JAA's Fishing Diary, well 'mostly fishing'.

West wind, 13°C, corner by the gate, collar up, hat down. Could be a good chance. Water is 6.5°C now 11:20, see if it rises. Two others out of the wind on West bank, out of the bluster. I prefer the wind in my face and 6 feet of water. I wait, coffee and Tulleymore, some iboprufen...there are flecks of water in the breeze, wannabe rain and the sun is still on my left, only just. The plan; fish an hour(ish) then check the water temp. around the lake. Now 6.7°C here, a tenth up. Slow. If the top layer is warming the shallow end might be better. A walk, I'm the warmest spot by half a degree, so I'll back the wind and stick it out. I switch to maggots and try to avoid being sun-blinded mid-way through its low arc. More Tulleymore'd caffeine, then a few nip-and-tucks and a cautious strike nabs a 6oz perch, perhaps not able to show its fighting qualities on the 14lb...but I'm pleased to see it nevertheless.

A fish swirls under the big tree on the South end, the second warmest part I found. Aha. 6.9°C here and edging up. The fish in the tree falls to a boilie in the corner, so one feeding then. I'm encouraged by this, it feels like a good day for a surprise. Air's down to 11° water up to 7°, 14:30 still time, but getting greyer as the day wears. The fish was a 6lb-ish mirror and the unhooking mat twists in the breeze to keep itss mates away. I wait. I get a half bite then nothing and Corner Man gets another on at 3ish. It's bigger and despite my higher T. he's doing better - I should look harder at that spot and another day would move to the end but that seems a bit rude somehow. This is angling though, it should never be too easy or predictable. I amuse myself by photographing a ladybird on my leg. Maybe an hour to go, a few fish dimple and a fieldfare chirps in the dead oak. I've one cup left and it feel good still, hands numbing a bit mind. Lake to myself now, the dusk hour. Chip, blackbird, chip.

I don't recall seeing the tiny float dip. One moment there, the next, under the surface and I struck without thought, conditioned reflex, a parabolic moment in time. There's an answering pull then a scrappy little episode in which a 6lb or so fish does it's best to get back into the trees, but really, I was fishing with the monster in mind. But a pretty fish and well worth the wait. I re-cast, the shades drift in and then the trees in the South West Corner start to keen, then each tree in turn up the bank, then the squall hits and I take the hint.

Three got there before me, unusual, 8 rods between them, with rod#1 having 2 baits against snags despite being 10 yards up the bank chatting to his mate. Why is this acceptable these days? And cutting off the bottom half of the lake. I don't think that's the right end anyhoo, I decamp to the north end where it's shallower, warmer (as the last few nearly green lilies testify to) and will get light most of the day. If there's a carp to be had it'll be that end I suspect. I alternately fish two rods and catch a dozen or more cold grey winter day perch, on the avon and maggoty pin. The pick is perhaps 8oz, certainly big enough for the net and it jagged about my swim like a good 'un. I alternate this with the big hex bob, which twitches not, all day, a variety of baits ignored. Periodically 3 rods#1 walks the south end to over-feed 'his' swim, in reality another swim altogether. The deer picking it's way out of the corner turns white tail at the fisher's white jumper and 5 later, as I know it will, trots behind me. The other route. I watch it, it watches me over its shoulder and 5 magpies chakker in the trees. For Silver. Maggies can't count so I ignore them, but my next fish is a roach anyway. Ha ha.

Barring my barred snafflers, the only other sign of fish was a carp hooked by my neighbour (swim but one) on a light quiver rod, puddle chucker 2 inches proud - the modern bent pin and sugar string perhaps - a respectable carp which overcame the rod near the net and arrowed into sunken tree branches where it stayed, a shame, a consequence of too many carp perhaps. Hard to fish for any old fish and avoid this.

Then it's, dusk my stiff fingers are struggling with the small technology's keyboard and I can't feel my toes. An owl calls time. I leave before it's completely dark, unusual for me.

I planned to go, but couldn't for the life of me make a decision. Normally, I lie abed and let my mind wander over the selection of waters I have, but today that didn't work, so in the end I drunk a Lapsang while spooling 8lb onto the KP and packed the 4 piece avon and took it to a pond where there was a convenience of small carp and rudd. That was the whole plan, so pitched, with a small goose-tipped porcy and a size 14, admittedly on fine braid. 90 minutes, 4 baits and a coffee later I decided to circle the pond, barely an acre, with the maggots looking for small fish for fun and pathfinding. Apart from useful info on depth, I found only two piles of scales, 1lb fish size.

