Monsoon

Image Above: The Roach King sits out the Monsoon

Sunday

The noise came from the other side of the lake; I could hear the crashing of branches and looked along the shoreline of the island and the muddy creeks that separate it. It sounded as if a fellow angler was having a fight with the shrubbery; fishing rods seldom pass cleanly through undergrowth. When the clank of goose or duck broke through I guessed a loose dog had found some sleeping waterfowl and decided to wake them. A brown back finally scuttled on the edge of a thicket of dogwood, when its legs stop kicking a large male fox emerged backwards onto the muddy shore. It stared at me for a while and then took a few paces unconcerned with my gaze. I played the slow motion game trying to reach for my camera at a speed that would not startle the animal but at least give me a chance of a photo.  The fox paced and then left as I fumbled in the rucksack.

 Wednesday

At the far end of the lake the sky has darkened under a cloud blue enough to remind me of scorched steel.  I have taken one pike, lost another and I am hoping to stoke the interest of a third that has just broken cover as my lure left the water at the end of a long retrieve. To my left the Roach King (nickname) is perched under an umbrella giving me instructions on how to rid his swim of the beast that has already taken a roach he was playing into the bank.  He is fishing a deep channel in the lake with a homemade float over a size 22 spade end hook; some people like to make it a little harder that it ought to be.

I cast again but fat drops of rain are falling, they grow fatter and faster until the lake almost shudders under the onslaught. I drop the rod in the long grass and shelter in the trees.

Lure Making School

Image Above: Salmon Parr Casting Spoon Prototype

Image Below Right: The Original with a Cole Fish

I spent the day trying out some new ideas I had come up with while making spinners from scrap. I have been putting off buying some kind of wire former hoping I could come up with a homemade alternative a little more suited to my needs. It is not that I am against buying tools, far from it; it is just that because I never went to lure making school I find myself doing things in a way that requires tools that as yet don’t exist and then in the process of making tools a whole new field of opportunities and ideas opens up. So from scrap spinners I jumped to wire forming jigs and lead moulds and decided to have another go at wiring an old prototype that I have never gotten round to finishing despite being the first lure I ever cast out of resin: The result is above; a trout or salmon parr casting spoon which is through wired and weighted and waiting for paint and epoxy. The original prototype took a fish on its first cast which I lost close to the boat but I got another on the second cast so I am hoping for good things.

Another Pine Minnow Victim

Image Above: The Pine Minnow and its latest victim


It has been a while since I have done any lure fishing for pike and feeling the need to test some hardware I headed for Cheshire with a box of home-made lures. In my absence my favourite lake had become almost choked with summer weed growth and I spent a couple of hours beating path along its banks while collecting samples of the aquatic flora with a selection of lures. Bushwhacking and stalking are not the best bedfellows and I managed to scare up quite a number of frogs in the dense reeds and also the pike that had come to hang under the banks for a free meal.

In the end I found a small stretch of open water and clipped on a pine minnow. I am still in awe of this lure and the deep rumbling wobble that sets up when it’s retrieved. I casted the lure as close to weeds as I dared and then held the rod high for the retrieves to limit the depth of the run. The lure shook its head as the line plotted a regular curve through the surface. Within half a dozen casts a jack emerged from a blanket of weed close in, pushing a wave up it took the lure almost in front of me. He was small enough for me to pluck from the water with only a hand under his chin. As if returning the favour he decided to kick up enough water to half fill one of my wellington boots. The mid treble on the lure looked to be holding his jaw shut and rather than do any more damage I cut the protruding points and barbs with a pair of side cutters I have starting carrying with me. What was left of the hook slipped out easily and the fish took the opportunity scoop a little more water up with its tail before I returned him to the weed.

I soldiered on a little but it was hard to find any open water or bank space. At one point I looked down to my reel and found I had wound in a good clump reed with the line. I hate to say it but, roll on winter piking and clear water.