I was actually going to get some time to go fishing! Both daughters were planning to be out late, which means that they won’t appear until about 1pm, and David was off to a concert. Brenda could have a long lie in and I could be up early, and sneaking quietly out of the door around 6am. Terrific!
Only one problem, it’s close season and not a lot of the club’s waters are open. Perhaps, I’ll head for the coast and try for Bass. Anyway, better sort out some tackle.
I enter the garage and look around. There’s a smell of pipe tobacco. No, more than that. There’s the smell of stale pipe tobacco, clinging to tweed clothing. Funny that, perhaps someone has a bonfire going in their back yard. My eyes immediately turn to where the Caliber lure rods wait expectantly. Made up and ready to go, with lures attached to swivelled wire traces. One of Del Bennet’s Top Dawgs hangs beneath the Jerkbaiter, and I picture it snaking across a lake, past the lily pads. I imagine I see a sudden eruption of water, as its snaking progress is halted in an explosion of swirling white water.
The Corvette sports a Weedless Rapala Minnow Spoon, ready for some bottom bouncing among the snags. Hanging from the Nimrod is one of my home made lures, painted in Fire-Tiger. There’s something special about a home made lure.
When you’ve carved a shape from once living wood, dreaming of how it is going to come alive again in water, and all of the time thinking of deep waters and huge pike, thinking of summer days, and gurgling weir pools, it begins to become special. When you fish it, and explore the way it wants to move. When you discover how it behaves when retrieved, slow or fast. When you feel that sickness in your stomach as it sticks fast to an underwater snag, and works its way free, and when you see it engulfed by tooth-filled jaws ……… perhaps there is a bond, a magic spell cast by spirit of the long dead tree from which it came.
The lure seems to tremble in anticipation beneath the rod, like a dog at the sound of a rattled chain lead.
I smell the tobacco smoke again and turn toward the camping trailer, sniffing the air. My eyes spot the mullet rod, tied with hair bands, next to the bag in which I keep my mullet gear. For a moment, I think ‘mullet’, but, although I’ve already started baiting the estuary with bread-filled onion sacks, the season is still too early to waste a rare and precious morning.
"Roach, Peter."
The words like a half heard sound echo in my mind. ‘Hmmm!’ It’s been a while since I caught a roach, Mote Park is still open.
But then there’s the problem of bait. I’ll need to drive to the Angler’s Den to collect hempseed, maggots, sweetcorn and groundbait and it’s getting late. I start to dismiss the thought and turn toward the neatly stacked boxes of lures.
"Bread, Peter." This time it’s definitely a sound, softly spoken and eager. I smell the tobacco again. ‘Wha..’ I almost reply. Hmmm! There’s a loaf of Tesco’s economy thick sliced in the freezer, kept as a standby for a snatched mullet trip.
"Bread, Peter." I hear it again.
Almost without thinking, I’ve taken the bread from the freezer and put it in my tackle bag, now to sort out the rest of the gear. As I reach for tray containing my coarse tackle, a sudden fancy takes me. I’ll leave behind the swimfeeders, and the feeder rod. I’ll leave behind my collection of floats, groundbait, mixing tray etc etc. I’ll take just a few floats, some weights and hooks. A disgorger, and a few essentials, like an unhooking mat, keepnet, scales and camera.
——
I’m strangely excited as I set the alarm for an early start. It’s been too long since I’ve seen a float dip, and held a living bar of scarlet tipped silver in my hand. As my head hits the pillow, a worried fault crosses my mind. "Bread?"
"Watch, Peter." are the words I hear as I drift off.
Along the bank, between the weeds, sit anglers. I see beneath the water as their hand-thrown freebies splash on the surface. Below, the fish are cautious. They timidly avoid the three maggots, struggling unnaturally in a group, as they cautiously suck at the wrigglers, burying themselves in the mud, amid the layer of groundbait. They avoid the corn, suspended three inches above the bottom. Then I see the children, throwing bread to the ducks. Again, I’m transported below the water. The water is churned by the paddling feet, as beaks scrabble hungrily for the thrown offerings, swirling a cloud of leavened debris through the water. Down below the melee of feet and beaks, the fish feed confidently.
