“Yeah, you’ll get a bream no problem. Five minutes, no worries. Easy, guaranteed there, definite bream” Says Paul when I ask him about Ellingham recently. “Want to go fishing tonight?” I say when I phone up, bored from an unproductive sea. Of course he does, this is Paul we’re talking about. As dumb as me. We’re going to Beccles, I want a bream and a ruffe.
I’d nearly fished this afternoon to cheer myself and Tony up after a poor session on the sea but it was way too hot to produce. So I moped. Then I got my gear ready to go breaming. I’ve never been breaming but Paul knows all about breaming and we stand a chance in Beccles. I go and pick him up.
“You reckon I’ll catch here?”
“Dunno, you might”
“Would I at Ellingham?”
“Definitely”
“You promise?”
Of course he promised. In my words. So, with me banging on about my formative twenties in Beccles we continue to Ellingham and try to launch sensibly. It’s the best we can do, only a five foot drop.
I paddled downstream and spotted bubbles under a tree. I stopped, close into the bank and proceeded to cast into the wrong place a few times. Paul told me the bream were usually here at this time. First cast had a chub of course.
The bream, if it was bream, ignored me totally and then I caught a tree. Paul unhooked me and I moved spot. This looked clearer, plenty of bream here by the look of the bubbles and Paul said they are usually in this swim in the evening.
He was just down from me.
I had a chub of course.
Followed by a chub.
And, having changed to double sweetcorn which chub don’t like but bream love, the very bream all around me in my swim, I caught a chub.
…and some more chub.
No bream though Paul…and he didn’t catch any either. It was getting dark now, seeing floats or rod tips was getting harder.
We moved up to the mill, where the bream hang out (plus the local teenagers). Double sweetcorn again…roach.
I swore at Paul, rather impressively as it happens, while we took the kayaks back through the fields to the car and loaded up. Dead certainty. Hundred percent. Guaranteed. Cannot fail.
Quite a long walk back, that.
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