rests, like long

I’d learned a lot over the past few years, though some of it had taken an awfully long time to reach me, hidden away at the furthest end of a barely discernible grapevine. I had never really intended to become embroiled in carp fishing, and had even been known to remark that indeed life was too short to even consider fishing for what used to be known as the most difficult of all fishes. Yet here I was, looking almost like a real carp angler. Matching mark IV’s sat unbaited and silent on almost matched rod-rests, like long-bows laid down in preparation for some big battle on the morrow, waiting for the dawn when they would spring into action and send hopefully prepared traps into the carp’s lair. The season was to start on the Thursday, and I arrived at the lake at about 9 o’clock on the Wednesday evening. The club rule was no fishing until dawn. I didn’t see the point of that, but was happy to conform. I wanted to savour the opening moments, to be able to see what was going on, not cast out and fall asleep! And anyway, I had the reels filled to the brim with new line – I didn’t want that pinging all over the place in the dark. So I had put all the tackle together before the light went, and placed the rods in the rests ready to be cast out at dawn. It was pointless trying to sleep. I lay on the bedchair counting the stars, philosophising. Thinking of old friends I hadn’t seen for years, wondering if any of them were looking at those same stars. Wondering if any of them were thinking of me. Then it would get too deep, and I’d look away. “Many a year has passed and gone, And many a gamble has been lost and won; And many a road taken by many a first friend, And each one, I’ve never seen again”. Dylan said that.”Preserve your memories – they’re all that’s left you”. Paul Simon said that. “Life is full of memories. Some of the good ones hurt, hurt because they are memories”. I said that. Three thirty. The first chinks appeared in the all embracing armour of the night. Is there anything quite as good as dawn on opening day? It rapidly brought my mind back from its metaphysical wanderings, and solidly down to earth. It was time to bait up. Out went half a pound of the particle and four ounces of the HNV. I cast the first rod about thirty-five yards, and slightly to my right. To achieve this I had to wade out a few yards in order to miss the overhanging trees. Letting the reel backwind, I waded back to the bank and put the rod on the rests. The reel kept backwinding! “Good God!” says my diary. This water was producing on average around eight doubles a season to the more successful anglers (and often bugger all to the unsuccessful ones!) and here I was with a fish on within seconds of starting! By the time I’d recovered from the shock the fish had run off thirty yards of line. I tightened into it – and the line broke! “Bah!” it says in the diary. I’d been using this particular make of line for so long, I’d become blasť about testing new batches. Funny how even after years of good service from an item of tackle, it only has to let you down once and you never trust it again – I changed brands after that. The rest of the day produced many twitches, and fast lifts of the indicators, often followed by great bursts of foamy bubbles on the surface. On one occasion this was accompanied by a very exciting looking bow-wave. I could well imagine what was going on having simulated this in my back garden. Much to the amusement of my neighbours, I had set up a rod on a pair of rests, attached a bobbin and then taken the baited hook to the far end of the lawn, which was about fifty yards away. I then tightened the line to the indicator, put the bait in my mouth, then spat it out again as hard as I could. The effect on the indicator was a very fast lift, identical to the lifts I was now getting for real. The fish were probably picking up the baits, spitting them out and spooking, thereby causing great fizzes of bubbles to come to the surface as they disturbed the silt in their hurry to escape. This was a typical pre-hair occurrence. However, it shouldn’t have been happening – I was using the hair. At 1 o’clock there was a bit of a commotion on the larger of the two islands, and my friend John started his season off in fine style by catching the big leather at 22lbs. It’s always nice to get a good carp, though this one was sometimes a bit of an anti-climax as, due to a deformity, it was unable to put up much of a fight. Still, that didn’t make it any easier to hook, which is, after all, the hard part! This fish always seemed to get caught around 1 o’clock – another of those carpy coincidences? John was in on the HNV with me, and had caught it on that – that was encouraging. The remainder of the day produced no strikable indications, and as it got dark I fired in the rest of my bait, then went home. Early the following morning I was back in the same swim. Nothing had fallen to the night anglers, who were at this early hour still safely cocooned in their sleeping bags. The day proved to be exceedingly frustrating. At 5.15 a.m. I connected with a slow run – and landed a 3lb bream. Uggh! Ten to seven – a good run which stopped when I picked the rod up. Ten past seven and I had another run, which I struck into thin air – the bait had gone. Twelve minutes past seven and the same