HEMP AND TEARS
I started fishing when I was 12. Barry Jackson had told me his dad was taking him over the pits after tea, so I went there straight from school and waited for them. They lent me gear, I caught a small Roach and that was two of us hooked in one go. My mum rang the authorities because I hadn't come home from school and as well as a life-long obsession I had a thick ear to go with it. Within four years I was addicted to hemp.
Of course, if we'd been using anything else, we might well have been even unluckier and been beaten up by many times that number but it was a sobering day for me. Never mind, no point in dwelling on it; next time I would fish it on the club lake where the magic bait has produced nothing but silver fish for the last five summers or more. In fact nothing but Roach, Hybrids and the odd skimmer or Rudd since the day I joined, whenever that was.
At least here I could fish it on a short line with one of my newly refurbished Jap poles and a foot of number 3 elastic. A tiny quill would give away any interest in my bait and my tiny spoon net would be ample. As usual with fragile old poles. A light hooklength would be a useful insurance and so a 14 to 1.3 lb line would serve admirably. It did too, failing just once when my beliefs were trashed once more.
It all started so well too. I missed a lot of bites to start with; not uncommon with hemp but settled into a rhythm and began catching a few. We're not talking big Roach here but hemp is not a big Roach bait in my opinion. Really I'm fishing for run of the mill Roach; 4 to 12 oz mainly. True, a feisty Hybrid of three quarters of a pound poked its nose in early on but that was half expected; my first Crucian wasn't but it did explain a couple of better fished that bumped off and some suspiciously slow but unhittable bites.
That was 'unlikely, never happened before', hookup number two in just four days; only Tench to go then and my hemp-related experience would be turned upside down. Of course it was only a matter of time before it happened. That one shed the hook but it was already becoming clear by then that the bait which had reached bottom had been found and that signalled a switch to tares. It seems often to be the case that hemp works well on the hook until those deeper fish find the tares which then become the better bait; better bites, better hookups and better fish. And so it was on this occasion; two more Tench came to the net, two more Crucians, and a better stamp of Roach too. Rules are rules until they aren't. Rip it up and start again.
That was 53 years ago and I have been a user ever since. In that time, I had never caught a single Carp, Crucian or Tench on hemp, or tares for that matter. If ever I wanted to catch Roach from an infested pool, hemp and tares would never let me down; at least they hadn't until this last week when without telling me, the rules were changed. In fact they weren't just changed they were reversed.
We were trial fishing a possible new venue for the syndicate; until now it had been a day ticket Carp fishing pool but previous tests by other syndicate members had produced some half decent Roach and hybrids before the Carp had moved in. Hemp and Tares would certainly, we felt, give us a better chance. It didn't; proof if proof were needed that I know nothing. Seven times line was to pour from the spool of my ancient ambidex match before the hooklink failed. Pete was luckier; it only happened to him twice but neither of us saw hide nor hair of the fabled redfins.
We were trial fishing a possible new venue for the syndicate; until now it had been a day ticket Carp fishing pool but previous tests by other syndicate members had produced some half decent Roach and hybrids before the Carp had moved in. Hemp and Tares would certainly, we felt, give us a better chance. It didn't; proof if proof were needed that I know nothing. Seven times line was to pour from the spool of my ancient ambidex match before the hooklink failed. Pete was luckier; it only happened to him twice but neither of us saw hide nor hair of the fabled redfins.
Of course, if we'd been using anything else, we might well have been even unluckier and been beaten up by many times that number but it was a sobering day for me. Never mind, no point in dwelling on it; next time I would fish it on the club lake where the magic bait has produced nothing but silver fish for the last five summers or more. In fact nothing but Roach, Hybrids and the odd skimmer or Rudd since the day I joined, whenever that was.
At least here I could fish it on a short line with one of my newly refurbished Jap poles and a foot of number 3 elastic. A tiny quill would give away any interest in my bait and my tiny spoon net would be ample. As usual with fragile old poles. A light hooklength would be a useful insurance and so a 14 to 1.3 lb line would serve admirably. It did too, failing just once when my beliefs were trashed once more.
It all started so well too. I missed a lot of bites to start with; not uncommon with hemp but settled into a rhythm and began catching a few. We're not talking big Roach here but hemp is not a big Roach bait in my opinion. Really I'm fishing for run of the mill Roach; 4 to 12 oz mainly. True, a feisty Hybrid of three quarters of a pound poked its nose in early on but that was half expected; my first Crucian wasn't but it did explain a couple of better fished that bumped off and some suspiciously slow but unhittable bites.
That was 'unlikely, never happened before', hookup number two in just four days; only Tench to go then and my hemp-related experience would be turned upside down. Of course it was only a matter of time before it happened. That one shed the hook but it was already becoming clear by then that the bait which had reached bottom had been found and that signalled a switch to tares. It seems often to be the case that hemp works well on the hook until those deeper fish find the tares which then become the better bait; better bites, better hookups and better fish. And so it was on this occasion; two more Tench came to the net, two more Crucians, and a better stamp of Roach too. Rules are rules until they aren't. Rip it up and start again.
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