We arrived at a lovely little farm pond a short while later, Graham dropping his gear into one of the two neighbouring swims before telling me to choose which one I wanted. The fact he had already placed all his gear in one swim and was busy throwing pellets into the margins kind of staked his claim so I let him win his silly little attempt at securing the best swim as there was no need to be competitive today, and besides, I had brought a secret weapon! Fishing no more than four yards apart I soon realised why Graham had ‘herded’ me into this spot, a large overhanging tree directly above us meant Amy and I would spend a great deal of the day extracting rigs from it’s canopy. He’s a sneaky old so-and-so is the gaffer. Amy set up with a 4m whip and Calum had similar. Graham and I both set up a waggler outfit, Graham fishing 6lb mainline, as a week before a carp had given him a mauling with myself plumping for 4lb through to a 3.5lb bottom. Amy fed her swim with a few maggots and settled back in her chair, so it was time for me to put my plan into action. A couple of dozen fat lobs were placed in a bowl and out came the chopping scissors, Amy took to it like a fish to water, to my utter amazement she took the scissors off me and started to massacre the hapless worms into a pulp. “Eeeeeugh, that one’s brain has fallen out,” she exclaimed before bursting into a fit of giggles. I threw a couple of handfuls into the swim before lowering a section of chopped lob over the top; this would definitely give me the edge. Amy was first to make her mark, a lovely little perch was swung to hand before being slipped into the keepnet; he was christened ‘Eric’. Pointing across at our adversaries and buoyed with our early success I began to sing “one-nil, one, nil”. Amy, still a little shy having never previously met Calum or Graham told me to shut up and concentrate on my fishing……charming! Calum responded with an equally impressive perch, Graham, being somewhat immature, taunted us with “Sing when you’re winning, you only sing when you’re winning.” Quite rightly, Calum told him to grow up. Both teams were in the process of devouring their picnic when Amy restored our lead with another magnificent perch, this one was apparently called ‘Edna’ and was the wife of Eric, captured earlier. Overcoming her shyness Amy told me let Graham and Calum know the score once again, although I’m above petty gloating I didn’t want to disappoint my daughter so I promptly rubbed Graham’s nose in it once again. Amy was on a roll now and the next specimen to be swing ashore was that most game of fish, the gudgeon. 3-1 and we were cruising to victory, although I was getting worried that my master plan of chopped lob was going desperately wrong. Graham bounced back with a couple of crucians in quick succession to square the match and all was still to play for. Amy pointed out that Calum and Graham had been in far more tangles than we had so that made us the clear winner. When Graham took a small mirror carp, Calum decided to change the rules (apparently he’s good at that) and decided it was a species match. But two can play at that game and Amy and I decided the mirror was actually a badly treated crucian that had lost all its scales. Although Amy insisted on chopping lobs at every opportunity, this attack clearly wasn’t working so I decided on a radical re-think. Asking for some soft pellet Graham obliged by giving no more than half a dozen tiny hookbaits…cheers mate!
Catching this fish on one of Graham’s old rods (I bought it off him), in Graham’s swim on Graham’s bait was just too much for him and the bitterness rapidly came to the fore. I had earlier thrown a few small pieces of bread to my right in a genuine and harmless attempt to see if any carp could be tempted on the surface, having wrongly interpreted this as a childish scaring tactic Graham and Calum started to pepper our swim with floating pellets. Amy wasn’t having any of this and responded by sprinkling a couple of handfuls of maggots all around Graham and Calum, this had the desired effect and soon swarms of ducks and chickens were milling around them. Grabbing another handful she returned and emptied this lot into his tackle box, that’s my girl! The score was now 4-4 in quantity, 3-3 in species and we were 6-5 up in the tangle stakes. Weight-wise we were miles in front but Calum once again changed the rules claiming only fish in the keepnet at the ‘all-out’ counted and as the larger carp had been returned that made them ahead on the first two scores. But when the going gets tough, the tough get going and with the dreaded 5 o’clock all-out looming Amy brilliantly struck into a lovely silver roach before swinging it directly into my ear. It mattered not; we were now in front with the final whistle looming. I actually felt embarrassed for Graham when he lowered his float into Amy’s swim in a desperate attempt to even the scores. Could this be the great Cheshire and Shropshire mere fisherman of yesteryear poaching a 9 year old girl’s swim? Yup, the very same. By five o’clock all shyness had gone and it was a pleasure to watch Amy and Calum running round together, feeding maggots to the chickens whilst Graham and I packed away the gear whilst still bickering about the rules and who had actually won. In reality I suppose everyone had won, it was one of the most enjoyable sessions I had had for a long, long time. And although none of us would admit it, honours were probably even (even though we caught more fish, more species and had a heavier weight!) as all four of us had had a great afternoon. The only problem now is Amy wants to come with me again…just what have I done?????? The Truth (by Graham, who else?) He was late as usual and me and Calum were fed up of waiting, so we had a few morsels from our picnic to pass the time. When Gary and Amy finally arrived I told them I’d done them a batch of my special flavoured soft pellets, and that they were really good baits on the farm pond we were going to fish. These were refused, with the cruel words from a small, soft voice ringing in my ears, “Yer can keep yer pellets, I’ve got a secret weapon and they’re all mine, mine, mine. Nah, nah, nah-nah nah!” No, that wasn’t Amy, that was her dad. When we got to the farm pond I took Gary and Amy to the two best swims on the pool and told them to choose which one they wanted, pointing out that the one with the overhead tree whose shadow made a lovely shaded spot for the fish was the best swim by far and that you’d have to be an idiot not to catch at least 20lb out of it. With another cry of “mine, mine!” he dived into it before the words were out of my mouth, telling Amy to hurry up with the mountain of tackle she was carrying, and throwing in some bait that he was holding out of sight under his coat. Things more or less went as Gary said they did until we got to level pegging on everything, including tangles (although we had a much better tangle than they did, taking us twice as long to undo it). It was at that point the bickering started. God he’s childish, everybody round the pool was fed up of hearing him moaning about his lobs not working, and that he couldn’t understand it. I’ll bet they were dead pleased when they heard me moaning back at him, telling him it was about time he grew up and that I hoped he got snagged up. Calum and me had been quietly fishing away with no bait on for a while because we didn’t want to upset him any more than he already was. I don’t know how Amy puts up with his tantrums, I really don’t. Anyway, Calum said to me, “make him have some of your special pellets granddad, I can’t stand hearing him whinging any more.” So after a few minutes of arguing I reluctantly gave him a few. Big mistake! First cast a carp took the pellets on the drop. Course, next thing I know he’s stood in mine and Calum’s swim, letting the fish swim round it in circles while Calum and Amy are trying to whack him with the landing nets so that they can get on with some decent fishing. All the while he’s doing this he’s chanting, “Got a double here, nah, nah, nah-nah nah!” Then it got snagged in the marginal reeds and he’s sobbing, “Oh Amy, help me get it out, it’s stuck and I’m scared it’s going to break me. Oh, what should I do!” So Amy takes the rod off him and eases it out of the reeds with no problem and then nets it smartly before he can take the rod back off her and do any more damage. Neither Calum nor Amy would speak to us after that for a while. I don’t know why they weren’t speaking to me, I was a model of good behaviour, although I do admit I couldn’t stop shrieking with laughter when Amy caught her big roach and smacked Gary in the mush with it. They went off to feed the ducks and chickens then, leaving us to argue about who had won. We have plans for a rematch soon, but for some strange reason Amy and Calum say they don’t want to fish the same swims as us again, that it’s about time we learned how to carry our own tackle and look after ourselves. Kids – what can you do with ’em these days? |
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