Back on the rivers and back to Izaak Walton for a title. It’s true, in some waters there are no minnows and certainly it’s true that there are none to be had on my usual waters. So what’s a man to do? Fishing for points, one per species and already with a name for catching mini-species after my great goby hunt of many moons ago I have, after getting most of my available normal fish, a few miniatures would bring extra points if only I could track them down. Now, I spent over five years looking for sticklebacks, finally found them, caught them then returned to get them from the kayak. I failed on the bullheads (a forty mile roundtrip) where I’d seen them when I had hair twenty years ago and now my attention turned to minnows. Now I know this fella, who goes by the name Noidea, who has much knowledge of what is where and how to get them. Bullheads and Minnows he says? No problem. So I booked his services as a guide (ie asked if he wanted to go fishing) and off we sallied. On an eighty mile round-trip.
Well eventually we did. As I was picking him up my wife called with car problems and an hour was lost going to three garages. So off we sallied, stopping only to buy polarised sunglasses and coffee. And size 24 hooks just in case. I think there are some in the packet if not I’ve been robbed!
It was about midday when we got where we went. Noidea had an idea (I’ll call him Paul from now on, it’s easier and not everyone understands why us kayak anglers don’t have real names. I’m universally known as Snapper for example though my name is Mark. It’s nothing to do with fish either, by the way, but my previous career in photography). So, back to Noidea’s idea. ‘Look over this bridge’ he says. I do. I see my first barbel and some monster chub. We’re going to launch just upstream. I’ll get my minnows and the bullheads are under here but that’s what he’s going for he tells me. Fair enough. Might be worth a dabble for an additional point (barbel) or a PB (chub) but for now I have a mission.
We park up. We’re in a kind of secret spot. Secret in that if you recognise it that’s fine but if you don’t I’m keeping quiet. There are of course clues in the pictures but I shall be vague all the same. Don’t want a million people hammering the minnows after all.
So, back to the tale. We unload and carry the kayaks maybe a hundred yards to the water’s edge, looks a foot or two deep. We return to the car for the rest – not much, we don’t need much. We don’t need the scotch eggs for example so wolf them down and go to launch. Now Paul really does have no idea. He decides to not get in from the bank but to step into the water and thence into the kayak.
I get in from the bank. I paddle across, fifty yards down he says to pull up and trot my float down to there. I do, single red maggot on a size 16, 4lb bronze line, 3bb float, Vantage spinning rod and the DX2000 5BB reel. Along it trots, dips, dips, dips, dips, dips and moves slightly (a bit of flow so I’m looking for extra movement) and I strike into my first ever minnow.
”The Minnow hath, when he is in perfect season, and not sick (which is onely presently after spawning) a kind of dappled or waved colour, like to a Panther, on his sides, inclining to a greenish and skie-colour, his belly being milk-white, and his back almost black or blackish. He is a sharp biter at a small worm, and in hot weather makes excellent sport for young Anglers, or boyes, or women that love that Recreation” Or Snapper. Walton would surely have mentioned me had he read this!
All of two minutes, I’m a point up and fifty percent towards fulfilling my quest. Great guiding! Bullheads now.
”The Millers-thumb, or Bull-head, is a Fish of no pleasing shape. He is by Gesner compared to the Sea-toad-fish, for his similitude and shape. It has a head big and flat, much greater than sutable to his Body; a mouth very wide and usually gaping. He is without teeth, but his lips are very rough, much like to a File. He hath two Fins near to his gills, which be roundish or crested, two Fins also under the Belly, two on the Back, one below the Vent, and the Fin of his tail is round. Nature hath painted the Body of this Fish with whitish, blackish, brownish spots.” You may not like them Izaak, but you have caught them and I have not.
So I move down a bit. We spot some chub and pull up. Paul is fishing luncheon meat; I stick on a single red maggot. It takes a little while but then…nicely hooked:
“By a leather-mouthed Fish, I mean such as have their teeth in their throat, as the Chub or Cheven, and so the Barbel, the Gudgeon and Carp, and divers others have; and the hook being stuck into the leather or skin of such Fish does very seldom or never lose its hold.”
