The Trent, the scene for the Session Angler
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I have fished quite a few overnighters over the last few years but just recently I have completed my first proper session, an almost 4 day call to the bankside which culminated in a grand total of 13 bites and 12 fish. In my book I would call that grueling in the extreme, I had one solitary bite during daylight hours, the rest of the time was spent tying rigs, reading Lord of the Rings, drinking lemon tea or cooking meals for myself; hard, mind destroying tedium, the type of fishing that can make you ask the questions “what is this all about and why am I here?” It is also exactly the type of angling you need from time to time to cement the sport firmly in the psyche, to ensure you stop thinking like a 'Joe Ordinary' angler and evolve into a lean mean fishing predator that blends in with nature and can spot a catching opportunity a mile off.
Day One
So there I was on the bankside, the wife driving away into the distance leaving me on my own for three days of fishing, with the hopes of catching a 20lb carp or a double figure barbel, but with clandestine ambitions to get both. The weather is breezy and cold, the river is low and clear, not the type of conditions I would have chosen but we have to make do with what we have, beggars cannot be choosers. Maybe next week the warm rains of spring will fall and the river will rise and the clarity will be gone as the temperature of the river rises and rouses the semi-dormant fish to break fast and feed with a vengeance - not that it will have any bearing on my catch rates as the close season will be upon us and the only people on the banks will be walkers, cyclists, ornithologists and immigrants!
Lee - Masochist, Narcissist or Optimist?
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The rods I have chosen to fish with for the session are reflective of the main quarry of this session; twenty pound river carp, therefore the 1 ¾ lb t/c I would sometimes choose for my carbelling/barbelling are not up to the mark in my opinion. This is not a session I want to worry about the backbone of my gear, no quarter is going to be asked and so no quarter will be given. The reels are a mix of Shimano Baitrunners and the new Tica Sportera, one of a pair of Maver reels I won, which is on its first tour of duty. The sportera has a big pit look and feel to it, the metal casing and aluminum spool make for a very robust, bordering on heavy feel, the front drag will take a bit of getting used to but I am in no doubts that this is a quality bit of gear that will serve me well for years to come. My main line is 10lb Krystonite, a fantastic line I have no doubts about whatsoever, onto a standard breakaway clipped, semi-fixed bolt-rigged feeder on two foot of anti-tangle tubing pinned down with drop-em and lead wire, with the feeder carrying 3oz of lead onto a combi-linked mantis/mega-silk hooklength with the Drennan Super Specialist barbel hook in size 7 (that doesn't really sound too standard when described that way does it?). The rig sounds complicated but I assure you it is not!
The baits for this session are my own Swim-Stim boilies and paste, Source boilies and glugged Source boilies, dead flavored maggots, two uncut loaves and a selection of pellets plus a gallon of fermenting parti-blend and hemp. God I hate the smell of fermenting hemp, whatever the carp and barbel see in it I do not know, it is a truly vile smell, sickly sweet and cloying! But saying that, monster crab, squid and octopus, most of the cheese flavorings and n-butyric acid will all get you into bother if spilt around the home whilst in the pursuit of the perfect baits. Marriages have faltered and divorce lawyers grown rich on the back of the battle to create the best baits.
The peg I am going to fish is on the bottom end of a bend and its position ensures that I command a lot of water. There are six anglers within the next 200 yards which is a bit busy for me but I am here for the duration, and they should not interfere with my plans too much. There is a wicked crease line at my feet running five foot out alongside a dead reed bed. This feature is my blanking get out of jail free card because if it does not hold a couple of chub at least I am a Dutchman's uncle and my name is Mr. Van der Merwhatjimmacallit, not Big Swordsy!
