Back Again!

If you read the beginning of my blog you may remember that I confessed that sailing, not fishing is my main hobby. I only took up fishing again during the first lockdown as it was something we were allowed to do when we weren’t supposed to be travelling and my sailing club was shut. Well, boats have taken up my time recently as I have downsized to make single handed sailing easier. This has meant my time has been spent getting one boat ready to sell after firstly buying another one, not the way you are supposed to do it! This, along with my week in hospital and strict instructions to take life easy for a few weeks has limited the time I have been able to go fishing but with one boat sold now I am hoping to get back to the bank and some different waters again.

I did manage an evening session at the local pond again and this time the weather was quite different, warm, muggy and sunny. I set up my float rod again and started fishing at about two feet depth and was catching tiny rudd on almost every cast. I only managed a couple of tench and no goldfish or crucian/brown goldfish and to be honest it got a bit boring and I started taking more notice of my surroundings. The road was busy but became less noisy as the evening rush hour went on and I did notice that there were fewer lorries than in the daytime. More birds were singing than on my last visit although there were fewer fish jumping or rising to the surface. I did try varying my bait from red to white maggot which the rudd enjoyed just the same although they didn’t fancy the bread paste at all.

When I first started fishing again I used to get lots of tangles in the line, in fact there was a time when that was the signal to pack up for the day! I haven’t had a tangle for a while but I managed to get one this time, I don’t know how, it was just as I was casting out again the line was all wrapped around the float and I spent a good ten minutes in the gathering gloom trying to untangle it before cutting the line and starting again. I set the depth to only about fifteen inches as I was catching weed and was hoping to fish above it. Then I found that I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for split shot but eventually got the right amount on the line with a hook of almost the size I wanted! I really must pay a visit to the tackle shop in town and stock up on supplies. Buying from Amazon or mail order firms was acceptable during the pandemic but now restrictions have eased I feel that we must support our local shops. “Use it or lose it,” as the saying goes and if I lose it where will I get my pint of maggots?

Anyway, back to the fishing. If I was fishing a match then I would have been pulling the rudd out as fast as possible but as I said earlier, it was getting boring. I always like having the possibility of catching something different and this was getting rather predictable. Then my evening brightened when a heron landed at the far end of the pond. It wasn’t happy about me being there and didn’t settle down to fish but stayed long enough for me to take a picture although the quality wasn’t great as I had to use the telephoto on my phone. I don’t mind herons, I know they eat fish but like kingfishers there are only a few of them around, unlike cormorants that seem to come in mob handed. Shortly after that I decided to pack up, which, as I was fishing light didn’t take long and I was soon home.

So, my reflections on my session? I really must go and fish somewhere else! I need a change and long enough has passed for me to be able to walk with my gear to other waters from their car parks. Perhaps I can persuade the missus to come with me if it is a nice day, I am sure that she would push my barrow and all my carp gear four hundred yards for me!