The Adventures of Singy and Little Singy – Part 2 | Angling Diary
The Adventures of Singy and Little Singy – Part 2 byCEMEX Angling
Added 23rd July 2007 at 18:48
The boys hit the banks again...
The Adventures of Singy and Little Singy – Part 2 | Angling Diary
The Adventures of Singy and Little Singy – Part 2
The Adventures of Singy and Little Singy – Pt 2
It's 6 am on Sunday morning and one look out of the window almost saw me going back to bed. The summer of rain was at its most unpleasant. The water in my garden pond was over the liner and soaking into the brickwork. The collared doves that live in my garden were all fluffed up and huddled together in a vain attempt to shelter from the downpour. Today’s fishing was seriously in doubt.
My enthusiasm for such days has waivered somewhat over the years, Daniel’s enthusiasm is, however, permanently switched to 'max'. He was an over-exited ball of energy and despite my protestations the tackle and bait was soon being loaded into the car with the waterproofs and large bag of sweets and crisps.
I still hadn’t decided where to go. Danny wanted to go back to Old Bury Hill to get revenge on the large carp that destroyed my light tackle set up last time. I’ve purposely tried to keep him away from carp, but most lakes these days contain them in varying numbers. So far I’ve been successful and his tally of species is really quite impressive. Roach, rudd, dace, bream, tench, crucian, perch, ruffe, pike and zander have all fallen to his rods. The loss of that carp however had left a lasting impression on Danny, just like it did to me many, many years ago.
It was the loss of a large carp when I was about seven which had more effect on me than any fish I’d caught up until then. Still, I didn’t think he was quite up to it yet. He hasn’t fully grasped playing a fish and his technique of 'wind-wind-wind until the rod is pointing at the fish and the fish is held on about six inches of line from the tip of the rod' has often seen me having to grab the rod to quickly correct things when he’s been lucky enough to connect with a larger specimen.
We decided to go back down to Old Bury Hill, and see if we could fish Milton lake, which, although it does have a good head of carp, they only averaged about 1lb. I wasn’t surprised to see the venue pretty much devoid of cars. Most people had sensibly decided not to brave the weather and were either tucked up in bed or just tucking into breakfast in front of the TV whilst reading the Sunday papers.
As it was so quiet, we chose a swim in one of the corners and baited a margin spot with groundbait and chopped worm. Weapon of choice was float fishing a single worm over the top. It wasn’t long before a procession of decent roach and rudd were coming to the net, all of which Daniel insisted on returning himself. That boy just loves getting muddy and wet.
After a couple of hours, we started to get lots of line bites and the swim fizzed with small bubbles. It was hard not to strike at some of them, so I changed to the lift method, with a single AAA shot about an inch from the hook and the float wound down so it sat just beneath the surface of the water. Any upward movement of the float could mean only one thing; a fish had the bait in its mouth.
This method was somewhat alien to Danny and occasionally his concentration would wander, only for him to suddenly realise his float could not be seen and panic. A wild strike would see his float being deposited somewhere behind the brolly. The method worked though and Danny was soon ‘playing’ and landing his first carp, followed by another one and another. The odd tench and crucian also putting in a appearance. This was capped by a fine mirror of 5lbs or so, almost wrenching the rod from Danny’s hands. He instantly handed me the rod, and told me not to lose this one as he wanted his photo taken with it. The vanity of the modern angler! Me time
It’s all very well taking the youngster, but I do miss my own angling and I have to get out for some ‘serious’ fishing every so often. I had the chance a week later to do a 48-hour session over the weekend. My Choice was a CEMEX pit within a hour of work. That way I could be there in decent time after work on the Friday. Fortunately, after a quick walk around, a day angler was just packing up in the swim I fancied so I jumped in after him.
It was to be an eventful weekend and I won’t bore you with all the details - I’ll just show you the pictures. I caught some cracking carp and managed to take the top off my big toe whilst running out of the bivvy to get to a take. Lessons learned – don’t fish bare-footed, and always pack a decent first-aid kit!
