Cormorant drying its wings

“One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.”

Socrates – 5th century BC

Carping on the River – Part 2

My resolution to fish it out until the water slowed lasted about 10 days. It was becoming increasingly obvious – I catch on slowly sometimes – that the flow was still too strong to fish effectively. To be fair though, it was raining often enough and I just kept thinking, 'well if it doesn't rain for a few days…' My confidence was starting to switch my motivation off, like a flickering ray of hope, which was being increasingly obscured by encroaching blankets of dark, wet clouds.

Continuing to fish for so little reward, can be a bit of a lonely game, so I decided a change of tack was necessary. It wasn't that the river wasn't looking healthy, the colour had dropped away and I can honestly say that I hadn't seen it looking any better for years, it was perfect. But that was the problem, the previous few years the river had had the life sucked out of it, the water levels were generally low and it crawled along at a canal's pace, perfect for carping on a boat and just as handy when bank fishing. But now the water was 'healthy'… so not much kop for where I was fishing.

My mate Ashley had long since decided it was not boating conditions, so was fishing a bank spot and during our regular conversations he'd been telling me to just leave the boat at home and fish from the bank, so that's what I did. I decided I was going to pick a few reasonable areas, spots that allowed me to be selective in my baiting, and just dip in and out and try and nick a couple of fish in short sessions. It felt so much easier to fish from terra firma, a luxury!

After a few days Ashley invited me to fish his baited swim, he'd caught a few up to the mid-twenty mark and I justified accepting his offer by pretending to myself that it was going to be of help to him, through me assisting him to bait his spot, when he couldn't make it… Truth be known he was more than capable of baiting up his own areas as often as necessary and the absolute truth of the matter was, that it was the mark of a proper mate that invites you to fish a 'going' area, and not for the first time I might add.

We share an awful lot, be that our innermost thoughts fishing-wise and trying to help each other at the difficult times; be that buying bait in bulk; be that baiting up for each other whenever possible; be that tactics and rigs, in fact, when it comes to angling, I have no one closer. After taking him up on his offer and putting in around a hundred or so bank hours of blanking…

I then go and do the dirty on him…

30.13 Thames Common

What an ungrateful bastard I am! It was Friday the 13th and I knew he'd want to come down and do the shots, so Ash was the only person I called that day. I'd caught it a yard from the bank, on the chod, casting around a tree and up the bank to my left and then dropping the rig in by hand. Ashley had had quite a few fish from the swim but it was the only [carp] run I had in the couple of weeks I fished the spot. Incidentally, even though I've told a number of people of the capture since, I've never told anyone else the location, and I mean absolutely no one. I've thrown a few blinds though…

The day before the fateful 13th I was at work and wasn't due to finish until 9.30pm after a 12 hour shift and the weather had boiled up atrociously. I was very tired, as I'd also done a 12 hour shift the day before that as well, and it crossed my mind to just go straight home… for about half a second! The North Circular was flooded in places and it was quite a hazardous drive and I was due to leave on Ashley's arrival anyway, it's just that he had to come down a fair bit earlier than he'd planned!

Ever since I bought the boat and got it on the river, bank fishing always seems to make me feel as though I'm just marking time though, just waiting for the opportunity to get back out on the boat… and it wasn't long before I felt the river was ready for me to put Izaak back afloat and on the sparkling lid of secrets hid.

I spent the next couple of weeks working and fishing, searching out areas and baiting up on a stretch far, far away… Come the beginning of August I started to find a few fish in one particular area, plus I had the added bonus of not having to work for the rest of the month, things were coming together. I was now in a routine and was fishing four mid-week days, and as ever, avoided the weekends like the plague!

The couple of weeks previous that I'd been [evermore] desperately seeking any signs of fish, baiting spots and fishing them at regular intervals, were quite tough mentally. I'd left an area that had just given me my first Thames thirty and other stretches were starting to produce, but very few carpers were catching in my neck of the woods and it was a commonly held belief that the fish had moved from the area, as it was a particularly faster stretch of water and it didn't hold any known spawning areas to me, the weather was warm and there was plenty of evidence of fish spawning elsewhere on the Thames…

The first fish to come from one of the areas I was concentrating on fell to my boat partner Ades.

Adrian's 27.12 Common

As is ever the case when you take someone aboard, first and foremost you want them to catch, so he got first dibs and after we had a bit of a chat (as I'd fished the spot on my last session alone), we had a fair idea which part of the trees in front of us was going to prove the 'sweet spot' and so it proved to be the case.

The weekend was upon us, so I wasn't going to be fishing until the following Monday and I really thought the swim was starting to tick over, so I stuck my desire to fish the weekend in a box…

The reasons for not fishing the weekends are simple ones. I don't like being caught catching, the less people that know the better, and also, it allows me time to do other things with my life, which are as important to me and they are best done when the most important person in my life is not working.

Just to give you some idea of the then situation, I had been fishing for close to 5 weeks (on and off) and we were now into the second week of August and I had had one run from a carp. Yes, it was my first Thames thirty but it now started to feel like a distant memory, as I had racked up quite a few hours and the preparation work was regular and arduous. I've fished plenty of waters where I wasn't expecting many fish, as they were hard waters and you understand what's coming and prepare yourself for the long haul, at least, as much as you can. So, while the Thames can be a bit of a stubborn ol' bastard, work hard enough and put the graft in, and as they say, the rewards should follow.

The driving was nearly an hour to the river, it was another 3/4s of an hour to get the boat on the water (at an easy pace), I would then spend between 12-14 hours fishing, and by the time I'd finished and packed down the boat, it would generally be at least one and a half hours to drive back home. Then I would unpack all the gear, haul it upstairs, take a shower and be in bed at around 11, to get back up at around 3 in the morning. I can't say I averaged four hours sleep though, as it was usually a bit less than that and it really saps me of energy, the body aches and is tired, especially when you're blanking and getting older by the minute!

Wednesday was the third day on the trot and I just knew that it was going to be the day. That isn't to say that I didn't think the same every previous occasion, as I always think 'today's the day!'

I set up two rods and this despite me knowing that the swim was really a one rod spot… and lost two fish within an hour of each other! Gutted, but my own fault, simply because I decided I needed to double up on the rods (getting desperate). It's a snaggy swim, hit and hold, and the first fish snapped the hooklink? I've never had this particular hooklink material break, but there you go, my Snake-Bite was 'Snake-Broke'! The second fish fell to the chod to the left of a tree and it went straight underneath the crack willow tree. I followed it into the branches, trying to maintain a semblance of pressure while manoeuvering the boat (very difficult on a flowing river on your tod), and eventually found the leadcore – after a year or two of sorting myself out – with no fish attached.

18.8 Common

15.7 Common