That crease would be primed with a bit of mashed bread for a few hours and fished as the sun drops over the horizon. No need to hurry, it could be the difference between catching and blanking. The pellets are given a soaking with some CSL and the feeders are loaded with the Parti-blend sandwiched between the pellets the hookbaits are chopped glugged Source boilies on one rod and Swim-Stim paste wraps on the other. Both are fished at the far side of the crease with the baits twenty yards apart along pretty much the same line as to create a trail of flavour and a long bed of tiny food items to entice and hold the fish when they come to investigate. The casting regime I had decided on was once an hour or according to bites, hopefully I would get some bites but with the water holding as much colour as a glass of iced vodka and being not that much warmer either I expected most of the action after dark.
With everything out and fishing nicely it was simply a matter of passing the day on, trying to observe any movements made by the fishy inhabitants of this ice cold vodka cocktail that was passing itself off as the Trent in spring, did it not know I was expecting a little extra water and a lot more colour? Much sacrificial consumption of the sacred Stella had taken place during the recent snow storms in an attempt to win over the favour of the fishing Gods but it was obvious my efforts had fallen a little way short and many more bottles and cans of Stella Artois would need to be laid at the alter of the fishing gods in tribute to win back their total favour as soon as I returned home from this adventure.
The day grew older and none of the six anglers below me, including Dick, a local hero of mine, had managed to tempt anything to bite, not even a greedy chevin could be coaxed into giving a little bit of sport to these hardy individuals.
The sun was starting to colour up red and the day began to get that rich rose gold colour, it was almost time to think about bagging a chub. There is no way I am going to blank, I do not care a jot if my target fish is a carp or a stickleback I do not enjoy blanking one bit and will avoid it at all costs.
One by one the other angler's disappear into the sunset as I reach into my rod bag and pull out my quivertip rod which is going to be fished in a simple link ledger job onto 8lb Krystonite (thanks Graham) with a four pound fluorocarbon hooklength. A large bit of crust is pulled off the loaf and squeezed onto the hook and with a deft little flick of the rod the whole lot is gently deposited into the weed bed. A little foul language and gentle pulling frees the rig from the snags and within a minute or so the whole lot was rebaited, checked for damage, and recast. With the chub rod set up and fishing nicely I organized my new stove to prepare a ritual feast of boil in the bag chicken dopiaza and mug of hot lemon tea - very nice. No sooner had the blade of my knife sliced into the metallic packaging did the chub rod slam round into an almost perfect semi-circle, a sure sign from above that I was still in the good books! After a spirited scrap a beautiful chub of over 5lb lay in the folds of the net and after a quick trip to the scales which put him at 5lb 10oz and a mug shot for posterity he was allowed to swim away and into the darkness so that I could continue with my feasting.
The boil in the bag chicken dopiaza I had purchased from CCC's the previous day was very good, in fact I would say the mix of chicken and potato in the medium curry sauce was the equal of many restaurant curries I have had. At least this one wasn't swimming in so much ghee that my entire cardio vascular system would be in need of a rebore in six months time. The twilight slipped into full darkness and I charged the trusty old Coleman with its regular duty of keeping the hordes of Trent rats at a healthy distance.
Now here is a thought, being so close to Nottingham and it being a cloudy night, the resulting light pollution meant that barring the most fiddly of jobs I could actually function without any additional light sources. The rods were silhouetted against the orange sky and the whole night had that strange sodium lamp orange glow. Does the increase in light levels put the fish off or does the almost perpetual twilight increase the dusk feeding spell?
The silent alarms, gently nodding tips and lack of moving fish led me to agree with the opening argument. Here I am on what are supposed to be the darkest nights of the month and I barely have to bother with the head lamp and the Coleman is simply keeping rats at bay. I now understand why Patrick Moore, the famous astronomer, bangs on about light pollution. The rest of that strange fluorescent orange night passed without much incident with only a couple more chub duped in to falling for the bread and a pair of rats falling to the Source boilie baited traps. The rats were taken to the edge of the woods and placed on a tree stump in the certain knowledge that some creature would find them an easy meal. The carbelling rods stayed silent barring one stalled bite at around four in the morning.
