Week four...

With cool conditions prevailing I decided to give tench a rest. Right now a couple of degrees rise in temperatures makes a massive difference to tench activity, and having gotten the initial monkey off my back I’d frankly sooner wait until conditions picked up.

Meanwhile I really fancied catching some silverfish, and there are few venues better for this than Messingham Sands. Normally I target the North Day Ticket Lake, but last time I was over there it was suggested that I ought to give the South Lake a go.

My start was somewhat delayed – I had to wait for a fresh delivery of casters at the Independent Tackle and Bait shop in Doncaster and then take my vehicle to the repair shop and get an estimate after a Stagecoach bus sideswiped me while I was parked up. By the time I’d arrived at Messingham, decided on a swim and tackled up, it was pushing 11am. Not that I needed to be there early. Fish were topping, and I knew the chances of me catching up in the water, or ‘ shalla’ as many call it these days, were promising.

I didn’t even plumb the depth as there was no real need. A light float with spreadout Stotz, set to 5ft, would be my starting point and I’d not be fishing far out, either. I’d feed by hand rather than hamper myself with a catapult, so it was a pinch of casters followed by a pinch of hemp every 30 seconds in order to get the fish competing. As expected, bites came from the off, steadily at first and then more frequently as the fish began to compete.

The rig I’d pulled out of my drawer had a size 16 hook attached and that’s what I set off with. These fish aren’t hook- shy, but threading two casters on to the hook was time- consuming, and it wasn’t long before I took a gamble and switched to a size 20. This let me side- hook a single caster and leave the hookpoint proud. Because I was using light elastic I wasn’t too worried about hook- pulls, and it’s far nicer to play fish properly than swing them to hand.

My session passed in a flurry of bites, the activity non- stop. After an hour or so I switched rigs to a tiny ‘ dibber’ style float set between 1ft and 2ft deep. By now the fish were boiling close the surface when I fed, their tails creating those tell- tale flat spots. Slipping on a grain of hemp produced some cracking roach, but I missing too many bites and soon reverted to caster, which was less selective but still produced some beautiful fish – roach, rudd, the odd silver bream, hybrids and perch. What I would have given for a bag of tares.

At 4pm I gave George, the fishery manager, a call and asked if he’d mind helping out with a catch picture. He duly obliged and took some cracking shots. I’d had enough by then, to be honest – fishing like this is hard work. I had fed four pints of hemp and caster and probably had in excess of 500 bites.

When I was a kid a catch like this only existed in my dreams. A fantasy. The kind of catch Ireland was famed for. Overall, I don’t think the fishing we have in the UK has ever been better than it is today.

If you fancy a day at Messingham Sands, give George a call on

07900 265981.

ball silvers played Messingham The day’s sport for a brilliant than y had more probabl during the day I 500 bites