Thaw sets in slowly

It's thawing out there, by all accounts. While you can't catch 'em when the water's frozen, they reckon you're in with a shout when the lid comes off.

One month left, and counting. I had all kinds of targets when the season started, back in the balmy days of September. So far, I've managed just one.

It's now 10 days since I managed to get a bait in anywhere. I'm desperate to get out tomorrow, even though smart money says catching anything's going to be more a matter of luck than judgement as snow melt swells the rivers and drains.

I know two spots where I might stand a chance. Both offer the fish somewhere to get out of the flow and the inevitable salt that will have washed off the roads.

That's assuming it isn't all still frozen when I get out there, obviously. But I won't know that unless I get out there for a look. And if I don't do that, I'll be in with even less chance of catching anything. So I might as well take the rods - just in case.

Frozen Ouse at Ten Mile Bank

Here's another picture from today of the railway bridge at Ten Mile Bank reflected in a frozen River Ouse.

I've seen the Ouse freeze once or twice before, but it's been like this for days according to the Chipper Bailiff.

Ice try, but pointless

"Giving up," asks the Chipper Bailiff, as we survey the 60yd-wide glacier that used to be the Relief Channel. "I can't say I blame you."

I was half optimistic setting out, with the forecast predicting a rise above freezing for the first time in a week.

Drains large and small I passed on the way to the big river were still frozen solid. But parts of the Ouse should be clear, according to various mates.

It was clear down the middle at Modney, but clear meant a narrow channel packed with ducks, coots, grebes and half a dozen goosanders.

Ditto a mile or two downstream, where I thought they might be pumping a land drain off.  Ditto Wissey Mouth and ditto Denver, as I ran out of river to try.

There were great ice floes coming down the tidal, where I even thought of trying it for half an hour. I found the Chipper Bailiff by the Relief Channel sluice.

"Giving up," he asked. "Can't say I blame you. That's solid everywhere - been like that all week."

Snow woman, no cry

Places I wanted to fish last weekend were all iced over. Looks like we're heading for a repeat performance as another wave of snow hits, with temperatures set to drop well below zero for the next few nights.

With just over a month left, the last thing we need is losing days on end to the weather. In a way it seems like poetic justice. A few short weeks back, we were moaning about how mild it was and how much the rivers needed rain.

As the snow melt works its way through the system, along with all the salt, that'll be more lost time. As the season enters its swan song, I'm wondering whether to throw everything at one last hit. Try and time a few days' fishing as the rivers fine down.

I'm determined to get out this weekend either way, however hopeless conditions look. If the white stuff stays, it might even be snowman time.

In search of 17 pounders - they're really rare

"Yuh-huh, I've noticed that," said TLC, when I worked the weight out and said I couldn't remember the last time I'd caught a 17 pounder. "They all seem to be either 16s or 18-something."

A foggy start in the badlands somewhere south of Downham Market. You could barely see the far bank as we set off down the drain for what will be known forever more as Crap Bridge.

The main reason for this is some disaffected youth has sprayed C-R-A-P on it , in much the same way taggers spray their name on bridges and in my miss-spent younger days people sprayed things like Punk Rools on them. Back in the punk era, clearly.

TLC bags the lure rod we packed as an after thought and works a jig around the bridge, while I drop a couple of deads in and pop a can of Red Bull.

Fog still blankets the landscape. Wraiths of mist drift up off the floodbank like smoke. This is all very idyllic, but I can't ever remember catching much in fog. Maybe, just maybe, the tagger got it right. Maybe he was a pike angler, who has taken to carrying a can of spray paint in his rucker to vent his frustrations.

We give it longer than we probably should, mainly because you never see anyone else on this stretch of drain apart from the odd dog walker.

Fifty yards away, coloured water's pouring in from a little lode, so we give that another runless 20 minutes.

"Up there look - bait fish," says TLC, pointing up the drain, as the last of the fog clears and the sun breaks through. "Loads of 'em just jumped - I reckon something's after 'em." Another five minute yomp and we're where he thinks he saw them. Then again, it could be a bit further up.

"Ki-i-i-i-i-h, ki-i-i-i-i-i-yah," a buzzard soars overhead as we try another bit further up. I have seen an otter on one stretch of this drain and found spraints on another. As I re-arrange the rods for the umpteenth time, I see smashed mussel shells on the bank.

A little further along, there are several shells under the entrance to a bramble thicket. Half way up the bank, a former rabbit hole has been greatly enlarged. It's big enough to be a badger sett, but there is no bedding scraped out or other signs of brock.