A little while, a little chub.
I move on…
Smaller than yesterday but third species of the session, a perch.
”The Pearch is a very good, and a very bold biting fish. He is one of the Fishes of prey, that like the Pike and Trout, carries his teeth in his mouth which is very large, and he dare venture to kill and devour several other kinds of fish, he has a hook’t or hog back, which is armed with sharp and stiff bristles, and all his skin armed or covered over with thick, dry, hard scales, and hath (which few other Fish have) two fins on his back.”
I find another spot, pull up where the gravel has built up and I have mere inches of water and some plants. Before me is a hole, deeper and dirtier. I cast a single red. I see two large chub come nosing, no joy, just another bunch of minnows.
I’ve been plagued by minnows since that first but now they’re jumping onto the hooks. I decide to capture them in their glory:
Then I have my first ‘spawning’ male, with red on its belly. Such a beautiful fish, small or not, it’s a delight!
I head to the bridge from earlier. Can see no sign of bullheads – or Miller’s Thumbs as they’re also known. Yes, I see large chub, yes I see Barbel, yes I have one of the latter close but no, I catch only minnows. I also talk to another kayak angler who isn’t paddling or fishing, just looking at fish from above while skiving…we chat for a while and will no doubt meet again.
I move further down, see large chub but then it becomes less populated. I fail to catch. I decide to head back up, chat to Paul, scrounge luncheon meat, fail to catch on it and head back upstream. He’s missed a chub a while back, a good one and just lost a good barbel. He’s not over the moon right now.
Paul follows, we try here and there and then end up sneaking up to another bridge that should hold bullheads. It doesn’t but we have a whale of a time in a small pool that has trillions of minnows, some chub, dace and 3 small barbel, less than a pound…and gudgeon.
I have a dace after a few minnows. I like dace. Izaak Walton again:
”you must have a small hook, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, or the bait is lost and the fish too (if one may lose that, which he never had); with this paste, you may, as I said, take both the Roach and the Dace or Dare, for they be much of a kind, in matter of feeding, cunning, goodness, and usually in size.”
I drop down in front of a small barbel, it’s back in the pool again. I watch as he feeds and I strike and I’m over the moon but no, says Paul, it’s a gudgeon and sure enough…it is. The barbels and shape have fooled me. That said it’s easily the largest gudgeon I’ve ever had though I top it minutes later. That’s two PB’s in two days! As to this beautiful and scrappy little fish, I’ll once again turn to Izaak Walton, more of a Compleat Angler than I:
”he is of a fine shape, of a silver colour, and beautified with black spots both on his body and tail. He breeds two or three times in the year, and always in summer. He is commended for a fish of excellent nourishment: the Germans call him Groundling., by reason of his feeding on the ground; and he there feasts himself in sharp streams, and on the gravel. He and the barbel both feed so, and do not hunt for flies at any time, as most other fishes do: he is a most excellent fish to enter a young angler, being easy to be taken with a small red-worm, on or near to the ground. He is one of those leather-mouthed fish that has his teeth in his throat, and will hardly be lost off from the hook if he be once strucken.”
We spend a good half an hour plus trying to tempt these barbel, unhooking minnows and just dabbling, fishing by eye, casting, moving our maggots and so on…can we get this barbel? Can we hell! But what fun and what excitement! Like being ten again, sitting next to my granny fishing for mullet on the surface in the saltwater canal in Spain with bamboo canes and handlines!
Well that’s kind of all there is to it really. I left Paul at the bridge and started to head back. Loaded up and waited for him, having caught some juvenile chub, seen a huge one from the bridge and watched a Signal Crayfish below. He comes back though telling me that he finally tempted that small barbel, had it on for a few seconds and then it was gone. Clearly that barbel never read Walton:
”The Barbel is so called (saies Gesner) by reason of his Barb or Wattels at his mouth, which are under his nose or chaps. He is one of those leather-mouthed Fish that I told you of, that very seldom break his hold if he be once hook’d, but he will often break both rod and line if he proves to be a big one.”
