At about the
same age I used to fish our local gravel pits on the outskirts of Beeston. Travel was by foot, bicycle or
bus. On most occasions I would choose to
fish the swims on a spit which jutted out into the lake. There were about half a dozen quite good swims
which made for easy fishing as you didn't have to cast out very far to get some
action from the large shoals of roach.
You were
almost guaranteed to catch a reasonable bag from either of the swims. The roach
averaged a good size and weighed around the pound mark with odd fish to about a
pound and a half. I always used to marvel at how beautiful the roach were. They
were in pristine condition and fin perfect. I never tired of catching them and
all through my life I have had a soft spot for the roach. I have been fortunate
to catch them up to almost three pounds in weight over a fifty year span of my
life and whatever their size I still marvel at their beauty. This chapter however
is not actually about roach but about an occasion when I witnessed the capture
of another type of fish, the perch.
When I was
at that age I was a bit wary about catching perch. Every time I seemed to catch
a perch I would be a bit timid when trying to unhook them and seven times out
of ten I would get spiked by their dorsal fin I had been told the first spike
on the fin was poisonous; as they
wriggled like mad unless held securely. They had a beauty of their own, being a
lovely shade of green with red anal fins and those black bars down each side,
but not as beautiful as the roach.
On a few
occasions when I fished the gravel pit I noticed an old man fishing in the
reeds in one corner. He would be sat on his wicker basket and you would find it
hard to see him crouched down in the reed bed. You could walk along the bank
behind him and you would not realise that he was there. He was always in the
same spot and I never saw anyone else fish there. The probable reason for that
was the board saying that it was dangerous as the water was very deep (it
seemed bottomless) at that spot and to stay away from the reed bed.
One day my
curiosity got the better of me as once again I saw him fishing the spot. I
thought to myself that he must be catching something there as he never fished
anywhere else. I plucked up the courage to ask him if he minded me watching him
fish and surprisingly he agreed to let me bring my little seat and sit down
next to him.
He had
placed a load of sticks among the reeds and put a couple of wooden pallets on
top of them to give stability for him to sit without sinking into the water
among the reeds.
His tackle
set up was a dumpy type of float which took a sizeable amount of shot to set it
with about half an inch of it showing above the surface. I remember thinking
how crude his set up was and thought he would struggle to get a bite from any
self respecting fish.
His depth
was set at almost the rod’s length which was about twelve feet. The rod itself
was a greenheart split cane one and was about thirteen feet in length. A bunch
of largish shot was attached at about three feet from his hook and he had
another smaller shot about nine inches from the hook. He baited his hook with a
massive wriggling lob worm. I was very sceptical as to how he expected to catch
fish in this way.
Before
casting out underarm style, his bait he produced a little penknife and started
to cut up two or three of the large lobworms into smaller pieces. He picked up
what was a small metal cage thing and put the worm pieces into it and closed up
the side door to it.
Poking down below it was a short arm with a small lump of
lead attached to it. When the arm was push up it would release the side door
and the worms would fall out onto the bottom of the lake. Since watching this
for the first time I now know that it was a very early example of a bait
dropper.
It would be attached to your line and when it
sank it would drop the bait as the lead touched the bottom by allowing the
little side door to spring open. The bait dropper would then be lifted back out
and taken off your fishing line. The old man
then flicked out his baited hook and waited for his float to settle in the
water.
This did not take long as he had the bunch of
shots dropping through the water quite quickly. I was very amused by the fact
that he was fishing really close to the side, only a foot from the bank and
right alongside the reeds. The water itself was almost gin clear and he pointed
out to me the shapes of fish as they swam in and out of the reeds. They looked
quite large even though they were twelve feet down in the water. Their size
almost took my breath away as the fish I was used to catching were much smaller
in comparison.
I was just
starting to get a bit bored with the inactivity and lack of bites, when all of
a sudden the float lifted up and I wondered why the old man didn’t strike at
the float’s unnatural movement. He counted up to three and then as the float
slid away he struck sideways into the fish. The rod bent right round in an arc
has he wrestled to hold the fish and stop it diving into the reed bed. The fish
made two or three rushes for the reeds and each time the old man stopped it
making them. After a few minutes of frenzied activity fighting the fish’s
efforts to snag him, the old man slid the net under the fish and the prize was
his.
I was absolutely amazed by the length and
depth of the beautiful perch which now lay in his landing net and very excited
having watched the battle that ensued. He unhooked the fish with no fuss and it
never even flapped once. As he slipped it into his keep net he told me that it
was just over the three pound mark in weight. I was more than a little envious
I can tell you. I stayed with him and he caught another two huge stripey’s,
which was his nickname for the huge perch.
Nowadays a perch of over three pounds would
still be regarded as a good specimen but the record is probably more than five
pounds. As the bites tailed off, the old man reached into a tin which had half
a dozen minnows swimming around inside and he chose the biggest one to place
onto his size ten hook. It wasn't long before he landed a perch which went
around the four pound mark. The giant fish joined the others in his keep net. I
told him I had to go home and asked him if I could see the contents of his
keep net. He duly obliged and I think there was about eight stripey’s
altogether. All the fish were caught without any other angler even knowing he
was there and I suppose as it was his favourite spot and not wanting to lose it,
he kept his catches to himself.
When I think
about it, the cost of his bait was nothing. The amounts many pounds and pence; that
other anglers were paying to catch their bags of fish were a lot greater. To a
little boy like me it seemed a great adventure and I had to take my hat off to
the old man.
Thinking
back on that day, it goes to the heart of simple pleasures that cost next to
nothing to pursue. I certainly wish it could be like that these days. I also
remind myself these days to always be inquisitive and to talk with other
anglers.
Most fellow
anglers are eager to swap tips and information that you may or may not have
already thought about, but I suppose there will always be the secretive few.
Their loss I say.
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