Ah, August... The finest flowering of the English Summer (when will it start this year I wonder ?). The warm, drowsy days. The noble trees in their fullest leaf. The hum of the industrious bees. The still waters, curling their mists in the early morning as the golden sun strikes the limpid surface. What could mar such idyllic scenes?
Kids!
That's what. Flaming kids. On the long holiday from school. Roaming the banks in droves, slinging in 4 oz leads from broomstick rods right next to your float. Getting bored after a while and skimming stones across the water. Or switching on their ghetto blasters at full belt, right in your ear. Or charging up and down having sword fights and stampeding every fish for miles.
Kids! Ought to be banned. Better still, transported.
But stay. That is not the attitude the mature and skilled angler ought to have towards the younger generation. We were all young once. And we can pass on to these youngsters the skills we ourselves learned through the patience of older anglers.
So sit beside me, little lad, and I will show you the way you ought to go; teach you the skills my own father taught me. Teach you all the art and mystery of the craft of angling that is in my humble power to transmit.
That's it. Sit down, stay low, don't move. Get your groundbait out, at the proper texture, into that likely looking eddy by the rock. Cast out carefully, looking behind you before you do, for safety's sake. Now keep your eye on the float. See, it's twitching! Don't be hasty. Strike just as it dips under - You've got it!
Why, you snotty-nosed little swine! That's the monster I've been after for weeks! And you've got the flaming nerve to come down here and snatch the thing from under my nose at first cast! I'll murder you, you little...
Calm yourself. Who wants the fresh water in hot weather, anyway? Nothing but gudgeon and bleak, and not a lot of those. And not only kids to contend with. Everybody's out: a million old ladies walking a million leg-cocking dogs, a million old fellers with nothing else to do but ask if you've had any luck.
A million pleasure boats, with a million weekend skippers looking right wallies in their yachting caps, a million more kids in kayaks doing the Duke of Edinburgh award bit and sploshing right through your line, all the ducks and all the swans in the world homing in for their holidaytime freebies.
You're best out of it. Out to the sea for some bracing air and bigger fish. Not from the pier, either: that's crowded with once-a-year cack- handers knocking off kiss-me-quick hats on the backswing; crowded again with kids who keep fiddling with your catch and unaccountably avoiding the conger which might deter them a little.
No, it's the open sea for you, lad. Out on the briny, as befits the scion of a seafaring nation. Book a boat guaranteed to have no kids on it. Get out there, beyond the 3-mile limit, to the famous wrecking mark in the wind-blown, choppy water.
Ah, this is the-
Bleargh!
Groo!
Perrr-UKE! Aaaarrrrgggghhhh! Wanna die ...
Hey, skipper ... How much longer are we supposed to be staying out here? What do you mean, until the moon comes up? It must have come up. Everything else has.
One thing about sea fishing. You soon know when you've had enough. And it makes you grateful for the idyllic scenes you left behind on terra firma.
Kids or no kids...
Anyway this session I was definitely on terra firma where I covered plenty of steps to try and catch a zander or two. I hotfooted it down to the lock where I had the big zander from and got fishing. It didn't take long to get a bite either with a small schoolie hovering up the still frozen roach deadbait literally a few minutes being out.
It was clear that there was only small fish in the swim though because I missed 6 or 7 clear bites without hooking up, the small vampire teeth marks barely 10mm part. Something bigger grabbed at the bait on the retrieve however after being on for a few seconds it dropped off, bugger !!!
Still plenty to go at here and after a good hour or so in 'Pirate Bay @BuffaloSi' I got bored and went to find the fish. The key to banking a few fish was to head up to an area of thick cover where eventually I had something that put a bend in the rod.
Despite the non stop boats the cover produced 4 fish all of a similar stamp. The biggest probably just shy of 3lb. The bigger fish were just not showing today and after trying a few more spots without any more bites I got on my way.
I couldn't put my finger on it but the colour of the water might have had something to do with it, but I knew I wouldn't do that well before I got a bait in the water. The wind was strong, the air cold, just one of those sessions I didn't particularly enjoy, still a few lovely zander banked, at least that was something.
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