I had planned a fishing trip a couple of months ago with Chris Yates following his recent book signing in the shop.
Chris had invited me to wet a line in his crucian pool after a small member of the carp family that I hadn’t caught since I was a teenager.
As I drove over from Devon, the weather was warm and quite pleasant despite the forecast of wind and rain. There was an odd dark cloud but nothing to warn of what was coming. We arrived at the pool shortly before ten, and after a quick look around, Chris recommended a swim to try. a beautiful spot between two trees with reed and a few lily pads, all within easy float casting distance with a centre pin. I set up the tackle and quickly caught a small rudd before the rain started, initially a drizzle, but it got hard and harder. It became so heavy that it went straight through the hole in my hat, though my coat filled the seat of my chair – in short it was torrential.
It became so wet that even the kettle struggled to light as my gillie brewed up under an umbrella, not a fishing one, just a small umbrella. We shared the tea and a few hobnobs before deciding that we were both mad for fishing on such a day.
Chris suggested we leave the tackle and head to a nice tea room until the rain stopped where we could have lunch. It was great suggestion, so we drank tea and coffee, eat a snack over the next two hours before I decided that it was not going to stop ad we should call it a day.
As we got back to the pool to collect the tackle, the rain stopped and the cloud cover was breaking up and there was even a light patch that we thought could be the sun, so Chris decided to give it half an hour more unless the rain returned.
Fortunately I had some extra cloths and another coat in the car as everything was absolutely saturated, y bait can had been partially under the umbrella with some crumb in, and that was now in about 1” of water.
We put in a little loose feed and bubbles immediately showed fish activity that we thought was crucian or tench, but no matter what we tried, pellet, corn, spam and even Chris’s special paste, we couldn’t get one to take; we just caught the odd rudd. True to form, as the weather picked up, we couldn’t drag ourselves away until it was too dark to see the float. We both had caught rudd to just under the half pound mark but nothing else.
The fishing hadn’t been the best, but the location was fabulous and the company excellent sharing stories, and fishing with Chris really made it a red letter day. He is so unassuming and great company. And a good cha wallah too.