Far Bank A mixed day for Dom
Lured by the promise of golden tench and potent wine, Dom Garnett experiences a day of contrasting fortunes at Anglers Paradise in Devon
THERE comes a time in most fishing seasons when you crave something a bit different.
After all, whether your favourite quarry is roach or barbel, few would want to target the same fish every single weekend, any more than you’d want to eat ravioli every day until Christmas.
As for fisheries with unusual species, Anglers Paradise is up there with the best and most eccentric of them all.
I might have left it a bit late to visit this year, then, but I fancied that the cooler weather would do no harm to the fishing.
Of all the species lurking in this corner of Devon, the vividlycoloured orfe and tench are among the most outlandish of the lot, and so my choice of lakes was easy enough.
Even Paradise isn’t immune to the odd spell of what Devonians like to call ‘liquid sunshine’, however. Hence the banks of the Specimen Orfe and Tench Lake were more slippery than I’d anticipated. Before I’d so much as hooked a fish, I managed to lose my footing, tipping my gear everywhere and landing with a solid crunch on my landing net handle!
The bailiff doing his rounds was the perfect gentleman, I must add, as he asked if I was okay. In his position I’m not sure I’d have kept a straight face, following my slapstick tumble and a burst of language as colourful as the resident stock.
Scraping myself off the deck, I doubted whether any selfrespecting golden tench within a mile would still be willing to feed. Yet within a few minutes of feeding, the margin was bubbling away.
My original plan had been to try two rods, spraying maggots for orfe while also trying close in for tench. As things transpired, though, the margin rod was almost pulled in before I could even think about a second! What a beautiful fish lay in the net seconds later. Bright yellowgold and flecked with jet-black dots, these are genuine fantasy fish, and while not strictly wild, they battle just as hard as the common variety.
With generous feeding the inside line came alive. In the following hours, I enjoyed non-stop action, including a fabulous two-anda-half-pounder and even a rare albino-looking blue tench.
By lunchtime, then, I was relieved to have a brighter story to tell as I caught up with fishery owner Zyg Gregorek.
The day got better still with a helping of his famous wine, brewed and decanted into hundreds of bottles in what is affectionately called his ‘office’.
Clinking glasses with Zyg always feels like sharing a tipple with an eccentric uncle. In no time at all we were talking about fishing and practising curse words in Polish, while the whole crunched landing net fiasco turned from tragedy to comedy.