The Strolling Bones : Stalking

No not that kind of stalking.

I upped sticks and drove about fifteen miles to another Fenland river, which really is in the middle of nowhere.

Big field to park the camper for the night right by the river, perfect. The silence, apart from the poplars swaying in the breeze and the screech of the swifts overhead. Oh and the occasional monstrous American bomber taking off from a nearby airbase.

I had a recce along the river. Blimey, overgrown is an understatement, it was impenetrable. There were a few gaps where I spotted fish, rudd and loads of them. The were also private ( very private ) moorings with lots of No Fishing signs and the obligatory Alsation dog. It seems mandatory to have one of these beady eyed aggressive feckers if you live in The Fens, no doubt to discourage wrong'uns.

I continued my walk and came to a slightly more accessible stretch and came away excited at some of the big rudd I'd seen. Oh and covered in scratches from brambles and legs tingling from the bastard stingers.

Back with my gear late in the evening the huge shoals of ravenous rudd were on the prowl. How the hell was I going to get through to the bigger fish ? I waited and waited until the light faded, cast in and the bread was torn to a million pieces.

Then I had a idea. Not perfect but a chance it would work I thought. I put a huge lump of flake on the hook with a quite hard bit closest to the hook, cast in and the hordes of small rudd tore into it, knocking bits off, but the hard lump stayed on long enough for a much bigger fish to nail it. I struck the rod hooped round and I unceremoniously hustled the fish in over the and through the weed and lillies. A cracking golden rudd.

Next cast resulted in another a bit smaller,then I headed back to the camper.

I was greeted by a barn owl calling ( hissing and screeching more accurately ) from owl box I stupidly parked next to. I really didn't notice it.

I didn't get up early the next morning and by the time I got to the river the sun was beating down and amazingly there was not a single rudd to be seen anywhere. Weird.

However, I did see some discoloured water close in ( I had the previous evening too ) and gazed into the water looking for the perpetrators. A few minutes later I spotted a couple of bream, decent size too.

On went a bit of flake underneath a bit of peacock quill and ten minutes later the float slid away and a big old slab came to the net. 5lb4oz, not bad.

One was enough though, I wanted a big rudd so the hunt continued.

I found a lovely looking swim with an overhanging tree and weed rafts. I chucked a few crusts out and the rudd appeared. Mostly small, some a bit bigger and hanging back by the snags and cover some much better fish. One I thought was a chub, it was enormous, but rarely came out in the open.

I tried to pull the litluns away from the bigger fish with more bread then chanced a cast. Seconds later the float disappeared and a clonking rudd came sstruggling to the net.

What a glorious looking fish. 1lb 13oz of Fenland perfection ( I'm sounding like Bureboi now ). But look at it. Pristine.