Fizzling Out…10/03/2012

Well it’s almost the end of the coarse season and once again it’s passed largely unnoticed apart from the twenty-something-quid I saw disappear from my bank account for an Environment Agency rod licence back in March. But hey, it’s March and around the time that the girls go to spawn…and Snapper knows one of the places those horny sluts go. Or went. Or did go. Something like that. Anyway both my biggest pike have come from that spot, both twenties and both just before the end of the season. 1989 and 1994 they were and within a couple of feet of each other. It was nostalgia that made me go there this morning even though I’d stand a far better chance of catching on the Waveney and the paddle would do me good.


You see, I’ve blanked here far more times than I’ve caught. It’s also not really worth bothering with the kayak either, being 16ft wide and maybe 500 yards in length if all three pieces are added together. The trouble is I just don’t choose to fish unless I’m in a kayak these days and the idea of sitting on a riverbank is enough to leave me cold without the chill from beneath my arse. Nonetheless I unloaded the scupper, dropping it over the barbed wire fence and put my kit in it for the short drag to the dyke. Kit today was a 7ft 6in 12-20lb boat rod with a 4” KP Scarborough centrepin reel terminated by a wire trace holding half a bluey on two trebles beneath a float and a Shimano baitcaster reel on a 7ft spinning rod holding the same. I had a few lures with me as well in case I got bored.



It was a hairy launch to be honest. I was more likely to get a dunking clambering down the bank and over the reeds than I usually expect from launching off the beach but I made it without drama – phew! – and paddled the hundred yards to my mark. Ludicrous really. Anyway, I dropped in my baits and reversed.



There was a bit of flow, drainage from the surrounding marshland and within a few miniutes the floats were getting close to my position. I reeled in and decided to go the other side of themark and trot them down instead.


And therein lay the problem. The water was quite high and I would need to pass under the subsiding bridge. It was low, I could see that, but I figured I could breathe in and get under it…no-one loves a coward. I limbo-danced my way through, scraping my PFD on the underside and frightening any pike within 300 yards. That’s the whole water covered then.



I slung my paddle into the reeds and sat there as I trotted the baits down to their positions. Now it was time to sit and wait.

I continued waiting for a while.

Then I got bored and went for a walk.

Then I came back and waited some more.

Then I passed under the bridge again, even scrapier this time. I decided to trot a bait down nice and slow on the KP and stuck first a Storm Wildeye perch onto the end of the line and then a nice shiny spoon onto the spinning rod. Perhaps this would keep my mind more actively occupied.

It did but I still got bored. The fish weren’t playing. I gave it until 9am and then hauled my kayak out and went home. A pleasant enough reminiscence but I’d rather have had a fish.