"Here's to Swimming..."

Fishing the special place in winter means a 0430 start then a trying hour long drive (if I’m lucky) on inconsistent roads, another half hour at the slipway followed by a run on the outboard.  If conditions are favourable I’m in with a chance of a fish or two but I’ll have to work hard to find them, they rarely hang around anywhere for long.  Next winter will be totally different again. 

A recent trip was a case in point; I started off at a spot that is as consistent as anywhere at this time of year, meaning maybe 1 in 3?  There was nothing doing here so I kept searching, conditions were good and I expected Pike to be active but if this was the case then I was nowhere near them.  At my sixth spot around 1350 at last a float slid away and a boated a mint fish of eight or nine pounds on sardine.  When you find one there’s often another so I stayed in the vicinity for a while but nothing doing.  I finished on the other side of the broad at dusk by which time I’d fished nine swims and hadn’t found any more fish. 

I cut and run, got off the water before it was fully dark.  Another half hour at the slip then a longer drive back home where I spent a while sorting the gear out.  I was out of the shower by 2030, slumped into my chair, totally knackered.  A long day that seems to get harder every winter but while I’m still enjoying it I’ll keep going, keep searching for the unknown monster whose actual existence is mostly irrelevant.  But every time that float moves it becomes real for a short time at least.

The other boat also is in a wild space but is much more prolific and predictable waters, it’s a rare day when we don’t bring a fish or two onboard.  Getting there and getting afloat is a much quicker, more simple affair.  It’s comfortable and convenient.  A couple of weeks ago I went out in it with Mr P for company, an annual trip where I try to show him there’s more to life than carp.  Usually my guest catches most of the fish but today they favoured me, I had three to Mr P’s one and we both had takes which were dropped before we made contact.  All of these were lovely dark fish between eight and twelve pounds and came to a variety of deadbaits float legered, it was a really enjoyable day with good company and loads of laughter.  This fishing has a hell of a lot going for it but it doesn’t fire the imagination and so I still prefer the masochism.

Quint by Robert Lautner

It’s no exaggeration for me to say that watching “Jaws” at an impressionable age shaped the course of my life.  Spielberg’s film and to a lesser extent Peter Benchley’s novel sowed the seed that led me to become a lifelong angler, earning a living from the trade; I know many of my fishing friends are fans too.  When I saw this book I thought “It’ll probably be crap but I have to read it”.  Sometimes its good to be wrong, if you are a ‘Jaws’ fan then I confidently predict you will enjoy reading this.
Robert Lautner has created the history of Quint’s life, consistent with the book but without doubt this is the character as portrayed brilliantly by Robert Shaw in the film, the narrative is in his voice and we can see that look in his eye.  This is the story of how the character that takes Brodie and Hooper out fishing came to be; we learn the stories behind the scars and we hear him speak of the doomed USS Indianapolis. The war story he tells intertwines with Quint’s current circumstances, another dangerous journey which sees him look death in the eye as it swims past him.
This is a really good book, the author has obviously done his research otherwise he could never have pulled it off, the Indianapolis was no fiction and this is respected.  The writing is very good, the scenes are vivid and feel real, in my mind I could see it all clearly.  Best of all this really feels like the manic Ahab Quint that came alive on screen, the story is told in his voice and it really is his voice. “Here’s to swimming with bow legged women!”

Half a bluey in it's gob

Mid week fishing is all very well but the bloody traffic!!  Especially when the A road is barely moving, again.  As expected my diversions had bottlenecks too and it was 0945 before I had a cast.  The river was up 18” or so today and pushing through a bit but still not what you would call flood conditions.  The paths were flooded however; deep, slippery mud in places but I managed to stay on two feet, just about.  My chosen swim is virtually a ‘U bend’ with slacks on both banks so I dropped a smelly deadbait into each. As usual simple inline float legers with the tips in the air to keep the braid out of the water.

I’ve come to expect an early take here and I wasn’t disappointed when the near side sardine started to move.  However I was disappointed when I wound down to find the bait had been dropped.  Another half hour passed, I’d been moving the baits about without finding anything and was contemplating a move downstream but my wandering attention was alerted by a micron, the bluey was moving but once again the bait was dropped before I made contact.  Highly frustrating.

Rain swept in so I took refuge under the brolly, muttered and ground my teeth…  A good thing about this kind of swim is I can reasonably move rods around, up and down stream and still have them only a couple of yards of my chair, a bit like fishing a point on a stillwater I suppose?  But by 1130 I felt like I was running out of options and was eyeing a move downstream once more.  Something splashed in the far slack, I don’t know what but it was sizable so across went the bluey again and five minutes later the bait was taken once more.  This time I managed to set the hook and the rod stayed bent.  Whatever it was felt heavy banging away out there and I wondered for a moment if I had something a bit bigger than the norm but it shrank at the net, still a Pike of twelve pounds or so.

I gave the swim another half hour then finally did have a move downstream, an hour fishing another bend with baits on the near side brought nothing and with rain closing in behind me, a rising river in front of me and a day in Norfolk to follow I decide to cut and run.

A day in the ‘other boat’ beckoned, my old pal Mr W joined me for the day which began a little uncomfortably on a damp drizzly morning.  This was soon forgotten as we found fish in the first spot.  I was away first with a fish of eight pounds or so on smelt followed by another slightly smaller one on lamprey.  A few minutes later it was Mr W’s turn with a low double putting a smile on his face. 

As expected it went quiet so we went wandering.  Fishing the other river has made me even more impatient so we moved every forty five minutes or so and there were few areas within reach we didn’t try at some point.  Mr W managed another small fish and later had a creature giving him a run around but it turned out to be a low double foul hooked in the tail.  The afternoons have been quiet here this season and this was the case again but at least the drizzle had stopped.  We kept on moving, trying a couple of areas I haven’t fished in years and here we did find some fish, in the form of a dropped take each.  By the time the sun was dropping we too were sagging so decided to get away home before the roads went mental.

Either side of that I had two trips out on the special place which epitomises the fishing there at this time of year.  I’d waited for conditions to be in my favour and mild, cloudy with a breeze does nicely, I knew well where I wanted to fish. For once it went like clockwork and I managed to drop onto a fish early on then caught a couple more through the day which is a result at any time.  Then on the next trip I had almost identical conditions and was confident of a repeat but despite doing the same things in the same places I didn’t see a float move.  I should have known better but that’s Norfolk and I’ll be drawn back again before long.

With the rest of the household off doing stuff of their own I didn’t see any point in staying home alone so quickly got some bits and pieces together for an afternoon on the river.  I was on the bank by 1330, walking a stretch of river I hadn’t looked at since the summer.  At that time I remembered it not been particularly inspiring from a Pikey point of view but there were a couple of pools worth searching so I walked a way downstream and set up on a nice looking bend.  The plan was simple, a couple of deadbaits dropped into likely looking spots for twenty minutes or so before moving onto another spot.

By 1530 I’d covered quite a bit of water, dropping baits into slacks, beside overhangs and sometimes bang in the middle but I hadn’t found any Pike.  My next spot was a place I’d caught plenty of silver fish back in the summer, with a small bush opposite me and a more substantial tree below me.  It was beneath this that I dropped half a bluey and after twenty minutes this was moving into mid river.  I set the hooks into something small and straight away I was aware the fight was ‘different’ and up popped another one of those spotty things.  It was a bit bigger than the one I’d caught in the summer, a new PB at 2-02 which somehow managed to get half a bluey into its gob.

I fished one more swim close to the car and enjoyed the sunset without anything else making off with a bait.  No Pike in the net this afternoon but searching out another stretch of water was time well spent.