Motivation

I’d been looking forward to getting out fishing all week but when the alarm sounded it was an effort to haul myself out of bed.  I felt tired after a night of broken sleep and weird dreams.  In one I had been given the role of Jose Mourinho’s official digger driver and was tasked with digging up the pitch while he had an argument with Phil Thompson.  What the fuck is that all about?  Apart from following my home town team I don’t even particularly like football.  Getting up is always the hardest bit and once this was achieved I was soon putting the gear in the car and scraping ice off the screen.

My kids say I swear a lot and they’re totally fucking correct but with the standard of driving these days it’s hard to retain a pious vocabulary, especially when some wanker tries to overtake me on the roundabout.  After that my journey was uneventful and I managed to arrive at the lake unscathed with enough light to get the boat loaded without a torch.  No engines allowed here so I rowed across to an out of bounds area, secured the mudweights and commenced setting up.  As usual I used a couple of float leger rigs, one baited with half herring was cast towards a snaggy area but not too close as this one could be terminal if it goes wrong.  The second was a joey mackerel positioned on a nice drop off with no known underwater hazards.  On my third rod I used a paternoster rig which is still the best way to fish a suspended bait but has fallen out of favour because the tackle companies can’t sell you any fancy lumps of foam or balsa if you use it.  On this I mounted a smelt which I hurled as far as possible with the intention of twitching it back towards me.  With all this accomplished I sat back with a brew.

I wasn’t even half way down the mug when I noticed a tremor on the float cast towards the snag.  Usually when a Pike picks up a float legered bait there’s no doubt but on this occasion I wasn’t sure, however as I was close to a monster snag I wound down anyway.  There was nothing attached, like I said, usually with a float there’s no doubt.

The morning was cool and bright with a cloudless sky.  The wind was a fresh south easterly which had me huddled in the boat with my hood pulled over my cap.  A kingfisher zipped past, followed seconds later by another.  I’ve never managed a decent photo of one of these birds, fair play to those who do.  On the other hand the Kestrel stays in one place long enough for even the likes of me to shoot a few pictures, never professional quality but pleasing enough for me.

Just when I was thinking of a move the float cast towards the snag started  moving, definitely, and I sprang to my feet like the natural athlete I’m not but still quick enough to set the hooks and heave it out of harm’s way.  I soon had a small fish alongside the boat where I grabbed hold of the trace causing the Pike to thrash one more time and helpfully unhook itself.  The herring was still attached which was equally helpful so I sent it back out into the lake.  Twenty minutes later, shortly after twitching the paternoster, I heard a baitrunner clickety click and looked up to not see my float where it should be.  As I struggled out of my seat the clicking sound started again and kept going.  This time the rod took on a better curve and this fish pulled back a bit.  It looked a nice fish in the clear water so I decided to be sensible and use the net, once enmeshed the Pike shrunk a little but it was still the right decision.  Big enough to net but not big enough to require scales so I unhooked it in the net, there was no need to bring it aboard.

With two quick takes it looked like I may have dropped onto some fish but forty five minutes later nothing more had happened so I had a move.  An hour after that, still nothing had happened so I had another.  I was using the same methods, keeping the baits on the move and covering water but the Pike were not playing.  There still wasn’t a cloud in the pleasant blue sky but I was beginning to wish there was.  Were the fish spooky in the bright conditions and tap clear water?  With this in mind I had a third move, this time dropping into a reedy bay that looked like broadland.  Would the Pike be holed up in the reedbeds, out of the light?  If they were then they weren’t coming out for a deadbait.  What I was doing wasn’t working, I needed a change.

So I tidied the boat up but left one rod assembled and with a bit of a tweak it was set up to troll a deadbait.  I thought I’d have an hour exploring the shallow side of the lake, wondering if fish had moved into that area ahead of spawning, which with the recent day time temperatures can’t be far away?  I took to the oars with a smelt set about two feet down and headed off to rarely fished waters.  The float sank twice and both times I succeeded in winding in sizable branches without losing my bait.  As I entered a bay at the far end a small Pike hurled itself airborne in an attempt to eat my float and managed to not notice the bait.  I rowed a tight circle round the bay and as I exited this time the fish managed to nail my bait.  It was the smallest Pike of the day but welcome all the same.  I trolled on but with every stroke of the oars I was running out of unfished water.

By now it was early afternoon, I was in danger of becoming bored and honestly I just couldn’t be arsed any more.  Once upon a time I’d have fished on and would have been wracking my brains trying to come up with a solution but maybe I’ve learned that some days it just isn’t going to happen?  Or maybe today I just felt lazy?  I’d enjoyed myself but when it stops being fun it’s time to go home.   I know if I’d been afloat in Norfolk I’d definitely have toughed it out, come what may but I’m realising that the other places I fish just don’t motivate me in the same way.

It’s February already and the days are noticeably longer, I’m looking at the calendar plotting and planning where to spend the last few weeks of the season.  I know this time will fly by, it always does and at some point I’ll decide I’ve caught enough Pike for one year.  I hope it isn’t for a while yet though.