The River Leam - Thrutching and Thremmatology

I have this mate called Long Tall Tony who climbs mountains and is always going on about thrutching.

'Sssh!' I said once in a posh pub. (You could tell it was posh by the way the barmaid stuck out her little finger when she picked her nose.) 'Sssh! There are ladies present.'

'No,' he said. "Thrutching means having a hard climb. Really having to work to get to the top. I bet you have to do lots of thrutching when you're out fishing.'

'No,' I said. 'We don't go in for things like that.'

I lied. We do. Thrutching really means doing things the hard way. Which, in angling terms, is fishing by the book. Doing what the experts tell you. Which always works out more expensive, more nerve-racking and more muscle-bending than doing what comes naturally.

Thrutching means breeding your own maggots. Having the shed, the garage, the loft or the back end of the yard permanently ponging like a knacker's yard in a bank holiday heatwave. And neighbours getting up petitions.

Thrutching means tying your own flies. Going boss-eyed and getting the trembles of the fingertips which precede the total seizing up known as Dapper's Doom. All to produce something that looks like a badly made bog brush.

Thrutching means stewing your own hemp. And having the wife storm out of the house. With the kids. And the pussycat and hamster. Pausing only to call in at the solicitor's to file papers for mental cruelty and misuse of her nonstick pans.

Thrutching means getting your own wasp grubs. At short notice. And thereby having neither the protection nor the armoury. Going out on a Sunday afternoon to Big McGinty's compost heap. Armed only with a spade, a bait tin and an aerosol thing that claims to kill all flying nasties stone dead. Leaving you backing away, squirting like mad at the kamikaze wopsies who don't know they're supposed to be dead, and who sting you in places you never knew you had.

Thrutching means making your own groundbait. To the jealously guarded secret formula. Setting fire to the oven in which you left the breadcrusts while you popped out to the Nag and Knocker. 

Forgetting that 475 degrees Fahrenheit or Gas No. 9 is not exactly a low light. Coming back to be greeted by the jolly lads from the fire brigade. Who haven't been around since you tried to bake the wasp grubs.

Thrutching means making your own floats. Slicing chunks off the left thumb as you shave down bits of balsa or trim the old quills. To produce a thing like a pot-bellied ballpoint refill that sinks at the first cast. At a cost of only £35.37 plus VAT and french polishing the table.

Thrutching means collecting natural bait from the hedgerows. Like elderberries. Which come off the trees in lovely great bunches and fill up the spare room until you can get round to preserving them. Leaving plenty of time for the forty thousand earwigs hidden in the bunches to abscond and take over the whole house. Playing hell with the cat's peace of mind.

Thrutching means stalking the fish. Crawling to the water in camouflage gear and with burnt cork or Cherry Blossom all over the old mush. Which gives you spots and gets you arrested as an IRA suspect or illegal immigrant. And which, if you don't actually overshoot the bank and fall in, leaves you with earwigs in your ears, hares in your hair, daddies in your long legs and bot flies up your nose.

The lesson is plain. If you feel a thrutch coming on, go and sit in a nice safe pub until it wears off.

Alternatively, be strong. Nip it in the bud. Knock it on the head.

Kick it in the thrutch. ☺

Anyway back to the fishing !! 

A short session after work this where after leaving the office in Ansty in Coventry I could be at the syndicate stretch of the Leam within 15 minutes where I'd arrive just as the sun was setting. That would give me some time to set myself up and bait up a couple of swims with liquidised bread around half an hour before dusk.

Simple tactics again with a small cage feeder filled with squeezed liquidised bread and then I'd fish either worm or a thumbnail piece of bread on a size 12 hook. 

Small rivers like this the bites often come quick if you're on the fish so after around 15 minutes without a bite I moved swims which was the first swim I primed where I had an indication straight away. Within 5 minutes of that fish pluck the 1oz glass tip jumped in to life and after a couple of pulls I had a drop back bite and hooked in to a fish.

I was expecting a chub but it was the distinctive fight of a roach and sure enough when I landed it under the head torch it was a decent one. It went 14 ounces on the scales which is a nice roach in my book. 

I reabited and cast out in the same swim and 10 minutes after a proper pull round from nothing and I struck into something more solid this time that was giving me the run around. I netted it eventually after a good strap and it was a nice chunky small river chub that went 3lb on the nose. The fish were certainly on it now and after that swim disturbance that I managed another one soon after this one smaller at 2lb and 3 ounces. 

Then the swim went dead where I switched to worm as it was now dark but despite the pungency of the wrigglers I didn't get another bite and decided to head home with a few nice fish caught in little more than an hour and a half of actual fishing. I've said before small rivers suit me perfectly, I love the mystery and ok the fish are not likely to be huge but there are certainly gems to be had.