Sticky-Back Yak…21/06/2013

Sticky-Back Yak…21/06/2013 “The first stickleback was a splendid fellow, with fabulous red and blue gills. Tom kept him in a small basin till the day of his death, and became a fisherman from that day.” So wrote Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown at Rugby. That last line gets my point albeit in a roundabout way; only a fisherman, on rod and line, would catch a stickleback. Now, it’s taken me such a long time to find them and then, an hour later, I had one. To be honest I wasn’t looking for them, I was looking for the decent silvers I spotted in the dyke twenty years back but those don’t seem to be there. Well, it was a recce and a very useful one at that…and plans were afoot. Horrendous sleep for not long and unbroken, shattered all night at work, being played up all night, back home almost crazy with tiredness and then, in bed, unable to sleep. Earlier than planned I set off for a yak stickleback. Wilmy was no longer able to come and Si headed north instead for bass…Hemingway’s epic of the Old Man and the Sea has nothing on the Middle Aged Man and the Dyke. The version about fishing in Norfolk I mean. Anyways, a quick check of the books to look for mention of bullhead, minnow or stone loach (nope) locally, a read-up on characteristics and a coffee in my fishing mug and I was away. It’s really about the worst spot to park and unload a yak. Unstrapping was broiken by moving aside whenever I heard a car. Then it was through the thistles and stingers, over the gate and down the bank in a mad scramble. Lucky I’m so nimble! Lucky I’m so daft. Now I could easily have sat in that spot and caught one, they were there. I could have sat on the roofbars and caught one, technically I’d be on the yak of course but the spirit of the game dictated otherwise; I had to launch. So I may as well paddle away from the launch point before casting to the fish. I set off and went a few hundred yards, pulled into the bank and got myself going; out went the 5bb waggler and the size 20 hook, a single red pinkie hooked from the flat end with the point exiting halfway down the body. Immediate bites, float being pushed around, occasionally bobbing under briefly; striking a stickleback is not really ideal but should be a necessity to get the point home but with no resistance it’s still futile. Bait comes in and looks untouched even though it’s been beaten up! Okay, so next option is to reel quickly and bingo! Sticky no.1 is scooting across behind the float, comes out of the water as the rod is lifted up, is swung towards the yak and drops off the maggot and misses my hand. Oh. I try again, another, similar thing, drops off at the end… Frustrating but fun, funny and did I say frustrating? And then the float bobs again, I pull it up and catch it as it drops into the yak, releasing the maggot in mid-air – my first yak-caught stickleback, a male! Brilliant! So I paddled a bit up the dyke, maybe half a mile but no other fish seemed present. I turned, headed back, loaded up scarily and set oiff for the river; I had a date with a ruffe and bream, still on the list and in need of knocking off. I launched from the quay again, headed for my chub spot, lost the first bite, a decent, fast and strong pull. Cast again and…a pretty mangled dace, hit by a pike by the look of it. Chub next… Followed by roach Gudgeon… And eventually a perch. Well I’d ticked all these off already. I moved upstream, trying here, trying there, catching roach and perch…then a spot was spotted where something as feeding alongside the wooden pilings; I cast to a swirl and started picking up numbers of perch. Still no, ruffe or bream. I paddle some more and saw some bubbles – tench? Carp? Could do with those but sure they were unlikely. The bubbles were many, they moved towards me, rapidly; these weren’t fish, what were they? Too fast, too many, they went under me…I turned my ehad and up popped the first otter I’ve seen in five years and the closest ad clearest ever, swimming now on the surface. I watched it exit onto a branch and disappear under a jetty. Another was moving below, I followed and lost it as I passed a moored boat. I went further upstream, tried for a while and just had roach before returning, again spotting an otter on the surface and, exiting in the same place it disappeared. I appear to have located a holt in the bank on the town stretch. I’ll have to get ready with the camera next time, stay and watch. Like them or not they are part of the natural heritage of British rivers and were a joy to see even if I am competing against them. Frankly it made my day to see them. I tried once more in the chub spot, had a couple of little fish before landing and making my way home, six species caught and some otters seen (not to mention having swallows around me quite often). Most satisfactory, who needs sleep?