Des Taylor’s Diary of a Countryman
...but don’t worry, Nature will soon erase all traces of that ‘Beast from the East’
IT’S NOT often I don’t fish at least four times a week, but thanks to the Beast from the East it has been almost impossible to get out. Still, needs must and all that…
THURSDAY
I really needed my fishing fix, but outside there was an easterly wind blowing, the air temperature was minus four and the water temperature would be even lower than that!
It was starting to snow as I walked the short distance from my bungalow to my tackle den to turn on the computer. Was someone up there telling me not to bother today?
I decided to wait until lunchtime and make a final decision then, but it didn’t look good. Midday came and the weather was getting worse by the minute, so I decided to keep my powder dry for another day, as my dad used to say.
I ended up watching daytime TV for a couple of hours, and I have to say I wish I’d gone fishing and frozen to death!
The weather forecast suggested I’d be grounded for a few days yet but I wasn’t downhearted because I knew that when the temperature eventually rose the fish would feed their heads off. Guess who’d be there with a bait in the water at the ready?
FRIDAY
No fishing again, but I did the next best thing and headed up to Dowles Brook to see if I could spot some dippers. There are a few of these delightful birds resident there. I didn’t see one this time, but I did see a number of other species, including a large winter flock of blue, great and longtailed tits. I also saw a kingfisher near where the brook meets the Severn, and I watched for a good few minutes as the bird dived into the cold water to catch minnows and fry.
I strolled on my own for about a mile, which reminded me why I wasn’t fishing today – my nose and cheeks were painfully cold but a pint in the pub on the way home, sitting next to the log burner, soon warmed me up!
One of the regulars shouted across to me: “You’re not out fishing today in this weather are you Des?” I told him I wasn’t, but that I’d been watching a kingfisher, to which he replied: “I have never seen one!”
I took a mouthful of ale and remembered how lucky am I to be an angler. In the evening I did a live show on my Facebook Des Taylor group page. It went really well and I ended up answering questions for an hour, ranging from how to catch roach to the lack of fly life in the rivers.
SATURDAY
Out on a perch trip with Steve Greenway to a lake where he’d recently caught them to just short of 4lb, before all this cold water, ice and snow.
Steve fished a couple of slider floats with worm and I fished a groundbait feeder with the same bait, but although we fished until dark, neither of us had a touch.
On the way home I came to a point where I was high up looking down into a Severn Valley full of mist –it was as if I was flying above the clouds. I wish I had the camera and the skills to put that picture on these pages but I will have to be content with the image etched in my mind. It was an incredible sight for sure, and even after a blank this made it a good day.
The rest of the week was a waste of time, with rivers up and coloured, cold snow water and salt off the roads. The stillwaters were so cold it was hard to get a bite anywhere, but as I write there is still a week of the river season left and I have plans to fish down south for the last two days and see if I can hook a big chub or two to end on a high.
So now I’m planning ahead. Tench, bream and carp are all on the agenda. These species might seem a million miles away right now but don’t be fooled, because soon the daffodils will be up, water temperatures will rise and these fish will all be feeding and ready to be caught.
Start buying a bag of groundbait each week and a tin of Jolly Green Giant so that when the time comes it makes it easier on the wallet.
Over the coming weeks pop down to your chosen spring venue and simply have a walk around in the early morning or late evening and look for signs of rolling fish, coloured water where fish have been feeding, or ‘needle’ bubbles, which are a sure giveaway that tench are coming on the feed.
Don’t for one minute think that everything will be late feeding this year because of the big freeze.
Nature will catch up very quickly, and already it looks as though it never snowed at all!