It’s not that I’m completely mental or anything. Granted I’ve tried two countries and spent five years wishful of success and yes, I first heard of them nearly forty years ago, gazing in wonder at the pages in which I saw them taken from their home…I’m not mental, just, shall we say, enthralled. I may have read better books, longer books, more thrilling books since but ‘Topsy and Tim Go Fishing’ quite possibly set that seed growing. So they used nets? Well, I’ve used nets. I’ve used buckets too. And jars. Bottle traps as well. Creels too come to think of it. But I have never, EVER caught what they did, moments before the donkey frightened Tim and he fell into the river. BAD donkey.
Umm. Yeah. Okay.
I’d just like to point out that I have not been drinking. Nor have I been using any other mind-altering substances.
No. I finally and successfully specifically tracked down ad targeted that most elusive quarry, the Sticky-back. Or Stickleback if you’re not still thinking like a toddler. Three-spined stickleback to be precise, Gasterosteus aculeatus. Or Tittlebat if you’ve read The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. Yeah, I found them and then I tried to catch one. On a hook.
Hehehe. Bear with me, it’s just as great a tale as the largest shark I ever caught, it was more thrilling than my first tuna, far more amusing than my night-time goby hunting expeditions. Way more difficult than hooking prawns…and more long-awaited than any man’s salmon. Yes, this was a day to remember!
It all began when I came home from work at 830 to a message from my wife that my youngest daughter didn’t feel great and may have to come home from school. I was ‘asked’ not to be an hour away or anything like that. This was problematic as my plan, following a short sleep, had been to hit the river after ruffe, rudd and bream. As you do. I was now faced with another day spent editing videos until late afternoon and a pre-work sleep. Not tempted. Besides, I had to go to my parents as I needed my mum to get her sewing machine out and adapt a shirt into a couple of patches for my fishing hoodie and fetch my Grandfather’s Military Service Records which had finally arrived through the post from the Ministry of Defence. Sidenote: it transpires that he was attached, after giving Jerry what-for in North Africa, as a Staff Officer to No.3 Civil Affairs (Agriculture and Fisheries) Personnel Pool with the United Nations Relief Agency. Sticklebacks may have come under his authority.
I digress. As usual.
I shall digress again but it’s less of a leap of faith this time, it’s linked I promise. Back in early March 1989 my Grandfather was staying with us for a while, convalescing after hospitalisation. Now, he wasn’t, to my knowledge, an angler, this being the preserve of my maternal side I believe but he did relate a tale involving my Grandmother and himself, my Great Grandfather’s fishing rod, my Great Grandmother’s culinary skills, an afternoon of un-chaperoned courting, a bob or two and a happy kid with money instead of a fish in his hand. I’ve told it before, long story, but he took a pike home for dinner, it was cooked and his father later remarked that he couldn’t have caught it on that tackle. “I never said I did” was the reply.
You still following me? Are you confused yet? We’re getting there, trust me. Such are life’s journeys.
Anyway, he mentioned this was the last time he’d eaten pike. So little me, almost sixteen, picks up the gauntlet and tells him I shall provide another. The following day I hop onto my bike and cycle along the main road that runs across the marshes and plonk a bait into a dyke I often fished, the marshland near home providing a handy, if not great, hunting ground. Loads of tiddlers, see. Long story slightly shortened I snapped off the first and took a 3lb4oz pike home for the family, proud as punch etc.
Here we go, about to get more relevant.
So I’m heading over to my parents, I have maggots, I have my kit ready to go so a rod and reel goes in with a float and hook attached and I set off, thinking to probably check out that very same dyke to see if it’s not weeded up and there are any rudd about in preperation for Friday. I almost make it there but decided instead to stop a bit further along where I once saw a pike in ambush and a fair few decent silvers (large perch, roach etc). I reckoned that after twenty years they might have grown even bigger. That’s where I decided I’d go, just for an hour.
Oh, I forgot. I’d spent an hour or two trying to locate sticklebacks, bullheads and minnows on the net during my shift. Slightly relevant.
I pulled into the overgrown gateway having finally got to the point after a mere 843 words.
Rubbish place to stop really. I jumped out all the same, grabbed my float rod and with the aid of a size 16 Fladen Match Hook and my leftover maggots I dropped a line over the side to no avail.
…and here would end my story were I a man of a lesser calibre.
But No! You want more! And so, dear reader, I battled my way through to the gate, climbed over and dropped onto the field and positioned myself slightly down from the bridge (in case of trolls; see the children’s story theme?). I checked for donkey’s too (just read Topsy and Tim) and then threaded a maggot onto my hook and cast in.
Oh, these dykes are maybe four feet wide and the same deep. Just thought I’d say.
The float bobbed a lot, moved a lot, occasionally went under but nothing! Again and again and again I tried changing maggots that didn’t look touched and still nothing. I lifted the rod up, bringing the maggot higher in the water column and spotted my tormentors. Yeah, tiddlers. I tied on a size 20 but still no joy.
Oh, hang you on a minute, as they say here in deepest Norfolk. I had a closer look. They didn’t look all that familiar…a bit deep for fry…
Alarm bells rang in my head, my heart started to beat rapidly as it moved to the back of my mouth and I mixed clichés with similies and metaphors like there was no tomorrow.
I HAD FOUND THEM! RIGHT! GAME ON!
Size 20, float bobbing, no. Change depth, no. Half a maggot – no bites at all. Pity. Smaller maggot, no. Pinkie, no. Hmm. Stick with the pinkie and be patient.
You know, you may think me crazy but I had an hour of constant excitement trying to hook such a small fish, watching the shoal playing pond-hockey with the pinkie, excitement and frustration and it truly, honestly was wonderful! An hour!
An hour.
And then I had her!
At least I think it’s a her – yellow eyes instead of blue and no red belly. My first ever stickyback!!!
I was absolutely ecstatic, hollering with joy! I’d done it!
I figured it was time to move further from the road and see if I could find those larger silvers, leapfrogging my way past more shoals of sticklebacks. I had one good pull but lost it. That second forty minutes passed with a decent recce but nothing banked and then I came to a closing up dyke, one I remembered connecting years before but which now terminated in a cattle run. The dyke itself looked a couple of feet deep maximum but I figured I’d see if there was anything on those weeds…
The Sticklebacks were! They were straight on it, batting the maggot around the place; well, it was my last shift so I could delay my sleep slightly.
I did it. A brace.
So…what’s the verdict? Certifiable? Daft as a brush? Pointless? First answer me this…does your fishing bring you JOY!
PS. Tomorrow we’re going to hit it with the kayaks. Now THAT is getting silly.
PPS. Sunday the girls are coming with and we're pond-dipping.
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