Bob Roberts

My monthly fishing diary...

WHEN I think about summer fishing the things that immediately spring to mind are sunburn, sweating, thirst, nettles, wasps, mosquitoes, horse flies and temperamental farm animals. But these are mere inconveniences when compared to the most reliable fishing of the whole year. There’s so much to go at and every reason to be optimistic about success.

Week one...

Regular readers might recall my trials and tribulations last month trying to catch carp on the surface with rubber hooks amid a flock of mental Canada geese. One of those days when, if it can possibly go wrong, it will. Well, I’m nothing if not a trier and perhaps a bit of a glutton for punishment. So I returned to Alderfen for another dose of torment.

As I drove down the track alongside the Match and Pads lakes I could see a large flock of geese grazing on the surrounding grass, so I crept past being ultra- careful not to alarm to them. Geese aren’t a problem when they are out of the water.

Passing the geese successfully I pulled up into the Wyndham Lake car park where there was just one car, so I had a quick scout around. The angler was tucked away at the back of the farthest bay, hidden behind a large bush and leaving me loads of room to work with without disturbing him. In fact, I’m not sure he even knew I was there.

Amazingly, there wasn’t a single goose on the lake. Even more amazingly, I stumbled upon a shoal of carp in two feet of water to the left of the main point swim. Grabbing minimal gear I crept back round, flicked out a few floaters and waited for them to drift down on the breeze. The fish were straight on them. For the next half- hour I simply enjoyed feeding the fish, watching them get ever more reckless, mopping up everything I fed. I almost felt guilty mounting a mixer on the bait band with trembling fingers. When I eventually made my first cast two fish jostled each other as they competed for my hookbait. A hook- up was inevitable and a furious fight followed from an old, near- black warrior. I had hoped this would be followed by several more fish but the disturbance clearly spooked the shoal and they ‘ did the off’ ( as proper carpers say).

When it was apparent the fish weren’t coming back I simply went looking for some more and, sure enough, I found them in another quiet corner. Again it was a case of feeding and sitting on my hands until an occasional mixer was slurped down. A couple of moorhens kept nicking my free offerings but that didn’t bother me too much as there’s only so much bait a moorhen can eat before it’s full, plus they probably put the carp at ease and draw their attention to the free offerings. Anyway, once the carp were feeding it was another one cast, one fish scenario. A common this time, long and thin, rather like a wildie, really. And once again the fish were gone. To be honest, I’d had enough anyway. No point in hammering spooky fish, best save them for another day.

Week two...

So there I am, stood in the water next to my keepnet, just down from Dunham Bridge on the tidal Trent, when I catch sight of something out of the corner of my eye and realise it’s a huge perch, almost within touching distance of my knees.

I flick out a few maggots but it’s not interested in such mundane offerings, though reeling in a small fish certainly grabs its attention.

I dare hardly move now for fear of spooking what looks to be a very good fish, long and broad across the shoulders.

It will be so easy to mess up this opportunity.

Very slowly, I edge backwards, out of the water, grab my stick float rod and tie on a size 12 hook ( the biggest I’ve got with me). Creeping back into position, stealthily as a heron, the perch is still there. Several times it swims over my keepnet, practically touching my waders, then drifts back into the sheltered water behind the net. I suspect it’s attracted to the fish inside.

With as little movement as possible I swing out my waggler, hook a small dace and pull it through the zone. Sure enough the perch chases it. Now it’s game on!

The dace is unhooked, transferred to the larger hook, lowered in next to the keepnet and bingo, the perch absolutely nails it, right on the surface just two feet away from me! Too close for me to even strike.

Fishing doesn’t get much more exciting than this, and what a result.

The perch is so wide across the shoulders, but not as deep as I had anticipated. Come winter, when she has a belly, it will be huge specimen.

The rest of the day was spent trying to beat a facing, downstream wind and a tide that flowed like the clappers in both directions. I had maybe 50 fish, or more, but nothing like the size I was hoping for. In 10 years’ time I’ll have forgotten the roach and dace I caught, but not that perch. That will live with me for a long time.

Week three...

With a couple of pints of maggots and half a tub of hemp left over from a previous trip I decided an evening’s stick float fishing on the Trent would be an excellent way to use them up. I was spoilt for swim choice as the club stretch was devoid of anglers. This left me with a dilemma. Too much choice.

