Waggler Floats and Cigarettes

The crossroads was empty except for a mange riddled fox that stood a little off the centre point. I wondered if it was waiting for the lights to change but knew it was sizing me up, trying to separate the jumble of rod case, net, chair and the man carrying it all. It waited a long time and then a cyclist pasted me and the fox moved, slinking through a gap in a fence. It was a little after four thirty and the sun was already high enough for the day to be considered fully formed all that was missing was the traffic.

                At the twenty four hour garage opposite the park entrance a guy stood on the edge of the forecourt as if waiting for a taxi. He asked me for cigarette as I neared, I told him I didn’t smoke and he asked for money; I told that I only had enough for a bottle pop as the sliding doors to shop opened. I passed him again on the way out and walked into the park.

At the lake a mist was puffing its way in from the fields cloaking the small nib of my float that poked at the surface. I missed some bites, and then missed some more, eventually I found some pace and began hooking roach and the odd bream. A noise made its way through the park cloaked by the dense foliage on the far side of the lake.  When the owners of the voices finally made it in to view I found myself watching two men striped to the waist half dance their way down the path alongside the lake. They spoke what I took to be an African language, but Africa is a big place.   They told me they wanted to catch a fish and that they were drunk as if it was carefully guarded secret , I looked at them blankly while managing to keep an eye on the float and then they asked for a cigarette.  

Mackerel Fishing With Homemade Feather Rigs

There are those rare times when I am fishing that a fear creeps in. It is not the fear of going home empty handed but the fear that it is all a dream and in a moment the lap of the water and the tension on line will fade and I will wake up in an office with only the hum of copier machine for company.  

Making Soft plastic Fishing Lures

A very bad fisherman

    When the pike hit the lure I did what I have been telling myself I shouldn’t do, instead of striking and setting the hook I reached for the button on my camera. The pike needless to say was camera shy and just as I got the video going it threw the hook and buggered off to recover. I gave a few more casts just in case it was having second thoughts but I guessed it had better things to do. Well this was my first outing with my new Sushi Whip Tailed Grubs, I hadn’t actually caught a fish but at least I had proved to myself that it had attracted or annoyed one enough for it to take a swing at it.

                Despite being five in the morning other anglers had begun to arrive and my open water was quickly reduced to small patch which felt only a little larger than the bath tub I had tested the lures in. Before long I was into something again and this time I managed to strike. Whatever was on the end of the line shot off stripping line from reel as the drag buzzed. Despite thudding away at my rod I was not convinced it was a pike, I thought maybe it was one of the fabled catfish or a foul hooked carp.  A few mutes later I was gaining on it and the back end of a very large eel emerged from the weeds.  

I suppose an eel foul hooked doesn’t count unless you are a really bad fisherman. The only compensation was that I didn’t have to get my forceps down its mouth to unhook it.