Finally a gap in the family problems so I have an opportunity to sneak out for a quick couple of hours pike fishing. Simple pleasures and some solitude too.
The previous night we enjoyed a hard frost and the sky at lunchtime is still cloudless with just a light breeze rippling the drain but the water is slightly coloured. Perfect? Well, as we all know nothing is ever perfect.
Out go two paternostered deadbaits, a roach on one rod and mackerel on the other. I amuse myself ditting for rudd and roach on punched bread but to no avail, zero, nothing, nil. Not a touch and the conclusion is that if there are no silverfish and fry there are no predators around as if the drain has become a culinary desert.
Finally for the last hour I return to the farm and I hear a tractor pull up behind me. The farmer tells me he couldn't catch fresh bait at the weekend and hasn't even see a pike or perch moving for days. Wonderful. Then he asks if the .410 is in the car because he's going to have a rat hunt in his grain store, predictably it isn't but next time the .410 will be in the car.
Must remember to make a note to self in the diary so that next time there is a supply of worms in the bait tin and also the .410 side-by-side and fifty cartridges. As I pack up the farmer tells me about a small drain where the pike fishing, well, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. A description that seems strangely appropriate to the line of thought.
Some more rain please over the next few days, and plenty of it too.
Keep on keeping on TT
ReplyDeleteBetterluck next time John.
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