I wave back and he disappears under his shelter again

Normally I would at this point let him off the lead to run free, but not this morning. Today he stays tethered to me – because today there are people all around the lake. Fishing. Today is the opening day of the season and the carp, the anglers hope, are gagging for it.I pass a couple of swims and a guy sticks his head around the side of an umbrella and waves a hello. I wave back and he disappears under his shelter again. He don’t want to chat, he was just being polite. He doesn’t want me or my muddy dog interfering with his sport. Down through the trees to the disabled swim, nobody there. Strange – as it’s a favourite being so close to the car park. Into the bushes where the path hugs the bank and anyone fishing here will be blocking the path… There’s someone just around that bend. It’s Lee. I open my mouth to greet him but before I can say anything his rod tip is snatched over and he is standing playing a fish. Max is going berserk, straining at the leash at all the commotion. I struggle to control him whilst liberating Lee’s landing net from the tangle of bushes at the same time. Holding the dog like this, I can be of little help but Lee is an old hand at this game and nets the fish himself at the first try. A fat mirror carp. Up on the scales it weighs in at a little over seventeen pounds, a couple of photographs later it is swimming away strongly and Max and I are continuing our walk. Nothing too special here, except that a couple of years ago Lee, and everyone else fishing that lake today, would have been breaking the law.Today is not the traditional opening day, that’s still a couple of weeks off. The glorious sixteenth has been replaced on this water, and many lakes around here, by a new date. June 1st. I’m not sure what the logic is behind this but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a compromise date intended to split the divide between those who think that a closed season is a good idea and those who think otherwise. For myself – I disagree with everyone, it seems. The closed season is supposed to be for the benefit of the fish, to give them a rest whilst spawning, yet it seems that little thought has ever been given to the actual spawning times of the fish. You see, very few fish in my experience have ever learned to read, so most are unaware that they have just this three month period to spawn in. So they end up getting it wrong year after year, having to get their fins over when the lake is crowded with anglers in late June or July. Or perhaps those who lay down the rules are wrong in allocating an arbitrary period (according to paragraph 8, sub-section 23 of the club rules no doubt). It really is insane that, even in this age of overdone political correctness, that the ‘powers that be’ cannot realise that there needs to be a little more discrimination of species than by dividing them just into ‘coarse’ and ‘game’ fish. A pike does not spawn at the same time as a carp. Elementary my dear Watson.Many countries have no closed season, hence the huge travel industry to Europe for the carp anglers in spring. Perhaps this is not a good idea, I don’t know. But what I do know is that those European lakes are prolific fisheries and the fishing there is superb. Perhaps those foreign fish don’t need the care that our home grown ones do? I am just a poor angler with little scientific knowledge to back up my theories But… If we can have different closed seasons for each family of fish, surely this would be a rather better system than the one now in force. We manage it for salmonoids so why not for pike and carp etc. And perhaps carry this a bit further by allowing those in control of the fisheries, the bailiffs etc, to set the dates themselves, according to when the fish spawn on their particular fishery? Or is that too simplistic? Or, more likely – says he, knowing a little too much about the human traffic warden mentality – is it giving away too much of that hard sought commodity which is more valuable than gold. Power? Hmm. No wonder we go fishing.On a lighter note, I had an email recently from Nick Rowe, a pal of mine who lives in Spain – which is country with no closed season. Nick is a guide on the river Ebro and has just landed a new personal best catfish at 165lb which is also a new record for the lower river. He got it in early June. I just had to tell you. So there, it’s done.

By Geoff Maynard