BEGINNER'S LUCK?

                         

Charlie with a cracking roach

Charlie showing us older anglers how to do it

It’s easy to dismiss a child’s success in angling as beginner’s luck but I believe there is something more fundamental going on here that we more ‘mature’ anglers should take note of.

Bernard Venables' Crabtree' lean'

  

pike imagery at it's best

pure Crabtree as Ben fights a monster

It is wonderful when our young anglers catch good fish and when friend Jim sent me pics of his two boys, Charlie and Ben before the end of the river season, I felt it was an opportunity to explore the reasons why they were successful when we were struggling.

a cracking fat thirteen pounder from a small carrier for Ben

Jim happily blanking for roach

Jim works for the Environment Agency and along with several other friends I have working there, does everything possible for our rivers and fish life that tight government budgets allow. I know it is fashionable to knock the EA, as it is the NHS, but in the case of the work carried out from the Blandford HQ, criticism is inappropriate and unfair. If our government actually cared about our environment and did something instead of just talking about it then we would all be better off and so would our fish and other freshwater wildlife. Anyway, rant over.

a beautiful big brownie for Jim

Charlie and Ben have the first requirement to be successful and that is a knowledgeable Dad who is keen to take them out and help them catch. But more than that, both boys have enquiring minds and are prepared to try smaller bits of water in the Hampshire Avon water meadows that we ‘grown ups’ might overlook or dismiss.

Charlie trotting successfully for grayling

Secondly, have you noticed how you are often successful when first visiting a water but never quite as successful after that? It’s a tricky one as knowledge is meant to be helpful … and it’s essential when making wildlife films … but I for one suffer from a lack of open mindedness once I’ve visited a water and don’t think it through as thoroughly ever again. Your mind is already cluttered by past experience and so you are less likely to make a decision based on the conditions facing you at the time. You naturally tend to head for a swim where you have caught before when you should be at the other end of the lake or different stretch of river.

using a pin - good boy!

No such problem if you’re a beginner, you just do what comes naturally and catch! You are more inclined to explore and try different things and different places, so the lesson for me at least - “must try harder”!

the cue's for the show stretched into the street

… and now for something completely different. I’m certainly a beginner when it comes to giving talks and film shows, so Friday night saw me well out of my comfort zone. As those who’ve read this blog before, I decided to attempt a fund- raiser to help support the Dorset Wildlife Trust and their sterling work to restore our local gem of a chalk stream, the River Allen.

struggling with the lapel mic - it didn't work

if it can go wrong - talking about pumas instead of showing pumas

I booked the largest hall in Wimborne, a big projector, large speakers and twelve foot screen, then wondered if anyone would show up! In the event, thanks to tireless work by DWT staff, we filled the place and 310 folk contributed £2,000+ to the project funds. The auctioned pic. of Penny the Puma raised an impressive £230 and might have done even better if the DVD hadn’t failed to play after twenty minutes!

 heavy gear - no wonder I needed hip replacements

The audience had to put up with me rabbiting on about my lovely pussy cat instead but they didn’t seem to mind, especially as I was asked if I was ever near to getting eaten by her.

the lady winner of the portrait of Penny the Puma with DWT staff

I survived to tell the story … and survived the even greater ordeal of being in front of an audience, so I guess, if invited, I might even do it again, especially if the river will benefit from the effort everyone put in.

Our BAFTA award winning tiger film next - maybe?

two of our three cute cubs

RUDDY MARVELLOUS - ANGLING ADVENTURES 2

A midsummers dawn - simply the best time to be alive. The longest day had just passed and there was everything to look forward to as we headed towards the best of the years river fishing … but not yet.

There is one species of fish that I have an even greater passion for than roach and that’s rudd. Growing up in the Fens at Ely on the Gt.Ouse and enjoying family holidays on the Norfolk Broads in the late 50's, I grew to love the gorgeous, golden beauties and even today the mere thought of them gets me excited.

