The Tiny River Alne - Gonkholes and Gudgeonology

Thursday delivered rain not so much in drops as in volumes, biblical in ambition if not quite in duration. The sort of rain that causes river levels to rise with all the restraint of a politician spotting an expenses loophole. Every local river had been in flood, doing that thing rivers do when reminded who is actually in charge. Thankfully the little Warwickshire Alne, that most mercurial of watercourses, rises like a startled cat and drops again just as quickly, leaving behind only suspicion, turbidity, and a faint smell of uncertainty.

So this first session after finishing work for a much needed two week Christmas break the lunchtime before left me with a choice that wasn’t really a choice at all. Canals or flowing water. The canals would be there, of course flat, patient, faintly resentful but flowing water won as it always does. Flowing water has intent. It’s doing something. Even when it’s doing absolutely nothing useful to the angler, it’s still doing it with conviction.

The Alne, though, is a moody little beast. Chocolate brown at the best of times, and after a deluge it resembles less a river and more a moving accusation. You never quite know how it will fare until you’re there, standing on the bank, trying to read its intentions like tea leaves stirred by a guilty conscience. Twelve to sixteen hours earlier it would have been over the banks, liberating worms, drowning rats, and generally rearranging the furniture of its own ecosystem.

But when I arrived, miracle of miracles, it was back within its banks. Still brown, mind. Brown in a way that suggested light entering it had signed a waiver. This was not a day for finesse. This was not a day for subtlety. This was a worm day.

A worm day with a maggot cocktail, no less. A combination chosen not because it is elegant, but because in water this coloured, subtlety is just arrogance with a hook. The river looked about as clear as Severn Trent’s conscience, following yet another “unfortunate discharge” into local waterways a phrase that somehow manages to sound both accidental and deliberate at the same time. Bugger the environment, let’s pay huge bonuses to the fat cats. The fish can always learn to hold their breath, can’t they?

Anyway.

Simple tactics, really. Find the slack or steady water and send a wriggly worm on what can only be described as a swimming lesson with poor prospects. No ledgering sophistication, no float wizardry just letting gravity, current, and blind optimism do the work.

The morning was misty in that soft, apologetic way that makes everything look slightly unreal, like the river itself wasn’t entirely convinced it wanted to be there. Still, it didn’t take long to get the first signs of life. Minnows arrived first, as they always do, like excitable children at the front of a queue, pecking, fussing, and generally being a nuisance without actually committing to anything.

Then, out of nowhere, a thumping bite.

I struck.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

That hollow, soul-sinking moment where the rod tip springs back and you’re left wondering if you imagined the whole thing. Was it a fish? A stick? A hallucination brought on by acid and low expectations? We’ll never know. The river, naturally, declined to comment.

I halved the worm because if there’s one thing fishing teaches you, it’s that confidence should always be immediately abandoned and got it back out again. This time, when I struck, there was weight. Proper weight. Alive weight. The rod nodded, the line trembled, and for a brief, glorious moment I wondered if something altogether unreasonable had made a terrible mistake.

What is this?

Oh.

A gonk.

A big, fat gudgeon.

NICE.

I love it when gudgeon turn up. Truly love it. They are everything good about fishing distilled into a fish the size of a man’s finger. Bold biters, no nonsense, and looking for all the world like barbel in miniature, as if someone had photocopied a proper fish and forgotten to adjust the scale.

This one was a cracker, all whiskers and attitude, and I admired it like you would a small but perfectly engineered tool. Then back it went, no doubt to tell its mates about the terrifying sky-worm incident.

Bites, after that, were hard to come by. As were fishable swims. The river had that freshly rearranged look gravel shifted, banks scoured, flow lines altered just enough to make last season’s knowledge completely redundant. I worked my way downstream, poking worm into likely-looking steadies, waiting, listening, thinking.

Three more gudgeon followed, each greeted with the enthusiasm usually reserved for far larger species. Because frankly, in conditions like these, anything that bites deserves respect.

In the most downstream swim, I hooked a dace. A proper silver flash, briefly airborne in that way dace do, before in a moment of stupidity entirely my own I decided to swing it to hand. It dropped off, naturally, because the fishing gods have an excellent sense of timing. Thankfully not one of the massive dace that do reside in this small Warwickshire river. Just a small one. Thank God. Losing a big dace would have required reflection. Possibly a sulk.

I had expected the stretch to myself, and I was not disappointed. No dog walkers, no well-meaning passers-by asking “caught owt then?” Just me, the river, and the low-level hum of existential satisfaction that comes from being exactly where you ought to be, even if nothing much is happening.

The fishing wasn’t exactly productive compared the massive chub haul. But so what?

I was out in nature, boots damp, hands smelling faintly of worm, mind pleasantly emptied of emails, deadlines, and general nonsense. And that’s good for the wellbeing, isn’t it?

Well.

It is for me anyway.

And if a big fat gudgeon is the price of admission, I’ll pay it every time.