I rolled over, heard the rain against the darkened bedroom window and hit the snooze button. What a horrible day. What a horrible month. What a horrible start to the New Year – weather wise I’m talking, of course.
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To the stream, err, to the lake. |
We started the season last June 16th with flooding and generally the highest summer river levels for a decade or more, probably much more and we finished the previous season last March with virtually all rivers in spate.
My local river is not a river. It is a stream, and I hope you understand the difference. It is a lovely stream; it is the Colne stream that meanders across the Hertfordshire countryside just to the east of Rickmansworth. I dream of it all the time, and last night was no exception.
But now I am awake, it is dark; it is another day of rain and the usual 20ft wide stream, which narrows with summer vegetation to perhaps four to six feet wide, will I am sure be in most parts a lake – for earlier in the week it was over 400 yards (I’m an imperial man) wide. That’s what flood plains are for and they will take on an era of richness in their meadows and farm fields by late spring.
We have just that on both sides of our stream. A flood plain, not a housing estate. But don’t get me started on that subject.
The buzzer went again – no, not an aging Optonic or latest version Stevie Neville, attached to a host of stainless steel, but my mobile phone alarm clock. It was still dark; it was still raining. Why bother? It was Sunday after all and there was the sudden appeal of a leisurely lie in, a few pots of fresh breakfast tea and a long read of the weekend papers.
“But,” I could hear myself saying, as if in some semi-comatose dream, “If you don’t go to the stream, you can’t catch, or even try to catch; if you don’t get a bait in the water, in a marginal slack, you don’t stand a chance – you have to be in it to win it.” This and other tired clichés pulsed through my mind. But it was enough to get me out of bed, waking fully with a freshly brewed coffee as I filled my flask.
Weapon of choice carefully and deliberately chosen from my den was an early Barder Rod Co. Merlin, 11 feet of deeply flamed cane, two piece, hollow-built, just 11 ounces. Now for cane that’s light for the length, and, yes, you can hold it all day when trotting. And the curve it takes on is sweet, caring, and full of soul. Unlike the modern carbon wands I don’t own. Paired with a Paul Witcher Bisterne pin, four inches, wide drum and, throwing a few bits into my rucksack, I was prepared.
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The water? Molten chocolate. |
Within 20 minutes I was in the car park, a few minutes walk to the bottom of the valley, to the stream, err, to the lake. The Colne had breached its banks in several places and was still rising with the overnight downpour and the rain percolating down from the upper reaches of the valley. It was wet. No, it was a quagmire. The flow was raging – a strong word for such a small stream. But it was raging, and lathering and winter flotsam and jetsam was in abundance. The water? Molten chocolate.
My chances of catching? About as likely as winning the Saturday evening National lottery! Foolishly perhaps, I was already rigged with a Paul Cook balsa and cane float – they are truly exquisite – fine line, and armed with a box of gentles and a tub of late-night hand-picked lobworms.
It was a fruitless three hours post dawn (see Dawn Promise article for my views on a dawn start for fishing when most prefer dusk). I held back hard on the float, I let it run through at speed, I tried all the depths, all shotting patterns. I moved the bait round all the marginal nooks and crannies, all the creases, all the slacks, all the traditional trotting swims – and not a dace, roach, chublet nor perch graced my net. In fact, it was three biteless hours in a dozen or 15 swims.
I’d deliberately chosen a compromise rod in case I had to move over to a lead and leger bait. The Merlin is pure Magic. A magical Merlin, a super float rod, stand off rings and quick enough in the tip for shy biting roach and dace, but with strength throughout its fibres, with plenty of mid-section steel. The early versions of the mid nineteen nineties (the first Merlin appeared in 1994 and was made for Chris Yates) have, in my view, a softer action and pull round to the butt under extreme pressure. It’s a style and action I like, but we are all different, which is why a bespoke hand-built rod is such a brilliant tool for the job. We all fish in a different way and every new cane rod can be tailored to your needs, not the needs of the masses.
Indeed, I have other Merlins, including a special-build fine-tipped lightly flamed cane rod I commissioned for 2005. That rod I christened on the Gade in Watford, then christened properly when fishing the Upper Great Ouse in Bedfordshire with Barbel Dave. From a small roach to a barbel of 9lbs 4ozs. It tamed that fish with ease, and it took some sensible playing to lure it out of its fast water gravel run, and with a very sweet curve.
By now the heavens had opened again; I was biteless, fishless, wet, though the brim of my hat as ever kept my neck from the elements, the water was rising around my feet and I kept repeating under my breath that I’d be “bloody pleased when I have had enough of this weather and fishing conditions and can go home.” But, I’ve never yet had enough in over 40 years of fishing, well rarely. For it’s an addiction, an obsession – forever one last cast – as ever angler knows and can testify.
As an aside I read some Ray Walton barbel tips recently in one of the trade weeklies (with pictures of his 13 and 15 pound Royalty beards) in which he advocated always having at least six last casts in every swim.
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I had won the lottery |
So there I was… three of my largest lobworms collected the evening before from the wet areas of my local football pitches, on a size 6, and just holding the gravel bed of a nice marginal run on an ounce of modern ‘lead’. Just enough to hold bottom… but will skip on a little downstream with a tweak if required to explore and exploit.
Nothing. I tried a further two swims, the stream levels now up another two inches since my arrival, another bank breach cascading molten chocolate lava into the field.
“It’s raining even heavier; and yes, I will be mightily pleased when I have had enough of this. But was that a tweak? Was my lead dislodged by the power of the stream? Some movement, a slight tap on the rod top.” Obviously so. For I was holding a mug of piping hot coffee!
It tweaked again, it tapped, it wrapped and pulled round, whizzing line off the ratcheted reel drum. I am in, it is hit and hold, the heat rises instantly under my many layers as my heart pounds – you know the feeling, especially when it’s a fish that’s taken all your skill and guile to locate and hook.
The Merlin was indeed magical, it took every lunge. It was a floodwater first, but better than that it was a small stream barbel, a Hertfordshire small stream barbel, pristine and bronze. By national standards it was modest, by my small stream standards it was a veritable giant, a wonderful condition fish, deep in body. And it weighed six pounds and three very big ounces. I punched the rain filled sky with delight.
What a wonderful day, a lovely Sunday morning not lost forever in bed, a most glorious month and the best start to a wonderful New Year.
I was fully sustained, I was pleased I had had enough elation for one day for it was time for home. Yes, yes, yes…. You have to make the effort. You have to be in it to win it. I was. And I had won the lottery.
Gary Cullum
