Don’t tell Him Your Name…16/06/2012

I forgot. I’d nearly forgotten to get a new coarse licence too, I only remembered on Tuesday…it arrived on Friday and still I forgot. Perhaps it was because I was still on a high from Wednesday’s session on the sea or perhaps it was because I’m so conditioned to basing fishing on wind strength and its effects on the sea and the weekend looked dire but I totally forgot until Friday night that the rivers would be open again in the morning. Too late to arrange much other than a quick text to the usual suspects and it was only Mike who said he’d be along, but later than my planned time of 6am launch.

6am. Pretty unnecessary but I had to get up early to tire myself for sleeping in preparation for a new round of shifts. Even so I refused to listen to my alarm at 5 and hung around for a little while before jumping into the van and heading for the Waveney at Beccles.

A slight shift from the norm this time, normally I use my 12lb class boat rods for trolling, with Charter Special lever drag reels. The rods are beefier than I need for most of the pike I catch but they always seem to produce more fish than using thinner spinning rods. I have this theory, unbased on anything scientific, that the thinner rods put too much movement into the lures and make them behave unnaturally but I wasn’t too concerned today as I’d been a busy bee the night before and got my spinning reel working again. I’d seized it at the back end of last summer, a freshwater reel used all season for bass and left rigged and in the van without a rinse. Stripping with the aid of various hammers, chisels and chainsaws coupled with a can or three of WD had got it running smoothly again but with no anti-reverse. Now I don’t know about you but I have no need for a backwinding reel, the drag is my control on a fish and I hate getting 200 metres downriver and having to wind the bloody lot back in! Anyway, I’d got bored back in the autumn and slung it with the rest of my reels and ordered a new baitcaster, having killed my other one after twenty-odd years; no amount of WD and kicking could get it engaging properly. Well, the baitcaster, a Shimano Coriolis 100GA, had been picked up half-price on ebay and had travelled out to South Africa with me. There and here it failed to catch any fish and had been deemed unlucky…especially as I’d lost two of the casting brakes from the spool! Still, that was now on my one spinning rod in the van, one of my charter specials was on my daughter’s rod still from Swanage down in the hallway (I was upstairs) and the other was in the van rigged for smoothies. Where was i? Oh yeah, too lazy to deal with things I decided to strip the spinning reel again and fix the anti-reverse. While chatting on SWKA.

Google is your friend. “Anti-reverse spinning reel” ****ed. Or words to that effect and lo and behold, first hit is a text and photo strip down for the reel I have in front of me. Get in there! Ppool off, screwdrivers out of the tub, ah…need a spanner. Nope, got a Leatherman in the drawer somewhere. Yep, that’s off, right, that looks okay, pull it off, yep, fine, screws out. Umm, yeah, guess so, don’t really know, what the hell, let’s go deeper…aha! Simple! How obvious now I know…invisible from the schematic I’d used before but one piece of metal is on upside down and that’s the kiddy. All back together and though not running as smoothly as it was before the anti-reverse was re-engaging. So that was that then, onto the other spinning rod and with wire traces tied on it was left down by the door and I was off to bed.

So I pull off the road and head down to the parking place…Mike is already there and just about ready to go; I’m 15 minutes later than I’d originally intended. Yak off, kit out, clobber on and away we go…redhead J13 with rusty nails dangling from it (note to self, get some more trebles of the right size) on one rod and a 7cm Jointed Shad Rap on the other. The hooks are fine on this, I’ve had it well over two years and not used it yet. Fifty yards back, rod tips jiggling and we head south for the bridge, two Scupper Pros opening the season…

It’s a beautiful day, the sun is shining and it’s already a warm one. The sky is blue, the water is low, and apart from some suspended dirt it’s reasonably clear. We should do alright today. I take one side, mike the other and we paddle slowly with the current.

I can hardly believe it. Nothing! We reach the bypass bridge and turn. I’m astonished. Clearly the fish aren’t aware that the season has opened. The news hasn’t filtered through to the anglers either, we’ve hardly seen any. So back we go, against the tide now, different lures on now, blue J13 on one and a Jointed Super Shad Rap. Back past the metal bridge, through the wide part and then, finally, the rod bucks, pulls over and I’m in! A nice hard scrap and a jack around a couple of pounds, punching above its weight, is brought aboard, unhooked, photographed and sent back on its way…the season starts.

 

We paddle up past the launch point, head upstream towards Geldeston. The rowing club is passed and rerun as it usually produces but nothing happens…

 

We carry on, past Gillingham where I fished as a kid and around the bend where Norfolkboy had started the season with a good fish a couple of years back when hilarity ensued for all but the guy in the boat that had been there since 3am…hilarity involving a multitude of yaks and a broken down yacht…but no fish from here today. E continued right up to the pump house at Barsham where Mike used to fish as a kid and then we turned.

Near the launch point we decided another run to the bridge couldn’t hurt, another half an hour and we carried on down. I’d tried a bunch of different lures by now but still the fish were shy.

  

  

We got near the bridge, I reeled both rods in and stuck a Storm Wildeye perch on for a few desultory casts and then decided to head back, trolling it even though I don’t usually troll them. I’d gone a few hundred yards when I decided I may as well pop the other rod back out with the 7cm Jointed shad rap on, Blue Shad pattern. Better out than in I decided even though it was pointless.

  

I’d not gone many strokes after engaging the reel when the rod bent over and I felt another fish on! A better one this time, a lot better. Mike was a few hundred yards away and didn’t hear me call as the fish pulled the rod tip over and into the water, lunging, pulling and stripping line off the baitcaster.

  

I battled with it. it pulled, it ran, it dived and then I got the first glimpse; a good fish! Up on the surface it thrashed and dove, came up, thrashed some more and dived again. I couldn’t see Mike now and with it alongside and tiring I decided to try my phone…and he had it on him. I wanted a pic, would he come please? Of course!

  

  

As he pulled up he took his camera and realised the batteries had died! Damn! He came around the other side, grabbed mine and got back into position as I gilled the fish, wrong-sided for the lure so more carefully than normal and with my reverse hand under its other end pulled it out of the water keeping a  firm grip that held it when it gave one last thrash and with the lure removed Mike got the pictures.

  

I placed her back in the water, held her to recover and in seconds she swept her tail and descended strongly. With that we paddled back, lines in, the season well and truly started.