thing happened on the other rod. Eight a.m. saw carp leaping over the particle bed. Twenty to ten – another run. This time I hooked a fish, but it slipped the hook in the margins. Twenty past ten and another run was struck into thin air. Just after midday, my friend John in the next swim had better luck, landing a superb looking common of 14lbs 10oz. Immaculately scaled, this fish looked like it had been taken from a glass case. It had that lovely varnished look that older carp sometimes have. I jealously congratulated him before mooching back to my swim. All then remained quiet until just after seven in the evening, when I failed to make contact with yet another run, but on striking, noticed a big swirl over the bait, as if someone had pulled a giant plug from the bottom. The lake was six feet deep at that point, and I wondered what size of fish would make such a swirl on the surface from that depth. At a quarter to nine I had to leave. Five strikable indications had produced nothing. I’d changed the rigs around many times during the day, but just couldn’t get it right. Things were confused by the fact that some of the activity may not have been caused by carp. I went home and thought about it. It seemed the fish were getting the bait, but not the hook. Shortening the hair to a quarter of an inch was having the same result. I wanted both bait and hook entering the fish’s mouth together, whilst ensuring movement of the bait would not be restricted by the weight of the hook. It seemed a good way to achieve this was to fish three baits as close to the hook as possible. The hook weight would then be a much smaller proportion of the total weight of hook and baits, and therefore, in theory at least, have a much reduced effect on the bait’s movement in the water. I came up with the rig as in the diagram. Fished in conjunction with a short hook-length, and a backstop a few inches from the lead, it was, and still is, the most successful particle rig I’ve ever used. I was unable to get back to the lake until early afternoon the following Tuesday. The previous few days had seen the water temperature climb rapidly from 63F to 70F, so I chose a corner where the light south-west wind was quietly rippling in, putting diamonds of sunlight on the surface. I had to be away by 9 p.m. but it was worth going. In the quiet of the early evening, the sound of the clutch on the right hand rod pierced the silence. What a splendid sound that is! (No, my buzzer wasn’t broken – it wasn’t there – I didn’t use them then. Anyway, I love the sound of the clutch screaming. Just pick up a reel any time, even at home, and pull line quickly against the clutch. What fine feelings that sound evokes!) The fish put up a terrific battle, kiting to the right, then to the left, making runs in all directions like a ball in a pin-ball machine. Eventually it was netted, and weighed at 13lbs 14oz. It had taken the particle on the triple bait bolt rig. My diary records a big “YIPPEE!” I meant it. I left at a quarter past nine, grinning all the way home. The new rig had worked – I hoped it wasn’t a one-off. The details of fishy activity on the Thursday evening are not worth recounting. It may however amuse you to know that I broke two rod-rests trying to get them into the stone-hard ground, put my first cast into a tree and lost the whole rig I had spent about an hour setting up, split the cover of my fishing chair, then with said chair in-operative, sat in the grass on top of a red-ants nest (course I didn’t bloody see it – soon felt it though!). In retrospect, it’s probably better I didn’t hook a carp – God knows what disaster awaited that event! The following Saturday I arrived, as usual, at dawn. By mid-day the temperature was in the low eighties and not a breath of air disturbed the lake’s oily calm. The bobbins were stuck on the sticks as if they were made from pieces of candle and had melted there. But just below the dusty surface cruised the occasional small carp, perhaps taking advantage of the fact that their big brothers and sisters were otherwise occupied napping in the midday sun. Over the next few hours I caught three of these fish on floaters, the biggest just 4lbs, but which fought like a tiger. I’ll quote the diary entry made after deciding to stop messing around with the tiddlers. “Now back to the real stuff – catching nothing that is!”. It was right too – I packed up at 10 p.m. without another touch. No more fishing until the following Tuesday, when I managed a short pre-work session, starting at 5 a.m. There’s nothing that carries you through a day’s work better than getting a good carp under your belt. At twenty past six off went the left hand rod. The fish was a big leather – 21lbs 12oz, and it had taken the particle on the new rig. Was a pattern emerging? Just to put me in my place, at ten minutes to seven I caught a 2lb 8oz bream on the other rod. “Oh no – the bream are on the particle!”