Des Taylor’s Diary of a Countryman
I’m writing a book and living the life of Riley in a rented wooden cabin
I’M HAVING the time of my life! Why? Well, for a few weeks my wife Margaret and I are living in my friend Jason Ford’s wooden cabin on the banks of the River Severn as we wait to move into our bungalow.
There are so many sights to be seen as we eat our meals sitting on the balcony! My mates have said: “I bet you wished you’d been up there in the open season” but I can honestly say I’m glad it is the closed season. Instead of sitting trying to catch barbel and chub – which I have done a thousand times in the past – I have all the time in the world to watch everything around me.
As angling author Roderick Haig-Brown said: “A river never sleeps.” That is so true. Every second of the day and night the picture in front of my eyes changes. Even ‘townie’ Margaret admits that now she has spent time out in ‘real’ countryside she can understand why I love it so much.
The other day my nine-year-old granddaughter asked: “Why can’t we live here forever grandad?” after she’d seen salmon jump, a heron hunting in the shallows and swallows skimming across the water. I had no answer.
THURSDAY
Took a walk upriver to Arley and I was delighted to see a rich growth of streamer weed. After some big floods a few years ago, the bed of the river was seemingly ripped bare of weed and it’s taken a long time to return. Now that it has, our fish stocks will benefit.
I was out for about eight hours for one of the most delightful days I have had this year, all on my own in the countryside.
I arrived back at home just in time for cottage pie, potatoes and greens followed by apple
crumble and custard, swilled down with a pint of bottled real ale. I then popped over to my mate Ray Cutler’s to tell him to bring me some bait and pellets for tomorrow’s carp session. He’s looking after my bait for me until I move in.
FRIDAY
Met Ray at 8am for a day’s carp fishing. An early frost was not ideal but we still fancied a couple of takes off the bottom on boilies.
I baited up with a small bed of 6mm pellets and a few broken-up Key boilies, and I’m pretty sure Ray did the same over the other side of the pool, but with his own favourite boilies.
We both trickled pellets in all day with the odd whole boilie, and after each fish we added halfa-dozen boilies and fished a fourboilie stringer on the hook. Using this little-and-often approach we had four fish each with the best to myself at 25lb 2oz, a superb fish.
Lots of anglers will pile in a load of bait and fish over the top of it but Ray and I prefer to keep putting in the bait through the course of the day. That way the fish hear the splash and home in on the bait. This works well when a lake has a good head of carp, like the one we are fishing today.
As I fished I tied up a few rigs ready for next week when I would be away for three days and two nights after bream and tench. I am enjoying my carp fishing but I fancy a change before heading back to carp. Then it’ll be time to get on the river again! That said, even in the summer I will be spending time on stillwaters because I have a few good places available to me that will produce a few nice ‘kippers’, especially
when the river is low and clear and the fishing can be very difficult.
SATURDAY
Spent the day working on my next book ‘The Ramblings of a River Angler’.
It’s coming together nicely and I really want to make this my best book yet. You can put one on order by contacting Wayne at www.littleegretpress.com
TUESDAY
I fancied a day’s floatfishing, when I have to strike the bite instead of waiting for the bobbin shoot up and the Baitrunner to sing!
Ray and I fished a small local pool with maggots and casters and we had a bite a chuck for about four hours, catching roach, gudgeon, rudd, perch and of course small carp that are everywhere nowadays.
To think that when I first started fishing I could only dream of catching carp! We were told they were uncatchable because they were so clever! I knew of only one water near me that contained carp, which only experts like Dick Walker, Bill Keal and Jack Hilton could catch.
Now that has all changed, but I tell you what, even now, if you took away the hair rig, most anglers would struggle to put one on the bank. A bite a chuck made a nice change but if I did it every week I’d soon be taking up golf.