It has been a month since my last entry as sadly I was unable to grace the banks during the run up to Christmas. Sadly at the beginning of December I had to rush my wife to hospital after she suffered a miscarriage – we were in and out of hospital for over a week, the days seem to last forever and almost blended into one. It was particularly upsetting as we’d been so looking forward to the 12 week scan which was due on the 10th [my birthday] but unfortunately we lost the baby at 11wks.
After we had begun to get over our unfortunate news the floods that engulfed the country took hold of my syndicate waters once again, even getting near them was impossible. Although to be honest my head was, and still is, all over the place so I threw myself into work, then later on in the month giving the family the best Christmas I could after being given some good fortune at work.
With Christmas out of the way and spending New Year’s Eve in Durham as well as New Year’s Day in the Lake District I started to get the urge to get the rods out once again and hopefully kick off the New Year in style.
After a manic 1st week back at work I set my sights on getting on the bank that Saturday, all my syndicates were still suffering pretty badly from flooding so with nowhere to go I called a few friends and one of them told me that Bluebell Lakes was due to re-open on the Friday.
Now I have only ever fished Kingfisher twice before, both previous times it was the middle of December and the lake was half frozen, the venue really isn’t my cup of tea to be honest due to how busy it gets and is very different from my normal choice of water, for a start it has a few fish in it! But it makes for a change of scenery and in the middle of winter the banks are much quieter so this seemed a good time to go for a mooch, even if the hangers were likely to remain motionless.
With a plan decided I packed the wife and kids off to her mums up north for a few days and set about getting the kit sorted, it seemed to take an age but eventually the van was loaded ready for the off the following morning.
I completely slept through my alarm and upon waking realised that it was 8am, I just grunted to myself and began getting myself sorted in a caveman kind of way – a few coffees later I was alive and kicking, I jumped in the van and was off!
The roads were really quiet and in 30 minutes I was pulling into the fishery gates and heading for the lodge, which was a complete error on my part – just as I was about to walk through the front door a lady came out looking completely shocked that I was about to walk into her living room!
It had been 3 years since I last visited the venue and it seems that the lodge had moved next door and that the owners had converted the old lodge into a house!
After walking through the correct door and collecting my ticket I drove round to the top of Kingfisher, with only 2 other cars in the car park it was the quietest I had ever seen the venue.
I collected a bucket from the back of the van and did a slow lap of the lake, the first angler I came to appeared to only be doing the day (which was strange as I believed the minimum stay was 24 hours) he was busy setting up so I didn’t stop for a chat too long but he hadn’t seen a thing.
I continued round the lake until I came to the 2nd angler, he had done the previous night and as per the first hadn’t seen a show. I wished him well then headed back to the van to fetch the rest of my kit.
With very little pressure on a normally very busy water and with no sightings to go on I was unsure where to go, but in the end I decided to head round to the far side of the lake to where there was quite a lot bird life – past winter experiences have always led me to believe that this can quite often be a good starting point.
My new Carp Porter coped with the boggy terrain superbly and before long I was standing in the swim scratching my head thinking what to do, to be honest my head was still a bit of a mess and I was just looking forward to some me time so in the end I decided to just pub chuck a few naked choddie’s baited with Live System corkball’s into the abyss and then scattered 30 baits over the top with the stick.
For once I was happy with that, just being on the bank was enough for me, if a fish wanted to make an appearance then that would just be an added bonus.
After firing up the coleman for the first of many brews I sat on the bed chair to take it all in, I was shocked when a fat bumble bee come and sat next to me without a care in the world, now I know it’s mild but it’s still early January!
A short while later I heard a some rustling from behind the Oval so peeked round to investigate, there was a fox on the other side of the river obviously looking for his lunch, as quietly as I could I opened my camera bag to get my DSLR and attempted to take a few photographs but struggled with my kit lens, it’s moments like these that I kick myself for selling my lens collection when times were hard.
The afternoon passed quite quickly and with my eyes firmly fixed to the water I saw nothing, the lake looked completely lifeless with just the odd coot interrupting the eerie silence.
As darkness descended around me I was confident that I would see a show, my eyes strained under the low light levels until eventually I had to give up looking.
With nothing else to do other than listen to the silence and hopefully a fish rolling in the moonlight I decided to cook up a famous uncle bens risotto, which I must add that I ruined in style with too much water but still it didn’t taste too bad and slightly filled the whole in my stomach.
After dinner I put on some Mumford & Sons on my phone quietly and lay on the bed chair with a smoke and a coffee trying to analyse what had happened over the last 12 months, which pretty much saw out the rest of the evening and by 9pm I had concluded that it was probably best if I get some shut eye so filled up the hot water bottle and climbed into the bag for some well earnt shut eye.
I slept very restlessly and awoke several times in the night waking in a sweat, each time all I could do was roll over and hope the Neville would awake me with some good news but unfortunately when I awoke the following morning the hangers were exactly where I left them the night before.
Although at first I wasn’t sure if I had gone blind as I couldn’t see past my nose but after a few seconds realised that the culprit was actually thick fog, I climbed out from under the Oval to have a brew to celebrate me not waking up blind and to try and assess the scene.
Whilst drinking my 2nd coffee I began to get in the zone and strained my eyes through the fog to see if I could see anything show that I could cast at to save a blank.
By mid-morning I had all but thrown in the towel and began a very slow pack up leaving the rods out until the very last minute hoping one of them would rattle off but unfortunately they never did.
As I pushed the barrow through the bog I couldn’t help but think on another day I probably would have faired a lot better but to be honest I just needed to get out and I am sure it helped in one way or another.
So, what are my plans for the rest of the year? Well I have kept my ear firmly to the grape vine and have found somewhere special an hour away from home, it’s a small water with a very low stock with literally only a handful of fish. The downside is it’s a days only rule but the rewards are there to say the least.
It’s common knowledge that I like to have a few waters to go at, and with both of my current tickets expiring in the next few months I need to find somewhere to complement the little low stock pit when the days only rule begins to take a toll on my body, I have got my eye on a few places at the minute but don’t want to say any more than that for now.
So I shall be flitting about on my current waters until the end of the February then it’s full steam ahead on the little low stock pit in search of something very special.
Until next time be safe and cherish what you have,
Smithy