My stay in a perfect looking swim lasted all of 10 minutes. If I was losing hooks I’d sure as hell lose fish as well, so a move was indicated. The second swim showed no signs of ever having been fished – a very tricky high bank dropping vertically into thigh- deep water 12in from the bank. A willow bush overhanging the water immediately upstream deflected the flow, which ran 6ft deep over clean gravel. Basically a rod end job.

Bites came straight away from small dace but it was a proper tear- your- hairout job and I was only hitting about one bite in 10. I tried all sorts to turn bites into fish – different depths, shotting patterns and so on – but the sheer volume of small dace dashing around at all depths made things tricky.

The better dace were running to 6oz, nice fish to catch, but consistency was lacking on my part. And then the rod pulled round and things went solid. This was definitely a fish as it moved around slowly, though I suspected it might be a pike.

Upstream she came, hugging the bottom and seemingly in no hurry at all. For a few seconds it swam round in circles beneath the rod tip as a bemused pike will often do on light gear and then it decided to swim upstream, under the bush. So I buried the rod tip as deep as I dare go and backwound as it went under the bush and then carried on going. ‘ Oh dear!’ I thought ( or words to that effect). ‘ Perhaps this is a carp?’

My concern at that moment was whether I’d get my float back rather than would I land the fish. The odds on that seemed pretty outrageous, but I took a deep breath and dug in patiently. Did I mention I was fishing with a 2.5lb hooklink to a size 20 Gamakatsu hook? Hmmm. Pretty long odds, eh?

But patience paid off and I began to tease the fish back downstream, towards the bush. Incredibly it came past the bush without snagging and then it was a case of more patience under the rod tip. The chances of pulling out the hook at short range in the flow were great but I clung on, albeit gently. Then I saw a distinctly bronze flash. Could this possibly be a barbel? It certainly could. A nice one too. But what a strange fight.

My next fear was whether I could fit it into a small match pan net and I have to say, when she surfaced, Will Raison would have been proud of my scooping technique! A long rest followed by a few quick snaps saw her being returned none the worse for the experience, but that was the end of my float fishing. I’d had enough. And just so I could bask in the glory while eating my sandwiches I dropped out a bomb rod and within minutes I had a second, this one being landed in a proper net.

Hard work, this dace fishing!

Week four...

You may recall in a recent column how I was struggling to catch crucians from the Sugar Mill Ponds at Rawcliffe Bridge, near Goole. I predicted that having worked out how, where and when to catch them it would be like waiting for a bus to come.

Sure enough, I found myself with an urge to prove my point so, setting the alarm for the ungodly hour of 6am

– very early for me ( I don’t do mornings), I set out to prove a point. I guess it would have been 8am before I made my first cast but by 9am I’d already had a lovely pair of crucians plus a few tench for good measure. Still can’t believe this club costs a mere £ 30 a year to join, £ 15 for concessions. Talk about a bargain.

By 10am my eyeballs were being scorched as I stared at the pinprick of a float tip dotted in the surface film. It seemed a waste to spend all day trying to repeat what I’d already achieved in the first two hours in conditions that were ideal for floater fishing.

I’d anticipated this would be the case and for a change the weather forecast was spot on. Time to head back to the car where I had my floater rod stashed away beneath a large unhooking mat, just in case.

Dialling the post code for Alderfen into my Satnav I hit the road and was pleasantly surprised to find the fishery deserted. I’d barely walked a hundred yards with my bucket of floaters and a catapult before stumbling on a group of carp and, sure enough, they were straight on the bait. I left the bucket as a flag to say ‘ this is Bob’s swim’ – which was bonkers when you think about it. I was the only angler on the whole complex and anyone arriving would have to pass me, but I guess we humans are conditioned to mark our territory, just like wild animals do! Anyway, there was no hurry. The fish were clearly willing and it’s so easy to cast at feeding fish too soon and mess up. I wouldn’t be making my first cast for at least half an hour, during which time I set up the camera, prepared the mat, checked the rig and gradually drip fed the fish until they were competing for every single free offering.

As I’d anticipated, it was a one- cast job, making sure to overcast the feeding fish and gradually tease my rig back into the killing zone, then WHAM!

No need to strike as the surface exploded and the reel’s drag protested.

A cracking fight ensued in the shallow water, spooking the other fish – which was inevitable. I managed to tease another but after that the game was up. It was time to head home for tea with a smug grin on my face.