Day Two
The dawn came slowly; the orange glare of the night was reluctant to fade into blue until the sun was almost over the horizon, the damp chill of dawn revealed another dour day. The stretch was once again quite busy with six anglers in position by 8am. Some of the anglers were rolling meat while others were fishing pellet over tight little beds of droppered hemp, but whatever their chosen method everyone was struggling. Only one small barbel was landed between them by the time I started to think about making tea.
The boredom of the day was made bearable through watching the wide array of birds and animals that live their lives connected to the river and the surrounding countryside. The rats I had placed at the edge of the woods were taken by a gentleman fox, a courteous glance of appreciation in my direction as he ambled back into cover with the morning's paper and a bottle of milk stuck under his front paw. It really is amazing how relaxed and civilized the local fox population has become in the short time since hunting with dogs was banned.
A pair of black and white oystercatchers picked through the marginal gravel with their bright orange bills alongside a mystery pair of small brown wading birds searching for snails and small freshwater mussels. Far away from the coastal areas I would usually expect to see them, as are the cormorants that are settled on the posts across the other side of the river, drying their wings after a hard day's fishing, as even more fly overhead in Luftwaffe formation, ready to unleash their blitzkrieg on the aquatic inhabitants of an unsuspecting waterway. Tthe inland cormorant population does not hold much affection amongst the angling fraternity and their days of feeding and breeding inland are probably numbered. A large and ungainly grey heron flew slowly from bank to bank and from weedbed to weedbed searching for the best vantage point to stage its deadly ambush on any small fish or frogs. Silhouetted against the sky its massive wing span and long flailing legs gave the fleeting appearance of a prehistoric pterodactyl.
Chapter after chapter from Lord of the Rings was read as I drank cup after cup of hot lemon tea to stave off the cold and invigorate the mind, yet whatever I tried bites were simply not forthcoming. Even a switch over to super flavored dead maggots could not buy me a bite. The rod tips refusing even my most passionate prayers to slam round and bring me some excitement. Why do we do this to ourselves, when we could be at home in the warm glow of the hearth with a decent measure of single malt at hand reading the papers and watching the day go by in a comfortable and contented kind of way? Maybe we all know that there will be time a plenty for that later, when we are ready for the knacker's yard, our joints ruined by countless hours of standing in cold water and the uncomfortable sleepless nights on fold-up beds, sheltered from the elements by nothing more than a sleeping bag and a badly designed tent called a bivvy whilst we sustain ourselves on a diet a ravenous pig would turn its nose up at and one that also contains more saturated fat that a 5lb lump of whale blubber. That is why I am very pleased with these boil in the bag meals from the camping shop; they are actually very nice to eat and once prepared they look like and taste like real food. Once again the angling fraternity benefits from the research and produce designed for the mountaineering and outdoor pursuits enthusiast. I still haven't thanked them properly for Gortex and all the other lightweight breathable fabrics that freed me from the rubberized sweat suits of the seventies and eighties.
The only other real highlight of the day apart from the wildlife was meeting up with several old friends who I haven't seen much of this season and swapping stories and trying to make sense of the new and old rumours that continually do the rounds. Like the 16lb barbel and the 40lb common carp. We did decide that there is definitely at least one16lb + barbel in this part of the Trent. The tidal could threaten the record eventually and what's so bloody good about a 40lb common carp when everyone knows that 60 is the new 40? One by one the anglers left the stretch and to be absolutely honest in a strange way I was happy; finally I had the solitude that is a soothing balm to the troubled mind. Whenever there are a lot of anglers present I can find myself absorbed into watching them and worrying if what they are doing is affecting my sport in any way.
The sun dropped into kissing distance of the horizon and as if by magic at that very moment a carp stuck its head and shoulders out of the water bang over where I was fishing. With my confidence now soaring with that one glance of a fish, I began to ready myself for the 'catch'. The weighing scales and sling, unhooking mat and forceps and the camera set for self timer were all set and ready to go.
