The first essentials for my visit to the Willow Pool, at
Lonsdale Park, were a wide brim straw hat and a tube of Puiz Buin factor 30 day
long sun cream. It was going to be a scorcher. And about time too. The
prolonged spell of wet weather was dampening all hopes of summer and causing me
to suffer from mildew !!!!!! Still, not the best fishing weather, blazing sun,
but an opportunity for my old bones to be warmed and for my Golden Scale Club
(GSC), mandatory sun hat to give Paul a darned good laugh.
No omens, in the form of flitting Goldfinches along the
access track hedgerows, this time. In fact, not a single bird crossed my path
as I approached. Very unusual. But Willow Pool has never let me down before,
and I’m sure it won’t today either.
I pulled in quietly behind Paul and Val’s beautiful family
home, to behold a mirror surfaced Willow. A creak of the backdoor as I alighted
and there was a smiling Val with a basketful of washing to go on the line. We
exchanged greetings and discussed the merits of drying washing outside. Well, I
am a ‘21st century man’ now, having been schooled by my sons!! Val
carried on with her laundry and I scooped up my tackle from the car together
with my trusty ‘Suredale’ and net, which Paul had kindly retrieved from his
tackle room for me. He was away somewhere in the Park, grafting as usual. He’ll
be back for his breakfast soon though. We’ll catch up then.
I’d decided the time had come to cast a line for one of
Paul’s hard fighting Carp, so I’d brought with me my favourite rod for that
purpose, ‘The Bishop’, one of Edward Barder’s finest creations. Although,
they’re all pretty fine in my book. I was intending to christen my recently
acquired ‘Merlin’, but, knowing that the 40+ Walter was around, I wasn’t keen
to be ‘undergunned’, so The Bishop it must be if that magnificent creature was
to personally meet the old ‘Colonel’. I believe we’d had a very brief encounter
at the beginning of the season in 2011, when he made his point rather
emphatically, by flat-rodding my 2lb TC Hexagraph as he buried himself,
unstoppably, in the opposite bank reedbed, at which point, the hook link
failed. A real Moby Dick moment…….I’ve had a permanent limp ever since!!!!
I assembled the Bishop but didn’t cast out immediately. The
lovely Em had appeared with a steaming mug of tea. She knows well the GSC
priority for a good cuppa. She also had a little surprise gift, a delightful
duck quill float, made by her own fair hand and from a feather from one of the
Park’s own residents. Perfect size for gudgeon fishing. I thanked her kindly
and also offered hearty, belated congratulations upon her graduation as a vet.
Her youthful enthusiasm restores my faith in the future of the human species
and gladdens my heart.
With my tea mug drained, Em returned to the house and I sat
poolside, absorbing the atmosphere and allowing the pool to accept my presence
before I broke it’s surface with a baited hook. I regard this as important. An
angler cannot expect to just barge into a swim and fish, expecting the water to
give up it’s precious residents without so much as a ‘by your leave’. No, a few
moments showing respect to the place you’ve been lucky to visit goes a long way
in my book. And today that respect was rewarded in an instant.
My quiet world of thought was interrupted by a regular
‘plop’ followed by a lightly splashing flutter, coming from just the other side
of a protruding reed bed to my left, out of my view. Then I heard that most
evocative of angling sounds. ‘Tsssseeeeeeeek’; the soft, single note, whistle/squeak
that heralds a flash of aquamarine and orange, rapidly flapped wings and black
dart beak. Kingfisher!!!!! Barely a foot off the surface, he hove into view, a
rod length out. Straight, left to right direction, then banking left, he swept
in an arc around the full perimeter of the bay and back to his perch behind the
reedbed again. But he didn’t stop. ‘Tsssseeeeeeeek’, and he was off again. Same
flight path, same one foot off the pool surface. At least a dozen laps;
probably a ‘bakers dozen’, come to think of it. Each fly past announced by that
beautiful ‘Tsssseeeeeeeek’. What an absolute treat………the omen was good.
I cast out ‘The Bishop’, baited with on of Paul’s malt
chocolate boilie thingeys, which he’d very kindly given me. He and Em had been
using them on the pool to good effect for both the Carp and the Roach. Next,
the float rod baited with my customary flake, following a handful of bread mash
with crumbled choc boilie, just to give ‘em a taster. The float had barely
stood to attention before it tilted and sailed away, in confident fashion. The
line was tightening to the rod tip, cleaving through the surface, as I struck…..and
missed!!!!! How on earth does that happen? So confident a bite, meets with
nothing but thin air on the strike. One of the delicious mysteries of our
intriguing pastime, eh??
