A sunny, warm, dry spring has contributed to this year being a "mast year", where trees and shrubs produce and abundance of fruit, seeds and nuts. Happening roughly every five years this strategy is known as "predator satiation" as there is far too much food for birds and mammals to consume, so some seeds inevitably escape to go on to grow into new saplings.
One crop particularly in abundance locally is sloes, the blackthorn bushes adorned with clumps of fat, purple fruits. Full of tannins and far too astringent to eat by themselves as they suck all the moisture out of your mouth (a good trick to play on your kids!), it only takes some cheap spirit, a bit of sugar and some patience to turn them into something delicious. After a quick walk around the block with a couple of plastic bags at the weekend we had more than enough to make a couple of batches of our favourite seasonal tipple - sloe gin. What's more, after a couple of months the gin will be decanted off to mature and a cheap bottle of red, a bit more sugar and a splash of brandy added to the marinated fruit to make sloe "port".
At the risk of being predictable, another glut I was keen to make the most of was the fishing on the River Soar and a meeting down near Leicester gave me another opportunity to drop in at Kegworth on the way home. Had got the float and the perch paternoster rods with me again but I'd beefed up the latter, bringing my Greys Specialist with the 1.75 lb tip and replacing the fluorocarbon hooklink with a fine wire trace, both in response to the recent pike activity. There had been another car parked at the bridge but as I got close to the swim I spooked a little egret, so was confident that nobody had preceded me. Arriving at the vacant swim I was surprised to see that the rain over the weekend had made a difference this time.
The river was running much closer to more normal summer level and even had a hint of colour. There was also a lot more foam coming down from the weir, including the odd "iceberg" and a combination of extra flow, colour and foam usually means one thing - bleak! Wasn't disappointed as first trot down resulted in a slither of pearlescent silver that went straight on the paternoster rod and out on the crease. Quickly had several more, the float often skittering across the surface before it had even settled, so soon had half a dozen in the bucket. Bait sorted, I carried on enjoying the fishing, adding a few roach, dace and the odd chublet. Had set the paternoster rod up right next to me, so spotted the tip nodding and had the line out of the clip before the bite alarm sounded.
Wound down to feel little resistance, so was expecting to see a greedy perch. Instead it was a perfect, tiny pike - predator in miniature. He wasn't even hooked, just grimly holding onto the bait, so carefully popped him back making sure there wasn't any of his larger brethren hanging about first. Carried on with the float rod, adding gudgeon, silver bream and a small perch to the species list. At one stage I caught some movement out the corner of my eye and glancing up I saw young fox picking his way along the end of the gardens on the opposite bank, possibly a descendent of the tame fox that used to live on the island and that was fed by the barge owners. Started getting into some better dace and was bringing one across the surface through the foam when the inevitable happened.
There was an eruption of water, a brief glimpse of a green, spotty flank and the fish on the end of my line was gone. It wasn't really surprising then when the the bite alarm went off a few minutes later and I picked up the paternoster rod to feel a decent weight on the end. Got him in a bit quicker with the Greys Specialist and although I'd taken the precautionary approach with the wire trace, found that he was hooked nicely in the scissors. Was therefore an easy job to pop the size 6 out and release him a few metres upstream out the way. Re-baited and deployed the paternoster out on the crease again, but the alarm stubbornly remained silent for the rest of the session, that big stripey eluding me once more. However, I'd had another enjoyable session and bagged up on the float rod again.
Packed up in the gloom and headed home, the surface of the river alive with dimpling fish. Don't know what I'm doing next, but I may have to tear myself away and try another venue.......or not!