My confidence wasn't misplaced either because within five minutes of what I term 'proper night' falling, the carp rod slammed over and the alarm screamed like a tone deaf banshee standing on a rusty nail as what I was praying would be my first 20 headed for the far bank with great speed. Hooping the rod into the fish I was met with the dynamic resistance of an obviously large and annoyed carp, surging runs, switching direction and running through lots of snags, one of which tore the feeder from the clip. This fish knew all the tricks in the book and it was using them, each and every one, in an attempt to throw the hook.
With the rod locked up the fish could not make any more headway and the force of the current meant it had to kite across the flow and into safer waters. If I had allowed it to reach the main push the battle would have been swung too far in the fish's advantage. Hauling large fish against the run of a powerful river over long distances is the easiest way to lose a good fish in my opinion; better to lock the rod up and hold on for dear life, with the clutch set to release line only under extreme pressure. With the battle now being fought in safer waters I began to use the power of the rod to exhaust the fish quickly. There is no bonus payment in fishing for overtime, the sooner the job is done and the fish is in the net the better it is for the fish and the happier I am. One or two final runs and rolls and the fish was spent, its head breaking the surface and large gouts of water belching out of it mouth, a sure sign the fight is done.
Lee and his Trent carp
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With the fish safe and sound in the net and resting in the margins the camera was brought into position and a couple of self timer shots were taken before the fish was weighed in at a creditable 17lb 4oz then swiftly returned to the water and allowed its freedom. It ghosted silently away into the dark waters of the Trent without so much as a backwards glance. Satisfied at the capture of such a wonderful fish, (I mean, how could anyone be disappointed with such a stunning creature?) a Trent common clad in its armour of bronze scales with their typically orange sheen, a long lean fighting fish lacking the distended and obese looking guts of their boilie addicted stillwater cousins, magnificent and well worth the wait. The fish had taken a pair of glugged Source boilies chopped up a little and fished back to back. As I hate to change a winning combination I replaced the hooklength and slipped on a couple of fresh boilies dripping with a wonderfully aromatic glug. Bang full of confidence as Trent carp rarely swim alone the rig was recast onto the same spot and I settled myself down for a nice warm cup of Horlicks (this stove malarkey is bloody brilliant, fresh hot drinks and food whenever I want them!!). The pan barely had time to boil before the rod was screaming off and I was trying to get up and grappling for the rod, cup going one way, me going the other. Why is it that so very often in fishing, this phenomena has been documented by the greatest angling writers for generations, the rod almost always slams over just as you are about to take the first bite of a sandwich or sip of a hot drink. I think it's all down to the fishing gods and their unique sense of timing and humour.
This time the fish decided to stay close and simply plod around in tight circles and before it knew what was happening it was close to the net spitting water at me and the game was over. This fish wasn't that much shorter than the last but it was a lot leaner and not so heavy in the shoulders. The scales said 14lb and that would do for me, before it knew what was happening it had had its mug shot taken and was on its way into the darkness, no worse for wear except maybe a little bit embarrassed.
Two fish in less than half an hour, things were picking up. Once you have a good area of bait laid out for the fish to find on the Trent they will generally find it and settle over it for a while. I have never found them to be bait shy, especially after dark and tonight is definitely darker than last night, there is far less cloud cover and therefore the bright orange glow of the distant street lights is somewhat more subdued. Full of confidence I hovered over the rods waiting for more action but unfortunately that was it, one short period of activity followed by nothing, the fish disappearing as quickly as they had arrived.
Day Three
The penultimate dawn of my season rose slowly, the cold dark of the night once again reluctant to loosen it grip. The clearer skies though had made it a much colder affair than the very overcast night previous and so the sight of the sun rising was most welcome, most welcome indeed as sleeping outdoors in a cold climate really does play havoc with my knees, they feel like an old pair of rusted ball joints in need of copious amounts of grease to get them moving again. I am certainly not as young as I once was, and again wonder how these 'professional anglers' who do this on a regular basis must feel. More important, how do they survive? I feel like a crappy version of the Tin man from the wizard of Oz, this cannot be good for the body, it really cannot. Rain pattered gently on the bivvy and I sank deeper and deeper into its shelter, losing track of time, passing the day reading quietly and observing nature at close quarters.