I soon got into my stride though. The Roach played ball, and
a dozen had soon come to say ‘hello’, been saluted in the net by the old
Colonel, then returned gently to Willow Pool, most untouched by the hand of
this temporary bankside visitor. The sun reached it’s meridian and I welcomed
the wide brim of the GSC summer headwear. The Bishop remained undisturbed,
while the Aspindale wand saw all the action, until I set her to one side while
consuming a delicious Cumbrian pastie for lunch. Cumbrian pasty???? ‘Cornish’,
in reality, but our mad, mad world dictates it must be called Cumbrian…….as if
my taste buds can tell the difference.
The break for repast gave me the opportunity to consider
using a broken up choc boilie for the Roach, following advice which accompanied
my lunchtime cuppa, furnished by the ever-beaming Paul who had returned from
his toils in the Park. This I did, and, by Crikey, it worked. A hard jagging
Redfin, tugged and darted to my eager net. And largest of the day too; 1lb 4ozs
of fin perfect Roach.
Full belly, cloudless blue above and insects buzzing in
unison, the post luncheon haze crept upon me. That wonderful drifting feeling
is one of the great pleasures in life and what better place to experience it
than by a quiet, still pool, rod at hand. A pulse of energising adrenalin
pushed back the curtains shrouding reality, as the red tipped float dithered
fractionally. My sixth sense registered the barely perceptible movement and
readiness swept me back from the brink. Bristling now, I watched the crimson
stick begin to swing, lift and waver it’s hypnotic dance. Nothing quick or
predictable like my beloved Roach, this was the languid, almost ponderous,
playing of something quite a bit bigger. And on the finely tackled float rod,
not the heavily armed Bishop. Uh oh!! Here we go. Sure enough the red tip
lifted way up, revealing the black and white bars below, tilted, wavered,
circled a bit, then purposefully arrowed, diagonally downwards, heading for the
earth’s core. Oh dear, oh dear!! Four pound main line, two hooklink, size 12
barbless, the segment of choc boilie had attracted the fish it was designed for…..a
ruddy Carp.
The Bishop would have handled the culprit in very short
order but the seriously underpowered Suredale took a heck of a lot longer. To
the extent my frail shoulder muscles were singing the same tune as the main
line, fighting for all it was worth to get the creature’s head pointing in a
skywards direction rather than doggedly nosing to the lake bed, sending up
clouds of silt. The dorsal twanging frequently against the taut line did
nothing to reduce my anxiety either. Neither did the occasional glimpses of a
ghostly shape seemingly doing whatever it wanted beneath the surface. However,
as long as I didn’t tug too hard, I found I could keep some measure of control,
in encouraging my friend to swim around in ever decreasing circles, very
similar to that delightful little Kingfisher a few hours ago, come to think of
it. A few thwarted attempts to nose dive into the reeds and my ghostly mate
eventually put his snout up to enjoy ‘fresh air’, and he wallowed neatly into
my net………..but only just!!
Putting the rod in it’s rest, I bent forward to gently lift
the net, which was straining from a task way outside it’s design parameters. At
that very moment, from nowhere, a sharp gust of wind approached from behind. It
caught the brim of my straw hat, lifted it clean off my head, depositing it
unceremoniously into the pool, beside the carp resting in my net. Poor creature
must have thought ‘ I’ve just given him the fight of my life, and all he can do
is chuck his hat at me. Gratitude!!’. I wafted the net a little to encourage
the hat to beach itself, for retrieval later, and carried my prize to the
unhooking mat.
As you know, attaching numbers to my quarry isn’t of high
importance to me, but this little critter weighed in, surprisingly, at a mere
5lbs 8ozs. However, it’s fight was that of a twelve pounder, at least, and
that’s what counts with me. It was all muscle and really didn’t want to sit
still for it’s portrait with me; although I had let it rest up in the margins
for a while to get some of it’s strength back, I must
say.
After the swim had calmed down and the silt plume settled, I
returned to fishing for Roach……….with flake, crust and corn !!! Less risk of
nerve fraying battles with Carp, who should know better. The Bishop remained
untroubled, my hat dried out and I enjoyed a delicious slice of Emma’s Nan’s
iced sponge cake with my afternoon tea. A traditional Golden Scale Club day’s
fishing……….perfect.
‘The Colonel’
9th August 2012
If you'd like to fish our sister site, with 2 lakes (The Willows and The Secret Pool) exclusive to their very own "Secret Cottage" please see: www.thesecretfishingcottage.co.uk
To return to our home page click: www.lonsdalepark.co.uk
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