One-Armed
Bandits at Lonsdale Park 19th to 23rd September 2013
John & I were back at Lonsdale Park at the
special invitation of owners Paul & Val for a long weekend of fishing through
the day & evenings in the Lowther Arms!
John is still fairly new to fishing with
only one arm, whereas being a past master I was only too keen to show John a
few tips & tricks in the art. Since our
first time together a couple of years ago John has been doing a bit of
homework, but in fear of the rest of his tackle ending in his local Lancashire canal
he needed some urgent coaching J
Fishing the Cottage Pegs of Lonsdale Lake,
on the feeder John was immediately into quality roach at exactly the same time
as me on the next peg, both were about 12oz.
John switched to the waggler & was catching small roach as well as a
few larger ones. Each fish he put back
was chased by a pike that was in front of him all the time. John also landed a couple of tench to 3lb. I was sitting it out for some bigger fish on
the method but could only hook into a few nice roach.
John’s improved ability to play & land
fish, was impressing Paul & I.
Frustratingly he can no longer use his prosthetic arm & tackle tying
hook, so I gave him a few tips, while learning a couple of things from him.
Next up was the challenge I set myself a
couple of years ago when John said there’s no chance of pole fishing with one
arm. Well, after a few different
attempts I, as John said, cracked it. That
said, any distance over 10 metres is hard work, but in the margins you can have
great fun. Back home in Kent, I had
landed fish to 17lb but had decided it is for fun only as I’m not competitive using
it at match level, yet.
We loaded our buggy & drove to Deer
Lake and using his own pole gear on my seatbox & setup John was away and it
wasn’t long until John was getting into small carp & decent roach &
enjoying seeing having his elastic stretched again. Most impressively was that he landed them on
his own with only a short-handled landing net, which I found very amusing. I was catching a few carp to 5lb on the cage
& method feeder.
During a quiet spell in the fishing we were
enjoying the wildlife, especially the pair of Kingfishers that were flying
around the lake. We had such a great day
that day we went back & did it all over again for our final day. Now John can’t wait to get back up there,
even if he has to go on his own.
Over a brew with Val & Paul we bid our
farewells with extreme gratitude for the invitation. One last trip to the pub before saying our
goodbyes as I was going to leave before John got up the next morning. All being well we will meet up again next
year.
Thank you again Paul & Val
Roy
& John
AKA
The One-Armed Bandits
