The title is a bit of an IT related pun which I’m rather pleased with but anyway, the relevance is I’ve somehow managed to write a big fat blog post about probably one and a half hour’s fishing and one fish.
Last night I left work early, determined to go and fish for trout somewhere, somehow. Cycle home, shower, change, pack bag, make flask, on the road for 6:30pm. Figuring the rivers might be a bit sluggish at the moment I decided to hit John O’Gaunt reservoir, the remaining stillwater our club has access to. I parked up and walked down to the track which parades you past what used to be the jewel in our crown, Beaver Dyke. I’ve only been up one other time since Yorkshire Water drained it and actually, it upset me a lot more this time, perhaps because it felt like a perfect evening to be fishing Beaverdyke. If it wasn’t a big green hole with a puddle at the bottom of it.
I continued on down the track with the wood on my right and the empty shell of Beaverdyke on my left, and a cloud of associated memories in my head – it all felt a bit strange, like I was living a passage from a book or a straddling two different decades and unable to delineate the two.
My head cleared as I crested the lip of John O’Gaunt’s overflow and I got my head back in the game. Which way was the wind blowing, any rising fish, how bad was the weed, did I bring enough biscuits… the usual. The prevailing wind meant my favoured side (South) was the natural choice and I tackled up in the corner of the dam with a #6 outfit and a Klinkhammer. Dries only tonight even though there’s nothing rising, it’s just where I’m at. Coffee, crisps, chocolate bar…hmmm..I could actually do a rolly now even though it’s 4 and a half years since I quit.
The weed was pretty bad and I couldn’t wade out past it as I only had my thigh waders on which meant I was constantly having to clean the crap off my line. I started working along the bank dropping my Klink where I thought the fish might be patrolling but there was simply nothing doing. I steadily made my way up to the big tree then cast back down along the weed as I know it can be a good spot. A good fish crashed into something way back down near the dam and I got a nice little fizz of adrenaline. The wind meant it was likely he’d be working up towards me so I put my Klink about 10 yards upwind and waited.
The picture above was taken in a lull but it was one of those nights where the light and ripples mean you can’t see your wing post but when I heard another crash and saw some movement I struck. Yes, I’m in! The fish went straight for the weed but I bulled him out and played fast and hard to get him in the net. Wow, not the biggest brownie I’ve had by a long way but it all just felt so good, everything slotted into place perfectly. I got a few pics then released the fish which was prob about a pound and a half.
I had a few more casts off the dam but that was that really, I’d done what I needed to do and decided to call it a night so I packed my shit together and headed off into the spectacular sunset!
