A Night with John and Pete

Marie was away in York for a hen-do on saturday night, so I jumped at the offer of joining John, and his mate Pete on the middle river stretch they had been fishing (and baiting) all season. It had certainly produced the goods for them and John seemed keen to help me break my river carp blank. It was a later start than I had planned, The morning was warm and sunny & I needed a replacement landing net and some meths for the trangia as well as some nosh to see me through the night so a shopping trip was required. By the time this was done raintoday.co.uk was showing a serious downpour on the way, so I loaded the car and knocked up some lunch while the rain passed.  I timed my arrival to prefection, as I phoned John the rain had just about stopped. He met me at the gate, escorted me to a prime peg and even carried some of my stuff, I was on the riverbank at about 14:30.

As soon as I had erected the bivvy the heavens opened again, setting the pattern for the heavy showers which would punctuate the rest of the day. In terms of the fishing it remained typical of my luck with river carp this year. The rods went all afternoon without a peep... The night was warm and damp, I had earlier said to John that it "smelled like a night for eels" so at midnight, with the carp not playing ball for any of us a switched one rod to a bunch of four redworms on a size 12 hook with a 1oz running ledger. With the baitrunner on its lightest setting to minimise resistance I could drop the bait no more than about 1 metre from the bank, the current was too strong to go any further. Again it was quiet all night... At first light I replaced the worms, the river had dropped a couple of inches and the flow had dropped enough for the eel rod to hold bottom another couple of feet out in about 6ft of water.

I had just finished my first cup of tea of the day when, at about 5:45 the alarm sounded a confident and steady run and I struck into a fish. As it reached the surface I was pleased to see the eel that I had forecast. The deep margin and early morning light gave me a great view of the eel, particularly its backward swimming ability as I played it out with a gentle to and fro tug of war beneath my feet to make it more compliant once it was on the bank. My new net was christened with a liberal coating of eel slime but the snake was fairly well behaved for weighing and photos. At 2lb 5oz it was a New PB.  The morning was warm and sunny, a sharp contrast to the previous day, but it made no difference to the fish no carp showed for any of us... it would appear my jinx is contagious.