LAMPREY CLINGS ON

MARTYN GREEN, EMAIL

Last week, my wife and I stayed at Riverside Caravan and Camping Park at South Molton for a few days, intending to do a spot of fishing by Kingfisher Lake. For me, seeing a kingfisher is always a rare and a special treat. On this occasion I only saw one, on a previous visit I saw 10 in one day.

I like wildlife and am always interested in creatures that are rarely spotted. On this occasion, I added a hornet robber fly – Britain’s largest fly – to my tally of new wildlife sightings, but the second was provided by one of the carp that I caught.

When we got to the lakeside, another angler told us that the fishing was hard as the fish had spawned the week before and were resting. This proved to be the case, with only seven carp caught from the lake in the three days we fished it. However, since I was lucky enough to catch four, I was grateful.

From the outset, we frequently saw a large carp throwing itself violently from the water. I had heard that carp sometimes do this when they have parasites, so didn’t pay it too much attention. However, shortly after it had jumped, this same carp took my fly, resulting in a great battle on the fly rod that I thoroughly enjoyed. When I netted it, I saw a wriggling bar of silver attached to its body.

At first, I thought that I had inadvertently netted some passing eel, but then I saw clearly that it was, at least at first, firmly attached. Then, when it let go, I saw that it was a lamprey, the first that I'd ever seen. It swiftly detached itself from the carp in its efforts to escape, whereupon I was able to get a photograph. This was much more difficult than I expected, since it was frenetic in its endeavours to escape.

Another angler came over and urged me to kill it, presenting me with an ethical dilemma. I could understand his viewpoint that it was a parasite that should be killed, but I was uncomfortable with this as I am much more comfortable with taking photographs than killing any of the fish I catch. So I returned it, weighed and photographed the carp and swiftly released that one too.