Blues and twos
The cold granite grey of of a winter day rarely puts me off fishing of any kind.
Coarse fishing is often at its finest in early winter. The fish gorged themselves for three or four months on summer's bounty and now become opportunist feeders, conserving energy in the slacker water and snapping up passing snacks. They have a long wait for spring.
As I crested the bridge and looked down the Welland Valley, I was uplifted. Yes, the sky was leaden but the river had risen above autumn's miserable level and rain had freshened it, giving it the colour of weak tea with just a drop of milk. The tinge of silt in the river made my pulse slightly faster.
Clear water fosters both angling dreams and nightmares. Patient watching when the water's clear rewards the angler with views of his quarry. But it also affords fish a clear view of anglers, and their wariness becomes infuriating.
I wanted to catch a chub – 'the fearfullest of fishes,' Izaak Walton called it. As a I trudged riverwards, I could see the cloudier water would offer me a good chance, and it was mild – milder than it should be. Today, I was sure, a chub would greedily wolf down a chunk of bread or a cube of smoked port sausage, the two baits I was carrying.
I travel light these days. It's a combination of wisdom and necessity; my back isn't as strong as it was. By the same token, fishing small rivers demands mobility and the more tackle you carry, the more reluctant you will be to try a different patch.
So I sneaked into position, tackled up and cast out, my bait carried downstream beneath the trailing branches of an overhanging hawthorn, where I was sure a chub would be lurking. And I waited.
A great man once said that if you sit perfectly still and silent in the countryside for one hour, you will see something you have never seen before. I have fished for 40 years and it has been true of every single, waiting hour.
Angling has the reputation of being boring. Active, in the physical sense, it certainly isn't but don't mistake the lack of motion for dullness. A good angler uses ears, nose, eyes and mind constantly, trying to decipher the code – the tiny increments of change – that will persuade a fish to bite.
And as anglers try to figure it out, the natural world opens like a book for us. Overhead, small flocks of immigrant fieldfares 'chacked' as they sought the open spaces they love to hunt. Flocks of 20 or more finches twittered as they hurried between the trees.
In this part of the Welland Valley, ancient trees have fought age and the elements and died, their cracked skeletons now home to little owls, a naturalised immigrant. They called behind me and in front – perhaps three or four birds, keeping in touch with each other.
The chub, though, deigned not to entertain me, so I upped sticks and found another likely-looking place, where the river was forced through a gap between sturdy willows then opened into a pool. I had a good, long view downstream and felt that this swim might harbour the chub I wanted. I cast into the edge of the flow, feeling and watching as the bait settled where the current was weaker – where the fish would lurk, saving energy. And I watched.
And then I was rewarded. With a shrill piping, a pair of kingfishers came racing, nose to tail, upstream towards me, like two cobalt sparks, as eye-catching as a police car's strobing lights. They plainly didn't spot me in my drab clothing and kept coming until they flashed past at eye level, less than three feet from my face.
As they shot past, I clearly saw them, as if they were caught in the beam of a camera flash. I saw every feather – the astonishing metallic blue, the fiery red breast, the bright button eye, the white neck patch, pink legs. The picture is burned into my memory. I have seen kingfishers many times, but never two so close to each other and so close to me.
An hour later I was on my way home, stumbling along the edge of the winter wheat, my boots gathering a weighty platform of doughy Welland mud.
I didn't catch my chub. But then, I now have every excuse to try again, and sit for one more hour, motionless, on the riverbank.
---------- Post added at 07:18 ---------- Previous post was at 07:14 ----------
There you go, Ron. And yes, we have our differences, but that's life.
And big thanks to Colin for giving me a plug. I'm very much NOT trying to ape Barrie's work... that would be crass. But there was a space for a fishing column in Cambridgeshire Pride, I am good friends with the editor and the publisher, and I fancied penning a bit more of my old tosh... for no fee, I might add.
