Eee Lad, These Young 'uns

I told my 15 year old grandson Calum about the great day I had on Border Fisheries, fishing the margin pole with Eric, Ed and Jon. Course, he couldn't wait to go and as it happened he had a day off on Monday from his work experience from school.

It gave a false impression though, for they proved much more difficult to tempt with hookbait than they had last Friday. The several degrees overnight drop in temperature didn't help, nor the incessant rain that at times pounded on the surface like a million fingers beating a drum - which is just what I imagine it would sound like to a fish. No wonder it puts them off their snapping!

So although it did nothing but persist it down from the minute we got up to the minute we got home we did have a very enjoyable, if wet, day.

Image by Graham Marsden via Flickr

There was no one else on the lake (probably nobody else daft enough to venture out) so I put Calum in one of the swims where we'd had that good day on Friday, and helped him set up. I didn't have to do much as he's got the hang of this pole fishing now. I showed him just how close to the edge we were fishing, throwing in a handful of micro-pellets just six inches from the boards, and blow me if two or three carp weren't swirling and scoffing the pellets within two minutes!


No matter, we caught a dozen or so carp each (and I had my first tench from the water) including a couple of low doubles and one or two F1s, plus a few nice rudd on Sonu Baits new Fibre Paste which I'm very impressed with. But more about that later when I've given it a more thorough trial.

I told Calum not to strike at all, even if the float was sailing away, for most of the time they're line bites when you're fishing the margins in extremely shallow water and you end up hooking nothing or foul-hooking a fish, and almost certainly scaring the fish out of the swim for a short spell or more.

Course, these young 'uns don't always listen and he spent the first 15 minutes or so hooking nowt.

"I've told you," I said, "when it's a proper bite from a carp the elastic will be flying out before you can react. Just leave it, no matter how good the bite looks, and the carp will hook itself."

So he resisted striking, carried on trickling the micro pellets in, and and within a few minutes was playing his first fish of the day, a decent carp of about 8 - 9lb.

So that was another good day, with my only real problem getting him to pack up and go home.

 

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Fun Day on the Pole

There was me, Eric, Ed and Jon, down at Border Fisheries for a spot of explosive fishing via the margin pole. Along with, of course, a good English breakfast, some cruel banter, and plenty of laughs; all adding up to a great day out.

With the lack of rain the water was still low, probably a foot down on normal level, which meant that margin fishing right in the margins, no more than a foot out, was in water no more than a foot deep. In fact, Jon and Eric were fishing about 9 inches deep. Sounds ridiculous I know, considering the carp we were fishing for average 7 - 10lb. The water barely covers their backs when they patrol round the margin and then start digging into the feed we've introduced.

We caught the odd fish nice and steadily for the first couple of hours or so and then the carp really got their bibs on as they found the food traps we'd put down for them. I spent some time taking photographs and helping Eric (who has yet to master the margin pole) but that's part of my enjoyment. Jon in particular was doing really well on his Shimano Beastmaster Extreme margin pole and Ed landed a barbel that he first thought was a bigger than average carp. How do these stillwater barbel manage to look so fit and fight so well considering they're essentially river fish and have no right to live in stillwater? Well, not according to some.

Jon managed to break the top section of his pole through leaning on it with his elbow and had to change to a waggler rod, both me and Ed managed to get broke off on a big fish and had the indignity of seeing the elastic twang back into the pole with a loud thwack! (No, we don't make a habit of getting broken, but it does happen very occasionally). And Eric had a carp so heavy it made him break wind as he lifted it from the water, causing a pair of pigeons to fly off from a nearby tree with a rapid flutter of wings. And I don't blame them, he frightens us at times.

We had a great day and Ed and Jon were still catching as me and Eric left a little earlier.

It's not rocket science

Now this margin pole fishing on prolific fisheries like those down at Border Fisheries isn't rocket science. You don't need to be a master angler to work out how to catch them. But we weren't there to study for any degrees in angling and we vary our approach through a wide range of legering and float fishing methods just so we're not doing the same thing week in and week out. You know, like many specialist carp anglers who fish with two rods, bolt rigs, bite alarms and boilies, in the same swim on the same water week after week after week.
 
What's the essential difference? The specialist spends a lot more time at the waterside, catches fewer but bigger fish, and waits a lot longer between bites.
 
Is that a knock at specialist carp anglers? Not on your life, for I'm one myself from time to time, but too many specialist anglers spend far too much time knocking commercial fishery anglers, or pleasure anglers who catch lots of smaller fish, from that aloof and lofty perch they've built that suggests, to them at least, that what they do is soooooooo superior to what anyone else does.

Get a life I say, and just enjoy how you fish, however it is, and leave the other guy to enjoy how he fishes. You're not doing each other any harm are you? In fact, if we all wanted to fish the same waters in the same way, there wouldn't be room for all of us. So draw your horns in and get on with enjoying how you like to fish, and accept the fact that one man's fish is another man's poisson chat.

The next time you get the urge to knock commercials or a club water with platforms and easy access, take a look at the picture of Eric to the left. He's aged 71 and has Parkinson's disease, and if it wasn't for commercial fisheries and waters like Border Fisheries, he would no longer be able to enjoy his life-long love of angling. And that applies to thousands of elderly or disabled anglers who are unable to fish anywhere that doesn't have easy access, easy fishing and comfortable swims.

Would you deny them that?

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