s. Time passed, fishing for Tench from a punt on
a late spring evening sounds idyllic and it almost was, except for the wind and
the lack of Tench. As usual we saw loads
of water fowl, Cuckoos provided a soundtrack and a Marsh Harrier hunting the
fields was the avian highlight of the evening.
An hour and a half into the trip and Isaac’s catch rate on
maggots had slowed but mine on corn had increased considerably and what’s more
my fish averaged 6ozs or so while Isaac was catching all sizes. The swim was alive with fish rolling and
topping and I hoped all this fishy activity would draw larger, more interesting
species into the area. This may have
happened given more time but all too soon ours was up and I was rowing back to
the boat yard.
Elsewhere in my fishy world it seems ‘Pike & Predators’
magazine will be folding this summer. An
announcement appeared on Facebook which disappeared very soon after but there
has been nothing since that contradicts this.
The late James Holgate was the man behind this magazine which grew out
of the ashes of ‘Pike Fisherman’ which only lasted for a year or so. In the early days both these magazines were
inspirational and it’s fair to say they played a major part in the rise of boat
fishing and the realisation that lure fishing really was a serious method of
catching Pike in the UK. I only met
James on a couple of occasions and he seemed a quiet, shy but thoroughly
pleasant kind of bloke.
After James untimely death Neville Fickling took on the role
of editor and after a dodgy start he done a decent job. James Holgate managed to resist the blatant
commercialism present in almost all angling magazines, but when he had gone
this quickly took hold to the detriment of the mag. In my opinion the content was a right ol’
mixture of very good, totally indifferent and utter shite. Most months the best articles were those
penned by the editor himself and it was Neville’s words that were read first
and usually read again.
Unfortunately in the latest ‘Predatorial’ Neville has let
himself down by penning a character assassination of another well known Pike
angler with whom the editor has an axe to grind. The angler on the receiving end is not named
but referred to as ‘Ernie’. Very few
people really know the truth behind the stories featured, including Neville
himself and this alone makes publication unfair at best and cowardly at worst. I know both Neville and ‘Ernie’ a little and
find them both to be pleasant, likeable people so I find this one sided war of
words unsettling but its giving the little world of UK Pike fishing something
to talk about through the summer months.
I think this piece would not have been published if there was any future
for ‘P&P’ magazine.
In terms of decent angling magazines there is now only one
Pike fishing publication available now and ‘Pikelines’ magazine has been the
absolute best since Stephen Harper took on the role of editor. This is quarterly and available free to
members of the Pike Anglers Club. ‘Catch
Cult’ magazine is head and shoulders above the competition when it comes to an
all round fishing mag and issue two should be available to order later this
week. This latest edition features an
untold story of a capture of the infamous ‘Black Mirror’, possibly the most
iconic Carp ever to swim in British waters.
Anyone interested in either magazine will find links on the right hand
side of the page.
