A drought in the floods

Well the best made plans don't always come to fruition and that has certainly been the case for my angling over the last six weeks or so. Following my last post myself and the wife escaped the miserable excuse for a summer that we were experiencing and spent a week in Zante, my travel rod and a few bits of tackle were sneaked into the suitcase but to be honest I didn't see much to inspire me in the way of angling opportunities and with temperatures into the low forties decided that my best bet was to park myself on a sunbed under a brolly and get stuck into some reading.

As is always the way a week away from work in peak season causes me problems, the week before leaving is frantic, trying to cram in as many jobs as possible so as not to create even more of a back log on my return which was far from easy with the frequent downpours that have been so common this year. It became a case of long days when the weather allowed and as per usual I didn't look after myself properly, working silly hours without eating much just doesn't work and I ended up collapsing, luckily while at home, not so lucky in that I managed to headbutt the quarry tile floor and smash my glasses in the process, not a clever move and maybe one day I will learn. The week away let me recover but then I had to go like stink on my return to catch up and I was back to square one, in a word knackered, in theory I could have fitted in some short evening sessions on the bank, in practice I was dead on my feet. No doubt looking back through my winter blogs it seems like I've got the life of riley and can fish when I want, unfortunately for every up there is always a down! I did scoot off to the tench lake on one particularly wet morning that made my planned day of mowing a non starter, after a couple of hours sheltering under the brolly the sun broke through and everything started to dry quickly leaving me thinking of cutting grass. When the groundsman from the estate appeared with his mower my feelings of guilt were reinforced and I knew that I had to pack up and get to work, luckily a six pounder saved my blank just as I was breaking camp.

A couple of very short barbel sessions were managed on the Soar over the next three weeks but without result, on the last of these trips I spotted a barbel on my arrivial in both of the swims that I tried but after baiting saw nothing but the occaisional chub and bream, most unusual. What was apparent though is that the high water has done some good work in clearing the debris and weed growth that has started to choke the river over the last couple of years and created some interesting new spots to fish.

While I've not been doing much angling I have been out doing a bit of bailliffing in the odd spare hour, in general I've found the river to be very quiet, surprising given the prime barbel conditions that we have experienced and it hasn't got much busier since levels have dropped. Unfortunately though last week I came across some less than desirable angling, I came across three eastern european blokes on one of our stretches just before dusk on Saturday night, only one rod was in use and the holder showed me a vailid season ticket, all seemed well and I had a short conversation with them during which they said that nothing had been caught but on my way back to the van I found a builders bucket full of live perch hidden away in the long grass. Matey knew straight away that he had been rumbled and started to throw the fish back from a great height until I stopped him, there was no doubt about him knowing he was in the wrong. Fact is if the fish had been bashed on the head and stuck in a bag then I would have been none the wiser, and I guess that may well be the route that lot use in the future as I'm sure my bollocking won't stop them but at least they are aware that people are on the lookout, small consolation I'm afraid but better than nothing.

After that upsetting little incident I called in on our stretch of the canal on my way home, no one fishing along there but I did spot a couple of small tents right next to the road bridge behind some factory units and out of sheer nosiness went for a look. To be honest I expected it to be kids and was surprised to find an old boy getting on in years perched on a chair between two of those work spotlights on stands and surrounded by god only knows how much kit, a great big double burner stove with camping gas bottle, boxes of food and tackle of all descriptions and the two "portaloo" sized tents that had drawn my attention to him, one containing a shiny looking generator that no doubt was due to fire up those spotlights at any moment. I hadn't intended on getting out of the van but this one looked like definate entertainment value so I parked up and wandered over. The old fella obviously wasn't a great believer in false teeth as it took several seconds to decipher each mumbled word, perhaps he directed all of his available funds to the optician as his specs contained several milk bottle's worth of glass which had the effect of magnifying his eyes in a most disconcerting fashion. After asking him to repeat himself a couple of times I worked out that he had been dropped off by a neighbour and was stopping all night though he was in trouble as he couldn't get his brand new generator to fire up because he was sixty four (though I swear I misheard that and he was eighty four) and therefore wouldn't be able to see his float, which was positioned about five feet from the bank. My first thoughts that were if the lights were switched on any fish within twenty yards would quite possibly be blinded for life but I couldn't leave the old fella there without being able to wet a line and so I offered to have a go at getting the power up and running. Well for a start the bloody thing was switched off which was never going to help, then he hadn't a clue what the choke was either, with both of those things sorted out I gave the starter a pull and away it went first time. Job done I think, matey grabbed a couple of ragged bits of wire from the grass and connected them up, bingo, Blackpool illuminations had nothing on this one! I flicked the choke off and wished him a good nights fishing before turning to walk to the van, a mumbling of some description made me turn around just before I opened the door and I was greated by a huge swirling column of smoke pouring from the tent and soaring up above the road bridge! That was about as much as I could take and after suggesting that perhaps he should turn the generator off I shut myself in the van before cracking up in laughter.

Apologies for the picture quality it was taken on my phone, you get the idea!

Thing is that old chap was doing no one any harm, he had very little chance of catching anything but he was enjoying himself bless him and all credit to him, on the other hand we've got those other three catching a reasonable bag of fish with the full intention of stealing them, I know who I'd rather have on my waters any day of the week.