. The lake was full of bream – eurk! Still, at least it meant that I had christened both my new carbons, though I’m not sure if a bream counts in that context when you are fishing for carp. I stayed until 8 a.m. but nothing else happened (except I was late for work!). The next two short evening sessions were completely unproductive. Three of us were using the HNV but since John’s capture of that first fish on opening day (which wasn’t necessarily significant as it may have been the first bait the carp had seen for months) it didn’t seem to be working at all. I was quite confident we had a good bait so I asked Ritchie about it. “Keep putting it in” was all he said. That’s all he needed to say – it was one of the best pieces of advice I ever had. Saturday came round again – thank God – and I was at the lake by 4.30 a.m. I was fishing the particle on one rod, the HNV on the other, popped up four inches from the bottom. The only take of the day came some four hours later. It resulted in a nice mirror of 12lbs 6oz which took the pop-up. I was pleased, but confused. Had the bait begun to work, or was it the presentation? It might just have been a curiosity capture. I didn’t set too much store by it. The last “session” of the month was spent on the Park lake which is the other water mentioned in the first article of this series, a hard water of about six acres, full of weed and containing around twelve carp. For some reason the day sticks in my mind very clearly. I started fishing opposite one of the large beds of reed-mace, which grew in the lake, putting one bait at each end of a thirty yard strip. Despite the lake being only three feet deep, after a few uneventful hours sitting over the rods, I had seen no fish at all. I reeled in and went to explore the dense weed-beds at the far end of the lake. Cruising around in a figure of eight shaped gap in the weeds were two or three very large carp. It was rare for anyone to catch a carp here at that time – here surely was a heaven sent opportunity. I fetched one of my rods, but left the landing net with my son, who was fishing further up the lake. Old habits die hard and I considered it would be bad luck to bring it down with me – far too presumptuous! Crouching in the marginal reeds I attempted to establish the fish’s cruising pattern. I can see those fish now! They would appear from out of the weed, cruise round one half of the “eight”, huge and grey backed like a cluster of elephants inspecting the perimeter of a circus ring, then come through the narrow neck into the other half, there to continue browsing. After a while they would return through the neck and disappear into the weed for about twenty minutes. Coming through the neck they were facing me. If I presented the bait just my side of the neck, they would see the bait before seeing the line. I waited ’til the fish had disappeared, then slowly straightened my cramped legs and gently cast a small piece of floating crust into position. This was anchored by a small weighted cork, which was resting on the weed. Perfect! Twenty minutes later the first fish re-appeared. It was a mirror, and looked well over twenty pounds. For five minutes it cruised around the furthest gap, then headed for the neck, where sat my deceitful fragment of crust. Anyone who has fished floater to big fish will know how I felt as that massive carp approached my bait. Closer and closer it came, and the beating of my heart shook my whole body, passing down my arms and into the light cane rod which I was now grasping very tightly indeed. The rod shook so much I had to rest the tip of it against a stalk of reed-mace. On came the fish, heading straight for the crust. Then it lifted its head, nosed the bait and immediately turned tail and shot out of the weed bed, disappearing up the lake with a great bow wave! All the tension went out of me and for a while I felt as if I had been filleted! But not for too long – another fish was due any moment. The far side of the weed-bed humped a little, and out cruised another big carp. It looked like a leather, was as black as night, and must have weighed at least 25lbs. It was a magnificent fish. I quickly re-baited with a softened chum mixer, and cast it into position while the carp was pre-occupied in tugging at some of the weed. He didn’t seem to have been disturbed. Eventually he turned, and headed towards the neck. With no hesitation at all, he opened his mouth, and took the bait. I didn’t strike immediately. Drawing on my experiences of fishing dry fly to trout, I waited until he had turned down, then tightened. The effect was electrifying! The fish jumped straight out of the water, and then went berserk trying to dive under the weed-bed. I couldn’t allow this to happen, so held on tight. The carp thrashed the surface as I moved the rod from side to side, trying to keep him in one position and confuse his senses. I shouted to my son to bring the net, and on glancing up was relieved to see he had heard, and was running along the bank towards me. Still the fish was crashing on the surface, held in that small area of open water. Nearer and nearer came the net. I planned to keep the carp where it was until it quietened, and then draw it quickly in through the top of the six or seven yards of marginal weed by walking backwards. But the fish showed no signs of quietening. It continued churning the surface, and just as my son arrived at my side, the hook pulled out! I don’t swear in front of children – usually!

The carp never came back that day, and not for the first or the last time, I left fish-less. Funny thing, since that day I’ve caught an awful lot of fish from that lake, and seen fish caught by other anglers. But I never ever saw that black leather again.