The pterodactyl is back chasing frogs and fish along the margins, startling a trio of mallards as it crashes from one reed bed to another searching for its next victim. Why is it some herons choose the static approach, standing motionless for hours waiting for their prey whereas some like this one choose to adopt a more proactive approach to the subject of mealtimes? Glad I cannot fit inside that terrible lance of a beak, for without doubt it would have had me by now.
The evening falls and again fish begin to show almost as though they had appeared by some conjurors trick. A carp rolls a little way down river, and I hope that it picks up my flavour trail and pays me a visit, he would be made most welcome. The fish was most probably cleaning off the parasites as such sedentary creatures are bound to attract during their long hours of daytime inactivity. I remember once catching a pike from this very swim with so many fish leeches attached to its head it looked like a Rastafarian sporting a long set of living, writhing dread locks. Vile little creatures, I really do not like leeches, especially those large black ones that would bite a human given half a chance and gorge themselves until bloated and distended on blood, all the tastes of a vampire but without the fatal charms or hypnotic charisma. Truly hideous.
Again it is a clear night, the water taking on a strange, almost sinister, oily black look, boiling and swirling past my feet concealing a numberless quantity of fantastic treasures. How many of the fish of dreams were almost within my grasp? How many wondrous creatures within casting distance? The unknown is what attracts me to such a spot; the ignorance of all its inhabitants is the charm that holds me in total thrall and draws me back time and time again. I must discover more, I must fathom all its mysteries but I know to do that would take a thousand years or more and is a feat far beyond the acts of mortal men. Maybe I could ask Phil and Steph to come down again for a couple of hours, they'd suss it for me.
So here I am, one full night left of my season, the twenty hasn't materialized yet and the barbel up to now are very conspicuous by their absence. The water isn't that cold but it is clear, so very, very clear I can see that spooking them during the daylight hours as there has been a good number of anglers on the stretch, a lot more than of late I would wager as well. Maybe the sudden increase in pressure has spooked them. Whatever the reason for their absence I wish they'd come back; there is nothing quite like a nice barbel to round the season off and the last two seasons have rounded off very nicely indeed for me with fish between 11lb 1oz and 13lb 7oz falling on my last day sessions. Plenty of time to go, no need to worry, yet.
With that thought still in my mind the alarm let out a single bleep, then a couple of seconds later two more stuttering bleeps. Reaching for the rod and sweeping it firmly backwards I was met with the solid tell tale thump-thump of a bream. I soon had the fish under control but it was several minutes before the fish could be coaxed to the net through the powerful swirling currents. it was using its not insubstantial flanks as a fishy drogue, slamming first one way and then the other all the time the weight of the water doing all the fish's fighting for it. The rod was raised one last time and the fish slid in on its side and into the net, a good fish of around six pounds or so, the double chopped down Source boilies hanging from the corner of its mouth. Wishing to not waste any time, or inconvenience the fish too much it was quickly released, neither the scales nor the camera being called into action, an almost inconceivable thought not that many years ago when a six pound bream would have meant the ritual slaying of at least six cans of Stella. But what with the population of Trent bream as it is at the moment, that would now result in acute sclerosis of the liver through over indulgent veneration of angling's Gods. Religious fervor is one thing a liver transplant is something quite different.
This was better, at last, a bit of action as another bream and then a chub made an appearance. The chub was a good sized fish of maybe four and a quarter pounds but it was a real old time warrior, a fish with the aesthetic qualities and physical symmetry of a king Edward potato, definitely not one for the cat walk or the photo album.
