I took
out a new rod for it’s first outing recently on the hunt for carp
in a nearby lake. I’m still not sure that the salesman in the tackle
shop really believed it was for me and is more used to seeing the ladies
in the shop sat down on the thoughtfully placed orange plastic chairs
tutting at the price of carbon fibre. The float rod proved successful
and I caught a few satisfying fish. Not massive, but then
I’ve found that it is rarely the big fish which make the day ‘special’.
Striking into what I thought was a bite from a smallish carp I came up with something which looked straight from the pages of Jurassic Park! I’m sure none of you reading who fish will be surprised to hear it was one of those illegal immigrants from over the seas that had tried to eat my lobworm - a Signal Crayfish. It took a lot of work to convince the crayfish to give up on the hook. Paul my partner gently convinced it to give in with the help of forceps while I held the large red pincers down with my two size 6 walking boots. Before any of you unfamiliar with these creatures reaches for your yellow pages and the telephone number of the nearest RSPCA officer you should know that they are a menace to this country’s fish stocks and were accidentally introduced to our waterways from America. Perhaps next time I’ll deal with the animals in the way many people now do - introduce them to a very hot bath and a jar of Marie Rose sauce.
My next strike gave me less surprises and was a small mirror carp a truly perfect ‘mini me’ version of it’s bigger friends and absolutely scale and fin perfect. Had it been 10 times its size I don’t think I could have been more pleased. I’m not really a fan of some of the gut busters some people chase but to me they just look like the fish that ate all the pies. I caught a few other bigger fish that day but nothing as pleasing as that little mirror.
Having
spent the whole day focused on that little orange tip bobbing about
in the water I had the strange and rather worrying effect of still being
able to see it in front of me while laying in bed trying to sleep. I
wouldn’t have minded but I never caught anything!
Talking to a relative recently about fishing they asked why I wanted
to do something “so boring”? I think this is something that
a lot of people think about fishing before they try it for themselves
but as this comment came from someone who spends a lot of time on a
canal boat travelling along canals and rivers at something a little
less than walking pace I felt they were skating on extremely thin ice.
Luckily enough we all find our pleasures in different ways. Wouldn’t
life be boring if we all enjoyed the same things and it would be a lot
harder to find a peg if everyone was an angler!
Good fishing to you all
Charlie Watts