Hours on the bank.

When you read the weekly papers or monthly magazines it is normal to see lots of big fish being paraded, what is normally missing are the stories of the hundreds of hours that go unrecorded behind each picture.   I am fortunate in that I know many of the leading names in the specialist angling world; I can say without exception they all suffer the same percentage of blank sessions as most anglers on the bank.  Sometimes this figure can be far higher if the angler decides to target a particulary large group of fish on a low density water.  This as an example could mean 20, 30 or even more blanks in a row, just for that one chance that may never happen.

                                                                       6lb specimen tench
This week I did 60 hours on the Colne Valley lake that produced my double for the season.  The tench are caught predominately in the mornings so I arrived early Monday, and fished through to early afternoon on the Wednesday.  My total result was tench of 5lb-10oz [m] and 6lb [f].  Just one solitary bream just over the 10lb mark, and 3 eels between 1.5lb and maybe 2.5lb.  The angler in the next swim had just one tench of 6lb-14oz [m] so perhaps my result was good.   In actual fact the result was almost very good in as much as we both caught, many weeks on this water can be a total blank for all on the bank but that 12lb plus tench is out there waiting to be caught.

                                                                            10lb +

It is now the 16th June, and rivers, along with many of our still waters, are open again for fishing.  30 years ago I would without a doubt have been on the bank somewhere, waiting for the midnight to strike before I cast out for tench that hopefully had not yet spawned.   That side of my angling has now passed and I fish through the normal close season and catch my share of the fish without the problem of whether they had spawned.  That leaves the rivers, still an exciting prospect but without the urgency of those bygone days.  Now I'm more relaxed and I'll go down the river this afternoon and break the water's surface in the traditional manner, I'll probably blank - again in the traditional manner but maybe, just maybe, that barbel will oblige and I'm off for another season.