Ah well, I settled into my spot and took foil off my lunch and sucked two squares with coffee. The float might have flicked, dismissed, then it went under. The avon bent steadily on the strike, ponderous awakening. In the event there was 5 minutes of dragging resistance making the ratchet growl - then this fine common of about 10lb grudgingly acquiesced. Well then.

I celebrate with more coffee and 85%. I get two further knocks, the first no more than a flattening of the meniscus, once, twice, three times, then later a single jag making my hand twitch, conditioned reflex.

The next bite was complete, and again the sluggish sandbag thing, but then after a few wallows it down its head and made for the far bank, dragging the test curve plus some. All righty then...this better fish keeps up these runs for 10 minutes, me mindful of the thick rushes on the far bank and having to pull it up several times. After a dozen of these, the line singing in the cold wind, my reel hand numbing in it, I half trick, 12lb or so, into the net.

Under rated maggots, but where are the small ones? I feel there's another fish to be had, but no serious bites come, but serious clooping breaks out in the dead rushes, it's 7°C, surely not? Half a loaf would have got me three, and into the swing now I watch the quill tip first in the moonlight and then with a torch beam, nipping out two 1lb fish, now the tiddlers come out. Aha. It takes me to 'Dirty Little Girl' on the Yellow Brick Road (I skip track 1) to thaw out my hands and feet. Good stuff.

How you imagine things is not always how they turn out. It's easy to day-dream wistfully about the chuckling feeders and streams here and lace those dream with smatterings of grayling and dace, but when the water is as low as we found it and it's that time when the trout are about, what Nobby and I had was a cold few hours casting around for any signs of anything which wasn't a trout like the one I stole out of Nobby's swim at the top of Heron's Delight. We worked down the Willow stream, pausing only for me to lose 3 hooks on snags and the pool at the head of the Old River where a fine fluted Avon foundered with all hands. I pulled a bite or two on the canal section while we debated 'to soup or not to soup', the answer in the end being 'soup'. While the ghillie warmed soup I metronomically extracted 5 'spotted chub' and most joyously a 1½ actual chub out of the hatch-pool at the top of Parson's Ditch.

Over steaming beef broth, baguettes, peppered pork slices and slabs of cakes, Nobby's knees decided he wasn't going fishing after lunch, leaving me to extract another 'spotted twit' from the same pool, giving in then and heading for the Old River and a bank-fall which streamed colour into the gin-clear, a sure bet...for another 'spotted gudgeon' and despite my best efforts at trotting three sorts of bait around this spot, nothing dipped the tip, so I decamped to the canal section (despite hearing the siren song of Gunters's hatch pool), so putting a size 16 on and moving the Avon 4 feet up the line, whipped out somewhere between a dozen and a score of roach to 4oz and one tiny perch, just to prove a point really. Ok, it was fun as well.

With the gloom settling and an hour left, I switched (too late...) to a size 8, fished 4 inches over-depth and an improbably large bunch of worms pinned on the barbless with a sliver of silicone. I missed a snatch 10 minutes later, then an edged off bite, struck too soon and finally with the dregs of the light left, the float wobbled off sideways, descending as it went and my careful strike got the right sort of thump and I netted this fine perch, let's call it '1lb'. Good enough, cold now.

There exists, in my mind at least, the perfect cast. I see it from time to time, popping into my head unbidden, alongside other vignettes, some fishing, some not. It goes like this - the rod, held in the left hand, is thrown behind one in the usual way and the cast, the forward flick, arcs the float, a slender 7" porcupine quill, upwards from the rod tip and drops it in a perfect parabola, perfectly targeted at some gap in mythical lily pads. The rod, reel outwards is turned a quarter circle in the movement, in my mind spinning the quill to stabilise it in flight - this is of course impossible - just a trace memory of a left-arm-overspun leg-break keeping the idea in place. The float, of course, arrives in line with the hooked bait, which lands first, shot softly after, then the float with the unerring accuracy of a bulls-eye finish, into the same spreading ripples with barely a sound. The float lolls half-cocked. Video et taceo. ^||

Best wishes for 2012, be lucky.