Was Fred was watching over me?
My interest in tench fishing
was ignited when Fred Taylor wrote about 'the lift method' in the angling
press. I followed his advice catching
more fish than I had ever done before including the infrequent tench to around
3lbs. I was chastised by my Headmaster for choosing Fred's book entitled
“Tench” published in 1971 for a school prize instead of some boring reference
book on school subjects. I was no model pupil, and I think Fred would have
approved of me buying something I really wanted.
Over the years, I have moved
around until I settled in Devon over 20 years
ago. Sadly, most of the pools and lakes with lilies have now become carp
puddles so there are few waters around holding decent tench. I became a world expert at catching 4lbs 15ozs
tench before catching three 5 lb’ers in a month but even then, the biggest was
only 5lbs 2ozs.
Moving forward in time, I was
chatting to my friend Mick Cutler about this and told him of my biggest and he
managed to hold back the laughter. He said I should go up to Kent where
several waters there hold tench to over 10lbs. I said this was probably just
anglers' talk, but he swore it was true and duly invited me up to have a
tenching session with him.
After comparing diaries, I
pinned him down before he had chance to change his mind, so a three day (two night) session was agreed for
the end of May on a water of Mick’s choice.
I then blurted out that I had
never fished in a bivvy, didn’t have a bed, never used boillies and didn’t use
a bite alarm. He asked when I was
joining the 20th century let alone the 21st!!
Anyway, Mick said he could
lend me a shrouded umbrella. The local angling journalist Wayne Thomas loaned
me a folding bed that belonged to his son, so with the basics in place and with
my wicker basket packed with food and my storm kettle, I was off.
I arrived on the Monday at
around 4pm and got myself set up. A cane Avocet rod, Mitchell reel; my Fred J Taylor Trotter
rod. The rods were both set up with simple running legers and three maggots on
a size 12 hook and the bite indicator was a piece of silver paper. I had a catapult for firing out the loose
feed so, as this limited the range greatly, I fished in the margins.
When the light fell and I
drifted into sleep in my newly made camp bed.
As the next day dawned, I was
wide awake and couldn't wait to fish so I recast and proceeded to catapult
fresh maggots around my bait. I'm sure you can imagine what the anglers there
thought. They liked the look of the cane rod and were very courteous but I don’t
think they fancied my chances of catching a big tench.
The first (second and third)
fish I caught were eels, and decent fish of around 2lbs or so. Not my favourite
species but I was glad to see the water held nice specimens. Mick persuaded me to switch to rubber maggots
as this was the only way to stop the eels from devouring my bait. I set them up on one rod and sweetcorn on the
other.
Mick fished through the night
and had a carp of just over 26lbs. By now he'd taken pity on my fishless state
and when he had a second run kindly shouted me to take his rod, I was glad for
the chance to land a tench of 5lbs 10 ozs.
That was the end of the
action for the day, but I got so much pleasure from simply sitting by my rods,
watching the birds and taking the occasional photograph. Fellow anglers will know that there is more
to fishing than catching.
Les had to take his net back
when he left the water so Chris Brown, who
manufactures nets, lent me
one of his so that I could keep fishing.
I was lucky to be with such a generous group of people and Les didn’t
even cuss me when he realised his net was full of eel slime!
On my third and last day, my
sixth sense told me that I had just one more change to catch my own tench and
as if by magic at around 9.00 am, my silver paper ran to the ring and I struck
into a fish which I quickly realised wasn’t another eel. It ran to the left, then 15 seconds or so
into the fight the line went slack and the fish had gone. “What would Fred have
said?” asked Mick. I replied that I was
sure he would have had some choice words for the occasion. I looked up to the gods and restrained my bad
language, all I could do was laugh at my bad luck.
My scheduled departure of 12
noon arrived all too soon. Reluctantly,
I started to pack away my tackle. The
makeshift bivvy, the chair, the cane rod, rod rests - all that was left to put
away was my treasured Fred J Taylor Trotter and just as I bent down and laid my
hand on the handle, the silver paper shot forward. Amazingly, I was in the
perfect position to strike into a hard running fish which stripped the line off
the spool. If the take had been just seconds later, I would have wound in the
bait. As my prize neared the bank it
surfaced and I shouted: "Mick, I'm in." Hurrying along from the next swim, he grabbed
the net and as the excitement mounted, we saw that it was not just a tench but
a big one! Mick did the honours and
landed the fish. He unhooked it and left
it in the net for a couple of minutes to recover whilst he set up the weighing tripod
(another thing I hadn’t brought with me) and I searched for my camera which I’d
packed away. The weight of that monster
- 10lbs 4ozs - I just couldn’t believe my good fortune. I was gobsmacked.
It does go to show that traditional
tackle and techniques pioneered by some of the greatest anglers of all time still
work along with some serious good luck. Fred J used to greet the day with 'nice
one God.' Next time I have a tipple, my
toast will be to dear old Fred for the knowledge I gained from reading his
works. It had after all brought me the
best prize of all, a double-figure tench from a secret lake, in the company of
good friends. Thank you Fred.