Ups and Downs

Ultra mild weather, end of the season, they'll be feeding like mad won't they? Well....

Two day trip to the Fens with Bully and Waaaaak. Thursday I say all day staring at a totally motionless quiver tip. I'm impatient at the best of times but this was super dull and by the end of the day my enthusiasm was rock bottom.

Friday morning we'd arranged to fish in the town. Yes, its busy with walkers, boaters, tourists and the dreaded lure anglers, but it's a very pleasant place to spend a day a day fishing and chatting to your mates.

I was up at dawn, keen to get stuck into a few fish and started on a big deepish bend where bites came immediately. 

Decent roach and silver bream initially, but the rod whooped round as something bigger grabbed the sweetcorn. 

A clonking rudd in pristine condition, quickly followed by another. They went 2lb 7oz and 2lb 3oz on the scales. That'll do nicely.

Waaaak turned up after his long drive from East Norfolk, ramshackle and disorganised as usual ( it's OK, the more like each other the more abuse we dish out ). His indecipherable muttering was even worse than normal and after dozens of " What!? " And " Speak up !" from me Wak explained that his speech clarity was poor because " I can't be bothered to open my mouth properly ". Funny ol' buh eh ?

His casting was atrocious, the feeder not hitting the same mark all day, but as usual he caught plenty, including a decent silver bream and "personal best" rudd.

The cameraman made a cracking job of the photo as you can see.

Stove on for tea, followed by Norfolk's finest sausages covered in ( HP or or unbranded Sir? Your choice ) brown sauce in a soft white bap, devoured in glorious spring sunshine. How civilised. 

Food was delivered to Bully, fishing a hundred yards downstream, outside the "hot" area and struggling a bit. "How do you expect me to eat all that ?" he said. Five minutes later it was gone. I knew he couldn't resist.

The fishing died off a bit in the afternoon, but we were still catching on and off. We weighed the biggest silver bream, cracking fish of 1lb 1oz and Waaaak had another of probably 12 or 13oz. Real beauties.

A lovely day and as we often say, "Shining Times" ( copyright Chris Binyon RIP ).

The next trip can't come soon enough. Happy days.