OUT OF THE BLUE

 

     This particular stretch of the Grand Union is out to get us, I'm sure of it. We had some excellent fishing into November last year, but then it seemed to dry up. The weather didn't help but catches have declined steadily to one or two chances at best until eventually dwindling to nothing. On Monday, maggots and worms usually so reliable for catching some of the many perch in this stretch failed to illicit any indications whatsoever.

     The local pub is however, excellent and the countryside appealing so Pete and I returned today. We were looking forward to the trip, but the venue was on its final warning. Pete fished maggots and worms on float tackle as usual while I opted for 'The Barratt', my ultra, ultra light quivertip rod for, hopefully, a decent roach or at least one of the many bream in this stretch.

 
     I always feel that if any fish are about and feeding, I will get at least a liner within or around the first hour. Two and a half hours in, we had both resigned ourselves to a biteless, fishless morning and were just idling our time away waiting for the pub to open. Pete always tells me that if you aren't catching any fish, you might as well not catch a big one. I took his advice, put on a larger piece of flake and put on the far side of my feed closer to the reeds. 

     For some reason, this area seems to be a magnet for ramblers at the moment and I was heartily sick of dragging dogs away from my bait bucket. In fact I was engrossed in looking at my phone when out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. The tip, in fact the whole rod, was hooped hard round to the right and my lightly set clutch was whirring away. I grabbed the rod which by now had reached its full test curve and beyond. Something didn't feel right, there was a dead weight on the line and I feared that whatever I had on the end had reached the reeds. In fact I think it just hadn't realised it was hooked because the line was cutting across the canal towards me. I wound down and feeling the mounting pressure from the rod, it set off down the canal, passing Pete on its way. In the end, it seemed pointless trying to control a big fish so far away on such a soft ineffectual rod so I scrambled to my feet and ran after it recovering lots of line en route.

     Pete followed along behind with the net but after I eventually had things under control, it became glaringly obvious that my tiny pan net was going to be less than adequate. Somehow, at the second attempt, he managed to get enough of it in the net to lift it out. No mean achievement that. So my sought after roach turned out to be a common carp of eight and a half pounds and a rather boring morning turned out to be quite exciting in the end. It doesn't alter the feeling that it's time to move on.