A PB Night Session 19-07-08

Wandering_Angler · #1 07-21-2008, 09:55 AM

I haven’t been night fishing in years and some of my memories are… to be honest, not that fond. I remember the peace that comes from sitting alone in the dark, not that one can ever truly by alone on a British commercial, the silence was always broken by the beep of an angler else where setting their bite alarm or connecting with a bite. But I also remember feeling cold and tired and wishing the sun would come up and warm my bones. Of course that wasn’t necessarily in the summer and my memory is not necessarily that good so when Marius declared he would like to give it ago, I was glad to oblige.

Our chosen venue was the Ekete overflow drain. Having caught Crucian Carp there only two days earlier we were both keen to return and try again. It is always a little dangerous to build expectations around a session, some how it seems to increase the risk of failure, but I had the exciting idea that this session would provide me with a realistic opportunity of beating my best Crucian Carp.

In 1984, a full 24 years ago, a school friend and I ventured across some fields to an old forgotten pond deep in the heart of the Norfolk countryside. The pond was very small and choked with Elodia, Typha and all manner of other plant life.

My friend had stumbled upon the pond some time before and had noticed with interest that a large Golden Orfe had been wallowing in the sunshine close in to one of the margins. Sure enough on our arrival there was the Orfe sitting in a small clearing in the weed. We tackled our rods and not wanting to spook my prey, I cast some 5 or 6 feet from the fish.

I was so busy watching the Orfe I barely noticed my float drifting off… it hadn’t occurred to me that there may be other fish in the pond so as I lifted into what felt a good size fish I was understandably feeling a little dazzled by the moment. A few minutes later I landed a fine Crucian Carp of 13oz. Since that day I have caught literally hundreds of this species, but like a 12oz fish taken from Ekete last year, while they often came close they always fell short of beating this record.

So with the idea of beating a 24 year old personal best, I settled on the hard concrete bank of the overflow drain with child like excitement that fueled my expectations almost to the ridiculous. Crucian Carp are, to say the least, careful around food. They are not a species likely to grab your bait and go running off, hooking themselves in the process. With this in mind I elected for two Wagglers set fine (just the tip showing), one on 3LB line and a size 16 hook, one on 5LB line and a size 14 hook. Normally I would use an insert Waggler for Crucians, with only the tip showing but I needed more meat on the float in order to attach my fluorescent attachment after dark.

As well as maggots flavored with aniseed, I was able to rotate through the use of worms, sweet corn, salmon flavored cat food and luncheon meat. This pretty much represents all of the baits that have brought me success with this most elusive of species in the past. My ground bait was crumb mixed with sweet corn and cat food, held together with molasses and the juice from the corn. I placed the ground bait in a long thin carpet along the weed covered margin on the opposite side of the drain feeding loose fed maggot and meat over the top.

Almost immediately the weeds started to rock and shake as fish moved through them to browse the feed caught between stems and shoots. My tactic was to drop my rigs as close as I dare to the plants without being in them but no matter how accurate my placement and regardless of the offering on my hook, I was unable to escape the Bleak, Perch and Roach getting to my bait first.

Still, I was confident that as night fell the smaller fish would stop feeding and the Crucian Carp would move in. For me, waiting for darkness was a little like being on a rollercoaster as it slowly trundled up the biggest of the hills on it long winding track around the fare ground. You can feel the excitement and anticipation of what was inevitably about to come but to some degree you can grow a little tired waiting for it.

So as the sun fell behind the forested slopes of the Dane valley the venue was plunged into a shadowy half light that slowly faded into cloak that enveloped first the most distant surroundings and then our swims. Crickets now chirped loudly while Bats swooped low with an aerobatic wonder that entertained for the long hours that were to follow.

As expected the smaller fish did move from the swim but the Crucian Carp didn’t’ move in and the bites didn’t come. All that excitement, the masses of enthusiasm, the confidence I had felt all day, all now slowly dripped away to be replaced by a tired malaise that with each and every passing hour deepened to a point that eventually had me feeling that I would never have a bite again.

Marius though, continued to catch. As night had fallen a shoal of Skimmers had moved into his swim and while bites were swift, he was occupied, at least most of the time, in the gainful service of removing fish from the water. I, meanwhile, stuck to my game plan, dutifully rotated my baits, moved my floats up and down the margin and waited.

When you look at a starlight float adapted for too long they almost seem to dance around in the water so occasionally I had to turn my head light on to be sure if my float was still motionless. So when some time around 3am I saw my float give the very smallest of movements I could in no way be certain it was a bite. Seconds later though my float was gone and in the few moments that followed all the waiting became worthwhile. I pulled the rod back and felt the pressure of what I immediately knew to be a good fish. Quickly I hit the button on my head light and a few minutes later I was gazing down at a new Personal Best Crucian Carp of 1LB and 5oz as it lay defeated in my landing net.

But these things are often the same, you wait what seems forever for something to happen and then all hell breaks loose. Almost immediately I missed another good bite but within moments of that my other float was off and I was again into a good fish. I waited 24 years to beat my Crucian Carp personal Best and now I was to beat it twice in minutes as this fish weighed in at 1LB 12oz, more than double the 13oz fish I had caught in Norfolk all those years ago.

As the sun slowly began to rise I lost another good fish then landed a smaller one of around 6 to 8oz. Marius meanwhile was also busy, landing a personal best 14oz Crucian Carp of his own.

At 6am we packed up, tired but happy. In all I had caught some 87 fish but some how only the three Crucian Carp seemed to matter. Between us we had managed to beat my record of 24 years 3 times in just one short hour and this pleased us very much. What is more, all of these fish were wild and taken from an entirely unstocked habitat, this pleased us even more!