PB’s And Not PB…29/07/2013

PB’s And Not PB…29/07/2013 Oh my, what an evening. Paul, my faithful Jonah-ghillie, jinx of the kayak world, still insists that bream are a guaranteed dead-cert never fail catch at Ellingham, honest, would I lie to you etc etc…all the while chuckling to himself like the crazy kid at the back of the class at school. I really don’t know why I listen to him or invite him out, other than he’s a good angler and great company. It’s not even that I like him because I quite definitely hate his guts. Tonight. Again… Windy all day so I got on with other things of which there were many. Posting stuff, washing stuff, emptying and rearranging the car and finally shopping…the shopping list reading coffee, milk, burgers, sweetcorn, luncheon meat, hot dog sausage, maggots. Says a lot about the current three weeks of being home alone really. Of course while trying to decide which sweetcorn was the one to go for Paul refused to answer his phone, not calling me back until I was at the checkout with the wrong sweetcorn (too small) and the wrong luncheon meat (too greasy). See? You’d already start disliking him, wouldn’t you? Tough. I went home, wrote up the last of the weekend’s reports and set to work editing the first part of the first of two charter boat videos for local boats. I was, of course, on a timetable because I was going to pick Paul up and meet Andy at Ellingham to try again for the definite bream, a plan that went without a hitch, us pulling up just after Andy, unloading and getting launched… Down to the swim I was going to fish with a borrowed size 12. Borrowed off Paul. You can see where this is going already can’t you. Size 12, don’t want to blank, single red maggot, tiny dace. The other two caught up ten minutes later. It was nearly two hundred yards from the launch…Andy headed past and went for a spot under some willow trees while Paul headed off to a favoured chub spot. Not far enough away for my liking but there you go. With the blank-avoidance taking care of it was in with double sweetcorn. Bites were few and far between and I was missing every one…what? This didn’t make sense. Finally, after a good half an hour I connected and brought in a beautiful rudd, my personal best (another PB for 2013!). That’s when I spotted the problem. Barbless hook. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing at all wrong with barbless hooks. What’s wrong is I don’t use them myself and wasn’t aware I had one on. So my strikes were not suitable, generally I strike then drop back as I reel. With a kayak it’s difficult enough to keep the line taut as it is and I was legering with three swan shot so very light in flowing water and wind. As you strike and wind you’re pulling the kayak’s bow around too. There are too many things that can cause a hook to drop out. Fortunately though I’d got this rudd. But I lost more bites after. Fortunately Andy came to the rescue and gave me a couple more, barbed this time. Meanwhile Paul ahd turned up having been bitten off by a pike, on luncheon meat. Andy was still blanking though he’d had one bite. Me? I swapped hooks and now landed an even better rudd, a new PB! Great! It started to darken. Dace started topping. I caught some. A swan moved in. I had a roach. I struggled for bites on maggots or corn. Paul had a couple of skimmers. He told me too. You’d hate him wouldn’t you, be honest. Andy was still blanking. He tried for silvers. Paul caught gudgeon on a size 12. I had very few bites. It got darker, I had to raise my rod tip to the skyline to see twitches. I tried float, tried upping the amount of shot, I tried float legering…this was my biggest downfall of the night apart from listening to Paul… I got a bite. I took a better hold on the rod, ready to strike, I got a really good bite and a pull, I struck and whatever it was shot off across the swim, ripping line from the reel, it took quite a bit, the rod was hooped around nicely, Paul called over to see if I wanted the net…yes, for sure…the fish went left, right then stopped, solid. In weed. I gave line, slackened off, the barb came into play and it moved out of the weed. Took more line. A PB for sure, the only pull I’ve had in a river that matched this was pike. It stopped again. Stayed stopped. I was in a patch of reeds in the centre of the river. A small patch. Nothing, slack line wouldn’t help, pulling wouldn’t help, Paul gave me his head torch and I paddle dover, unclipped from my tree…there was my float, my shot…there was the weed, there was my line, I pulled it free gently. There was no hook. I’d been snapped off a few inches from it. I was gutted. I don’t even know what it was. Very unlikely to be bream, perhaps a wild carp of which there are a few (never had one in the UK) or a tench of which there are the occasional ones (never had one in the UK) or a large chub of which there are plenty (my PB is probably about a pound, I’m not a specimen hunter, just a species hunter). Whatever it was it would have been a real trophy shot… Now I was back to that barbless hook. Andy was off the water on a blank but had come over when he heard the commotion to observe from the bank. Needless to say I missed everything else of which there were very few bites and I could barely see the rod tip. This single species targeting malarkey is just not me. I came back feeling disappointed that I hadn’t got a bream though I’d had two PB rudd. The lost specimen was just the icing on a very sour cake. And I had to sit in the car with Paul for another half an hour to boot. Paul who’d had two bream. Who wouldn’t hate him?