"See, Peter." the voice speaks with quiet authority, tinged with excitement. "The fish have grown wary of anglers baits, fished far from the margins. But they are used to bread fed to the ducks in the margins. No one seems to use bread much anymore. Don’t you think we should give it a try?"
I nod my head in sleepy agreement, wondering why the voice keeps calling me Peter, but, feeling like a kid again, wishing that it was my name.
——
I trudge across the grass and down toward the lake. There are already anglers fishing, and I stop to talk to them. No one is catching, and my spirits sink. Surrounded by tackle, bait waiters, rod bags etc, I wonder what they think of me, with just a rod, a tackle bag, and a loaf of bread? I’m joined in my walk by another angler who is anxious to catch a tench or two. He is carrying a mountain of tackle and I feel slightly ridiculous with my un-bagged rod, and clasping a loaf of Tesco’s economy bread.
——
I know the swim I want, and it’s free.
Before starting fishing, I gather the litter blown into the swim from the picnic area above me, and put it in a bag ready to take to one of the bins on my way back to the car. I soak a slice of the bread, squeeze it, and throw it into the margins. I rig the rod and attach a float and plumb the depth. Just beyond the margin, where I’ve thrown the groundbait, the depth drops away suddenly. To the left, there is a deeper hole, and this is where I decide to feed. The undertow insists on carrying the float to shallower water on the right. I sit and watch the float intently, occasionally feeding more of the soaked bread.
——
Now, Mote Park has a reputation as a ‘hard’ water. Big bags of bream are often taken, and of roach, with three pounders possible.
The water has a reputation as a winter tench water, and there are some very big carp. Once it was renowned for big pike, but nowadays it serves to illustrate Martin Gay’s contention that piking pressure will destroy prolific water for all time.
Have a shoal of fish in front of you, and you can fill your net. Two pegs down and nothing. If you aren’t catching here, it’s worth moving swims.
——
Today, no one was catching, including me.
I lifted my rig from the water, removed the bait and secure the line before wandering off to talk to the ‘tench’ angler, now encamped in the next swim. He is becoming despondent too. After a short chat, I return to my swim, just about ready for a move, but then I catch another whiff of pipe tobacco.
I cast again and watch the undertow take my float into the shallow water. The float dips and I strike, too late. My blood is racing as I rebait with trembling fingers. I cast again. Again the float drifts toward the shallow water, and dips.
"Strike, Peter!"
I hit the bite, and the fish powers off to the right. The rod tip bends and the clutch starts to slip as I try to halt the rush of the fish toward the reeds. I turn the fish, and it heads out to deeper water.
"That’s right Peter, keep it clear of the reeds."
I want to turn to see who’s talking, to tell them that my name is Leon, but I’m too busy, and too excited. Too soon the fish is ready for the net, and I swing it in. As I look at it, glistening in the morning sun, red tail and fins incandescent on a shining silver body, I’m just ten years old again, full of the magic of a world to explore, and hidden depths to fish. Soon, another roach joins it in the net, then it’s time to head for home. My luckless tench angling companion has also decided it’s time to quit.
"Anything?" he asks. I grin.
"Two roach." I reply. "Would you mind taking a picture?"
I wet the unhooking mat, and place the fish on it. A quick photo, then weigh them. The largest is 1lb 8oz. I then hold them for a group photo, squinting into sunlight as the shutter clicks. Behind the photographer, almost hidden in the sun’s piercing rays, I see the shape of a pipe-smoking man, dressed in tweed and wearing an old-fashioned hat. He grins at me and I grin back. I blink and he’s not there. As I return the fish to the water, one last time, I catch a whiff of tobacco smoke as a gentle voice says "Well done, Peter. Time to go home now."
Leon Roskilly
PS Any angler who was fishing in the sixties will recognise the description of the pipe smoking gentleman who Leon ‘imagined’, as Mr Crabtree who, along with his erstwhile student Peter, taught many a young angler the arts of fishing through the comic strips created by Bernard Venables, still writing about fishing in the 99’s!