We load up and go home after a most memorable session in a new place.
I flicked a maggot out while waiting for him to be ready to launch and had an immediate roach…he paddled over there and tried himself but with the rod tangled at the tip he drifted onto the spot and put the fish down. No matter, we had four hours to get something. As we paddled along through a couple of former hotspots nothing happened but then, out of the blue my rod started to jolt and buck. I turned, grabbed it and in came a half-pound perch. Great! That was a start…could I get a pike though and more importantly could Wilmy get one?
Well yes, he could. He did the honours with a 1lb jack on a lure of his own soon afterwards; he was off the starting blocks.
Stopping for a boat and with a bit of weed on my lure I turned to reel it in when I saw a splash and another perch grabbed it, similar in size.
Looked like the bright colours were doing the business in this sunlight. We moved off again and just before the Barsham bend my rod bucked again; what could it be?
"A slim young pike, with smart fins
And grey-striped suit, a young cub of a pike
Slouching along away below, half out of sight,
Like a lout on an obscure pavement…”
D. H. Lawrence
A small jack of a couple of pounds came to hand on the 13cm Jointed Minnow in firetiger that I’d changed over two a minute or so before. Two species but still not one I needed, they were just for fun.
I pulled up at Barsham, a boat was moored where I wanted to fish. Damn. I sat the opposite side and got drawn into a pointless conversation while watching fish swimming beneath me amongst the weeds in clear water through my new polaroids. I cast out and started with a definite rudd; I wasn’t happy with the pictures of my previous rudd, worrying they may have been hybrids or misidentifications but there was no doubting this fella with his golden flecks and scarlet fins, deep body and large, silvery scales and the offset pelvic and anal fins compared to the dorsal. Good.
Next up – and it took longer than expected – was a roach. Dorsal and pelvic fins aligned.
Then I waited ages, dropping a small perch – but I didn’t need one – before finally getting a small chub with its rubbery lips, streamlined body and paddle tail.
The boat finally moved off and Wilmy moved in to fish that had gone off the feed. We experimented with the length between float and hook, watched fish investigating and ignoring the baits and basically sat there. I had a feeder out mid-river which gave me a bonus gudgeon though but I had that as well – Wilmy could have done with all of these!
I had an idea. He smokes a lot so I told him he wasn’t allowed another cigarette until he caught another point! I promptly lit up to increase his carving. It took two minutes and he had another point…I’m saying nothing.
Sporadically we tempted a few more odd fish and with Wilmy on four (Pike, perch, roach, chub) and the fish all being the same we decided to head back for the town stretch to see what was about. I trolled down, stopping o stick the float out here and there but just managed roach. A fella in a boat had taken bream earlier but they’d moved off – I tried anyway to no avail before heading down to a couple of cuts and the dyke at the end of the quay.
Nick’s Trident was on the slip when I went past and on spotting him when retreating I mentioned we were just upriver if he wanted to join us briefly. I had no bites at all in this time. I’d sent Wilmy to my favourite spot and returned to chat to him. He’d done it! Dace and gudgeon, the six expected were in the bag. I figured we would just be able to make the stickleback mark if we headed off now as I needed to be in bed in an hour and a half ideally. Just one more fish…
We got to the car, loaded up and shot off to Haddiscoe, pulling up on the narrow verge most of the way across the dam. The tetra was unloaded, slid over the gate and launched and with wilmy in the hot seat I passed him the rod; a single pinkie on a size 24. The stickys were on it straight away but they just didn’t want to grab it; ten minutes of hilarity passed – it’s great to watch the shoal batting a maggot around – before half the maggot was pinched off and stickleback after stickleback dropped off before being landed. I could tell Wilmy was amused by it all…and then, finally, success! He landed his first three-spined stickleback, an inch long, and finished his day with seven new points for the team. Nicely done!
As for me? Keep on searching, I have until Sunday…but maybe I’ll turn up something new on the sea tomorrow.
