My friend Mick Cutler and I had been talking for a few months
about having a day or two fishing together for tench. The fish in Devon are
relatively small compared to Kent
where Mick lives. My best is only just over 5lb and Mick said he would guarantee
a bigger one than that as they average about 7lb on his syndicate lake.
So then started the saga on fishing at the start of the
season.
On the Friday before I travelled up, my Audi broke
down. It is the first time it has ever
let me down and it has done 270,000 miles. The belt was stuck and the power
steering failed. The RAC came along and took my car to the local garage in Torrington – (New Road
Garage – worth a pug as they provide superb service) and told them he thought
the hydraulic pump has ceased. They wouldn’t be able to get the parts at short
notice for that so it looked as though my trip was off.
I then hired a car from Enterprise to collect the following morning
and whilst this would delay me by half a day, I wouldn’t lose any fishing time,
but had to cancel the trip to see Fred Buller on the way which was really
disappointing.
The next morning, I received a call from Enterprise telling that although I had book a
car on line, they hadn’t got one available. I said it wasn’t essential that I
had that car and what had they got…. To which they replied….. NOTHING (So much for the much vaunted American service
crap). My daughter said she would travel down from Bristol that night so that I could have her
car for a few days, but it was looking like I was going to miss out.
Then to my delight, I received a call from New Road Garage
to say my car was fixed at lunchtime. They had ordered a new tensioning pulley
which is normally the cause of this problem just in case on the previous
evening, fitted it in the morning which cured the problem, so I was able to get
the car, load up and head for Kent after all. All was well with the world. I
drove up, got stuck on the M20 and finally arrived at about 8pm.
The storm forecast had passed over and as I set up and Mick
made a brew, frogs appeared from everywhere ranging in size from a few
millimetres to a few inches. They got into Mick’s bivvy, and carrier bags
making an unholy din at night. Mick isn’t keen on frogs so I caught them all,
released them and we zipped up the bottom few inches to keep them out.
I was not so well equipped so slept on a bed chair under an
umbrella, winding in my tackle as silver paper bite alarms are inaudible over
my snoring.
Here we were all set – fishing for 2 days without even a
bite as they had only spawned a couple of weeks earlier. So not the best trip
for fishing, but I had a good tim with Mick who is good company. I also met
several of his compatriots who all took the mickey out of his clothing as he is
a comfortable fisherman rather than an advertising area.
I was also delighted to meet John Carver and record him
talking about the day he landed the Bishop for Chris Yates at Redmire. We
talked about carp fishing and John showed me some of his vintage tackle which
was absolutely immaculate, and old bite alarms he had managed to get rewired to
work with a remote in the modern style.
A fascinating couple of days fishing in a style and venue I
had never done before, which I find stimulating. So thanks Mick for the
introduction and we have agreed to repeat it next year. Let’s just hope that it
goes more to plan.