The nightfall was turning the fish on to feed and their nocturnal movements began to show as several fish porpoised at mid river. The level of excitement was building with every passing minute, I was willing the rod to slam over again and again and again, praying for the alarm to scream away, come on, COME ON! I know the fish are there now, tell-tale knocks and quivers giving away their presence, the fish are on the feed and it's only a matter of time….BANG! The rod gives a two foot twitch and I am in! The Baitrunner is set tight but still gives line freely as the unseen leviathan bolts away at great speed and a very pleasing curve develops in the rod as I lift into the fight. Long direct runs at electric pace make me think that this could be the fish I want, the fish I have waited for. Please be the one that ends this long wait. Please be the twenty!
The line catches on an unseen snag and then pings free, a nasty grating sensation travels through the rod and several hasty prayers are said. So many hours of inactivity only served to heighten the excitement of the fight, the line snags again, this time the feeder slips free of its clip and the feel of the fight changes, lighter, faster and more direct. I think I have the fish under control but the tricks darkness can play on the eyes suddenly reveal the fish is a good dozen yards further from me than I thought and is not that far from another underwater snag, one that I am familiar with and one that has liberated several fish in the past for me. A lot of side strain was applied and the reel locked up with a little pressure to the spool. Grudgingly the fish had to kite away from the snag, the force of the water for once working in my favour. Now the fight was ebbing away and the fish began to rise in the water, lighter than I had first thought and not as ponderous. This may be a barbel I thought to myself and a bloody good one at that.
The landing net was sunk and the rod lifted high, a great swirl of bright water marking the struggle. One last half-hearted but futile pull from the fish and then it was mine, the light from my headlamp showing up a large bronzy flank as it slid into the trap. I lifted the net, yes, a barbel, and one for the scales.
The scales showed a weight of 11lb 12oz, a long and fit fish in pristine condition and still a young fish which still had a lot of filling out to complete before it was through growing. A season's best weight for the species for me and one that would result in much celebrations later. The fish was released after a couple of shots and I settled down for a well earned cup of lemon tea. The night was beginning to lose its inky black grip as the dawn horizon began to lighten from black to a mix of deep purples and dark blues.
The Final Day
The action subsides as the dawn approaches and I slip into a light sleep, the light sleep slips into a deep sleep and I am dead to the world. Hours passed until my slumber was eaten into and then finally broken by the wind, which had picked up and cooled considerably and with it was a thin but viciously cold, biting rain. The bivvy began to boom with the wind like a great sail on a yacht. Deeper and deeper into the bivvy I sank, the rain coming and going but the wind staying constant, the sky overhead darkening as if for a storm, the great leaden clouds scudding by at speed.
A constant procession of hot drinks kept the cold at bay but the fishing was all but finished. A kingfisher screamed across river like a tiny azure missile before hovering like a hawk and dropping like a stone into the margins. The minnows having no sanctuary in the gin clear water from this tiny hunter, it reappeared with an unlucky fish clamped tight across its bill before disappearing with its prize, a love gift probably for its mate. The kingfishers are now conditioning themselves for breeding and need to consume 1.6 times their own body weight daily to achieve this, which is a lot of minnows and bullheads going down the hatch. The wildlife is now totally ignoring my presence. I have been accepted as part of the surroundings seemingly completely. The oyster catchers are wading through the foam in the margins, and the pterodactyl sized heron is coming in to land with all the grace of a wet duvet. A pair of merganser, a species of bird which I have only seen a couple of times down here before, are coming into land a little way down river. A pair of binoculars being a valuable tool, not only for spotting fish but also as a means of whiling away the time watching the amazing variety of creatures that we share our hobby with. I pity and fear the ignorant fools who take no joy from nature, this for me is why I do it, this is the reality of the angler and this is why I will always love the rivers and natural places of our beautiful countryside.
The rest of that miserable day was spent watching the water and its wildlife, no further action could be had and my season drifted to an end at around five when Tina arrived to take me home. God willing, the closed season will pass swiftly and hopefully next season will be as enjoyable as the last.
Session Total
Two bream, 7 chub (to 5lb 10oz), 2 carp (17lb +) and 1 barbel (11lb 12oz, a season's PB).
Neneman Nick 
