Devon Minnows,Trout and bloody rain

Image Above: Homemade cane (bamboo) Devon Minnows

Images Below: Trout and Priest

Wind Turbines at Royd Moor, above Scout Dyke Reservoir, Yorkshire

The reservoir had filled since my last visit a little under a year ago when a summer drought had lowered it until it had taken on the feel of a dry dock in the process of being drained. The rough stone banks had gone and the water now reached around the bases of the trees meeting the grass in small bays. A healthy growth of weed and pads hung about the more sheltered stretches of bank and out of view of the imposing dam wall the waterscape felt almost like a natural lake.

The last weather forecast I had heard had been a little over-enthusiastic and what had started as driving rain in Manchester had subsided to a drizzle over the heights of the Pennines. The drizzle despite being unable to dimple the water’s surface had quickly soaked through my jacket marking my clothes beneath with damp patches around the seams.I was not alone everthing was touched with a sheen of water from the barded wire to the blades of grass, while the low cloud muffled the wind turbines until they sailed like ghost ships across the moor above. I had visited an agricultural supply shop on route and bought a pair of green dairy over-trousers something I hadn’t worn for a few years. The assistant kept pulling out small and medium sized pairs from the pile before getting closer with a large. I advised him to add enough X’s before the L to make it look like a large roman numeral. The trousers turned out to be a wise investment as my legs were the only part of me that stayed just damp instead of saturated.

I had come with three basic requirements for the day to fish, film and test a few things; if I could combine all three and catch a fish on video while testing a new lure it would be gold. Sadly the rain never stopped long enough for me to get any footage apart from some cutaway shots of tying on bits and bobs under a tree. Fish wise the reservoir is stocked with rainbows and a few brown which have to go back, there is also a good head of perch.

I began casting some cane Devon minnows and after a couple of hours and having changed enough times to have worked through the selection I had brought I hooked on a micro wobbler I had made last year hoping it may do me some good on this bit of water. Three or four casts later and I was into a rainbow. I had forgotten about the speed these things can kick up but it quickly came back to me as the fish shot round the bay tail walking as it went. When I finally banked it like an amateur I kicked my bag into the water behind me, normally this would mean just a bit of wet tackle but it was holding my camera and a couple of lenses. I dropped the fish and grabbed the bag before it sank, luckily I had, had the foresight to wrap my camera in a plastic bag to protect it from the rain. The camera was dry but the lenses had taken water and I dried off and drain them as best I could. Meanwhile, the fish being free on a grassy bank sloping down to the water unhooked itself and made its own way back foiling my plans for a fishy dinner. A passing dog walker unaware of the chain of events that had led to me standing in the rain swearing at myself was little taken a back and almost broke into jog to escape the scene.

When I had gathered myself a little a wave of relief washed over me as I remembered I had caught a fish with a previously untried lure. I caught another trout at the next bay guaranteeing dinner and then predictably threw the lure into a tree overhanging some very deep water. At this point I decided to return to car to dry out my clothes, the lenses and reassess the general direction of my life.

Slightly less damp I returned to the water and managed to get something to tug on one of my Devon minnows but it failed to make to the bank. Looking for a second fish I tied on a flying ‘C’ minnow and it quickly proved itself by filling out my bag limit. With a few hours to left to fish and feeling eager to avoid trout and treble hooks I thought I would try a bit of drop-shotting for perch using some of my micro soft plastic worms and new hooks I have been doctoring. I casted around the weeds and overhanging branches but failed to find a single perch, the trout however were throwing themselves at me and in a couple of hours I lost track of how many I had caught the single hook making it easy to unhook them in the water.

It never stopped raining but by late afternoon the drizzle had slowed until it almost hung in the air like wet dust as the distant wind turbines gained some definition to their outlines.

Making A flying Minnow Lure and fishing with Dave

There is a pike on the edge of the reeds, when everything settles it lunges scattering the fry that hold up in the shade. I have been through every lure in my bag casting and retrieving them as close the stems as I dare but none so far have sparked any interest. Paul a fellow angler spots me and comes over for a chat, eyeing up his brace of rods and bite indicators set up a little way down the bank I ask if he has gone over to the carp side. He tells me he has always been a carp guy and only fishes the float for roach and bream when he has not had much luck with the big fellas, which he says is more often than he would like. 

The carp here can get to just under the thirty pound mark but they have seen it all, every rig, bait and trick in the book and while getting fat they have learnt to avoid spending any time out of the water.  So we talk about baits and he tells me about one of his friends who used a chicken Macnugget to land a twenty pounder and the next day Paul had been through the drive-in hoping to repeat his friend’s success. Talking weird baits and strange catches is a vast subject, I throw in a couple of tales including the story of the terrapin catch I had made on pellets; the non-native terrapin had probably been released after the Ninja Turtle craze had subsided. Then I tell him about Dave taking a pike on a mussel while float fishing for tench; a fish so ugly it would not be considered pretty if it was amphibian. 

It is a little over ten minutes later when Dave arrives as if summoned by the mere discussion of his fishing exploits. To say Dave is an unorthodox fisherman would not quiet convey the distance he has travelled either by design or folly from the main practices of the modern coarse angler. This evening he has two rods, the first is a fly rod fitted with a fixed spool reel to which is attached an unspecified monofilament line, a cage feeder, a hook length of 1.5lb and a size twenty hook, with this set up he hopes to land something. His other rod as if to balance things out is a straight piking, dead bait set up with a bubble float. As he has carried both rods from his house, broken down with the rigs attached and has not brought his glasses the task is given to me to untangle the treble hooks from the feeder and the rod rings; Dave helps by holding his can of beer steady.

I tell him about the topic of our earlier discussion which encourages him to share his own little gems including his story about catching the same catfish in a Thai lake as Jeremy Wade of River Monsters fame.  He has lived probably a little longer than the biggest carp in the lake and has seen almost as much but listening can be a bit of guessing game. Dave’s ability to communicate is based largely on the powers of his audience to fill in the bits of his sentence’s that are missing or edit out the bits that have been added by mistake. Sometimes if my concentration dips or Dave breaks his monologue by swigging from the can that he has been using as a microphone I am left with the feeling that I have been eating pasta without the sauce.

The light is falling and Paul asks me if I am still selling lures, and I tell him about the videos and people making them themselves. I tell him about the guys who have made lures from my designs and send me pictures from Australia, and South America of fish and places to fish, we talk for while as the drunks on the far side of the lake laugh into the darkness and the rats scuttle.  

A Baramundi on a Phox Minnow made in Australia by  Roy Priestley, thanks for sending the image Roy