Des Taylor’s Diary of a Countryman
A semi-buoyant cheese hookbait outfishes bread on this occasion
ANOTHER busy week on the bank and in the tackle den but, as I’ve said many times in the past, that’s how I like it! This is how my week panned out…
SUNDAY
In the morning I finished my preparation for tomorrow’s pike fishing filming on a lake about an hour from my home.
Cameraman and film editor Ross Bernie arrived in the evening and stayed over to do some filming in my tackle den and we discussed what we wanted to include the following morning.
Then, over a few beers, we made plans for future projects. Exciting times indeed!
MONDAY
Up early, and after a cup of tea we were on the road well before daybreak. Breakfast would have to wait until 10am, cooked in the RidgeMonkey – the only way!
Filming went really well although the fishing was slow, but to be honest it wasn’t about big fish, it was about why we go fishing in the first place.
Catching huge pike is hard work and involves many blank sessions before you bank one.
Look at Eddie Turner. He’s the best of the best when it comes to pike, but it has taken him more than 40 years to catch thirty 30-pounders. That’s a lot of sessions to put in!
But it’s the excitement every time the indicator drops, and simply ‘being there’, that keeps Eddie and the rest of us coming back for more.
I have been making angling films for many years now. Indeed, my pike and carp DVDs were some of the first on the market, but the process of making them has changed a great deal.
Back in the 1980s the cameras were massive – now they are the size of a 35mm SLR camera and there are drones too, which have opened up a whole new world. Fishing with a drone flying over your head is an experience, I can tell you!
TUESDAY
Ross and I spent more time filming close-ups of baits and rigs and did some more work in my tackle den. Making a living in the sport is not all about fishing and being on the bank, but I love the variety.
WEDNESDAY
The river looked perfect for an afternoon’s chub fishing on the Severn near my home. My mate Ray Cutler picked me up at 1.30pm and we planned to fish until dusk.
Ray put his faith in bread, and caught three chub to around 2lb. On some days bread produces the bigger fish but on others you can only catch smaller-than-average chub on it.
I went for cheesepaste and ended up missing a good bite and landing two chub around the 5lb mark. My paste rig includes an Avid boilie popper tied on a separate hair rig to the mainline. This is buoyant, and although it does not actually ‘pop up’ the cheese, it makes it a bit more ‘neutral’, which in turn makes it easy for a chub to suck in.
I simply mould the cheese around the popper and it will not come off until you hook a chub.
I really rate this method of having the bait tight to the hook so that no hair is showing but all of the hook is away from the bait.
Fishing paste on the hook can lead to missed bites in cold water because even the softest cheesepaste will go hard, or certainly hard enough to make it difficult to strike the hook through it. I caught a chub after 30 minutes in the light and one just on dark as the light faded.
It is very special on a cold winter’s evening to watch a quivertip bend at 90 degrees to the rod before you strike into a heavy lump.
On the way home we dropped
into the pub and had a pint of Hereford Butty ale, and then, when I entered the front door, my wife Margaret told me she had made a rice pudding with ‘proper’ Black Country milk.
That’s as good as it gets for a simple bloke like me.
SATURDAY
Fished off the back of the boat for a few hours on the float with maggots, catching small bream, dace, roach, perch and bleak.
I know not all specialist anglers could sit there for an afternoon catching fish like these, but I still enjoy seeing a bite on a float.
I also like to keep my hand in on the float so that when I need to do it to catch a decent fish I can still do it half right!
In the past I have caught a 3lb-plus roach, a 7lb-plus chub, a 7lb-plus golden orfe and a 1lb-plus dace on the float, so it’s worth keeping my hand in.
I finished with double figures of silvers and think my mate Nuddy would have given me a wry smile if he could have seen me perform!