Like many of my generation, I was inspired by Bernard Venables' book, 'Mr. Crabtree Goes Fishing' and still enjoy going down memory lane when looking at my battered copy. It's pleasing that the great man is being honoured with a TV series and new version of the book right now.

I was keen to 'live the dream', convinced Mum and Dad that I just had to visit the Broads and when finally there, carefully followed Bernard's lessons to Peter.

I only caught small ones when using the anchored bread trick, but remembered to keep my little boat well away from a large shoal I'd found in a remote corner of Hickling Broad.

I really was 'living the dream'

In the evening I rowed back to them in my little dinghy and remembering to keep well away, made a long cast to the reed edge with bread flake under a stubby waggler. I caught 22 of them before it was too dark to see. The smallest weighed 1/10 and ten of them were over 2lbs, with the best going 2/5 and 2/3. I’ve never really recovered. 

Sorry about the bobble hat but I was only sixteen

With so many happy memories still fresh in my angling memory bank I had to return, so this last two years I’ve made a pilgrimage back to the Fens, exploring the rivers, drains and lakes in the hope of beating my PB of 2/9, a figure I’ve managed to equal in five different waters, including Ireland … one day I might beat it … one day?

red maggots lured them in front of the camera

2/11 and 2/9 - a perfect brace

I had my chance when filming 'Catching the Impossible' with Martin Bowler, a shoal of 14 large rudd swimming beside us in the crystal clear water. I had to film the underwater shots first, then Martin had to catch a couple for the camera before it was my turn. Sadly, my turn never arrived because the shoal just drifted away ... one day ... one day.

 tranquil tench time

In 2011 I tried the River Cam and the drains and lodes, the first time I had fished them for fifty years. Back then, us energetic schoolboys used to cycle over there from Ely, catch rudd and then cycle all the way back. Funny how the wind was always against us whatever direction we were travelling! It’s still a wonderful place, 'the land of sky’, as inspiring as ever and even better now than in my childhood. 

The Land of Sky

c. Danny Green

c. Richard Brooks

Wicken Fen didn’t have breeding marsh harriers and bearded tits then but it does now. I spent as much time birding as I did fishing, harriers regularly drifting over cruisers on the Cam, the occupants blissfully unaware poor souls. In 2011, I managed rudd to 2/4 so a return to the Fens was inked into the diary, especially as all the  locals like Chris Hammond had made me very welcome.

Fish don't get any more beautiful do they?

Yes, that is a swing tip - very effective too

Last year, with help and advice from Graham Tweed – thanks Graham – President and Sec. of CFPAS – enjoyable company on the bank too – I decided to try Milton Country Park, a complex of crystal clear weedy lakes … classic rudd country. Friend Chris said he thought the decision was a bit ‘left field’ but ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’! I picked the lake with the biggest ones of course and started well, the first rudd going a respectable 1/9. [No picture as it had two ugly cormorant slashes across it’s body]. However, I never managed another much over a pound and I blamed the weather. Strong wind and heavy rain battered into my face all week, the mud getting deeper and the rats more numerous.

I did enjoy the challenge though, especially when of all things, a marsh harrier hunted a nearby reedbed. It was such a rare bird when I grew up in the 50’s, restricted to just three surviving pairs but here it was now, floating over houses by the A14 in Cambridge – wonderful. Just goes to prove the cliché that there’s more to fishing than catching fish. It also proved that not all is gloom and doom out there in the wild.

I did catch plenty of small rudd, some splendid tench to 6lbs or so and several ancient, wild looking bream. They certainly were wild when hooked, one clearing the water by a good two feet. They all weighed about five pounds, their impressive bids for freedom making up for their lack of size, a highlight of the trip.

Believe me, it really did fight

The low point came at the end when the rats got to me ; a dose of what felt like Wiel’s desease or leptospirosis, the symptoms matching perfectly. I felt so awful I delayed driving home for a day. Hospital blood tests and stomach analysis were inconclusive but it took me three weeks to recover. Those big rudd still beckon though ; I saw them out there.