Striking Gold

There's been very little rhythm in my year so far. I'm still not fishing to a plan, or indeed want to, but now, having transport again I can spread my wings. Of course, fishing afar means early starts or expensive overnight lodgings. It's never easy is it? I groaned out of bed, fell into the car and dodged the deer on the lane into town. I met up with Neil who was going to sit it out and fish for carp. I was chasing the crucian carp and meeting up with an old mate, Keith, for a bit of a natter. Dropping into a swim on my favourite bank, the water looked quite calm and fish were showing often. Lot's of small ones, of course, but a few carp jumped, swirled and cruised. Neil was setting up his house in short order. The sun was bright and I sheltered in the shadow of a small tree. I introduced bait close to the sedges on either side of my position and began with blitzed bread and small bits of flake. The rudd responded immediately, taking a few from one side then switching to the other. Both fished similarly, it was almost a bite a chuck and a procession of the little beauties came to hand. Next door Keith was doing likewise but he had a couple of nice roach on prawns. I changed bait. I had half a tin of bacon grill with me, fresh out of the freezer. It looked pretty awful but I chopped it into tiny cubes and put some, along with some tiny pellets, into the swim. It still produced rudd. In fact, leaving the bait in the water almost anywhere, would produce yet another rudd. It must be paved with them As midday approached, so my float stabbed under with no preliminaries, I struck. My light rod hooped over and the jagged fight told me that I had hit my target. It never ceases to amaze me just how hard crucioans fight, and by the time I had this one in the folds of the net, I had a little audience of dog walker behind me. I knew at once that it was my PB. The scales confirmed it at two pounds exactly.

I sat back and relaxed. I had taken a while to break the two pound mark, if sitting on that number is indeed breaking it? This was a fish that had not come easily yet, here I was, casually catching bits and my goal was achieved. Keith hooked and lost a crucian and was not best pleased. He also caught a tree a couple of times, just to see if his hooks worked.

I kept at it. It was much hotter now and I had lost my shade. At about 12.30 I had another unmissable bite and landed a second crucian of 1lb 12oz. I went through the motions, chatted with Keith, went to see the boy, he'd had a couple of doubles. Then, faced the two hour drive around the Midlands to home. It can't be bad can it? Two trips, the first gave me some confirmed silver bream and therefore a low pb, then a pb crucian. For somebody trying to get into the swing of his early season, I'm on a roll. I appologise for the lack of paragraphs in the above text, I've tried but cannot fix it.