It also lacks the rancid smell of reynard, or scraps of fur I'd expect to see snagged on the lower boughs of the brambles were it a fox's earth. Maybe it's an otter holt.

We hit the last few swims before we reach the car. I still think we'll catch something. I'm not sure why I think that, but TLC concurs. Yes, here we go - I'm away. A float does a jig before it slides off up the drain. I give it a good old ding and it hugs the bottom, throwing a headshake or two as I bend in harder to make sure the hooks are planted.

I sharpened the trebles two or three swims earlier, so they're well sharp. I start wondering if they're planted in a twenty's gob, as a big fish swirls under the rod top. I'm convinced it is as TLC nets it, I unclip the trace and we haul her up to the mat.

When I turn her over, she's already shed the hooks. Doubts as to her twenty-ness are also creeping in but I've got the sling handy so we give her a bounce on the Avons just in case. Long enough, but not quite there in the weight department. According to Mr Avon, she's 18lbs 10oz.

There's a good reason I look like a total knob in this picture, by the way. In case you haven't noticed.

As TLC's pondering the workings of the camera, f/5.6 at aperture priority, matrix metering, ISO 200, image setting FINE; one of his floats does a disappearing act. I notice this and I'm telling him so as he takes the snap.

TLC drops the camera and picks his rod up as the fish drops the bait. I feel bad about this, but que sera. As I'm cutting the hooks out of the net, I work out the fish was 17lbs 12oz minus the sling.

I reckon 17-pounders must be quite unusual, as I can't remember the last 17-pounder I caught, I tell TLC. "Yuh-huh, I've noticed that," he nods. "They all seem to be 16s or 18-something."

I enjoyed today, despite the fact it threw up just one half-decent double. It was a 17-pounder, after all. And they're really rare, according to TLC.

 ***Look at the markings on this fish.

Check out the hook-shaped mark on her tail-wrist. I can't remember ever seeing a similar mark on a pike.

Clearly a highly-recognisable individual, if she turns up in later seasons. Hope I bump into her again when she's a twenty.

We're in business, thinking tactically

The float wobbles and falls down a hole in the lake. We're in business, as I heave into a pondrous weight on the end that feels ponderously like a twenty. 

Bubbles fizz across the surface, as I pump it in towards the bank. Bits of weed float to the top as the weight on the end gets lighter. I glimpse a pike that looks like Bob Marley, until it shakes off the dreadlocks of pondweed and sulks under the rod top.

TLC stretches out to net it, expecting something slightly bigger than the six pounder glaring up at us as he sweeps it in over the top of the rushes. Must have been six pounds of pike and 15lbs of weed on the end, I shrug apologetically.

Beautifully-marked fish all the same, says TLC - taking a picture with his thumb partly obscuring the lens, leaving a black smudge across half the frame. Good job it wasn't a twenty after all, I say looking at the picture.

We were going to move, but the first run of the day cures the itchy feet. After half an hour, we wonder if it's the only pike in just about the only bit of this particular water we're technically allowed to fish.

After another conflab, we move to a banker swim on another water down the road. Fired up by Mick Brown's excellent talk at last night's King's Lynn PAC bash, we think tactically and spread the rods to cover shallows and a deep hole, close in and as far as I can heave a popped-up bluey and a three ounce lead.

The shadows are lengthening, as I heave a popped up bluey as far as I can heave a popped up bluey and a three-ounce lead. The bait popper and the bluey part company as they fly through the heavens.

I tighten up to find it's landed in some far flung weedbed. We sit silently, watching the bait popper slowly drift back towards us as the sun goes down behind the trees in a barrage of bird song.

That's nice dear. Did you remember the milk..?

I am in a meeting about office furniture with some men from head office. 

In Europe, they have decreed we must have a minimum gap of 90cms between our work stations. I am pondering this and other interesting aspects of the EU with the men from head office when my phone beeps.

Got a new PB mate, says the text from Rob. I look at the picture and wish I was beside the river instead of discussing office layouts. The meeting goes on around me.

We'll need more chairs, says one of the men from head office as he makes a note on his clipboard. I'm going fishing tomorrow, I volunteer helpfully.

The men from head office look at the pictures of pike on the wall behind my desk. We can see you're quite into fishing, one says. Do you eat them or throw them back, asks another. 

I look at the picture again when the men from head office have gone. I can't believe it's a week since I last got my string pulled. There are times when I couldn't bear the thought of seven days away from the water. There are others when a break rekindles my enthusiasm.

I look at the picture again when I get home. Beautiful fish mate, I text Rob. Wish I'd caught it. Rob sends me another picture. I know how much effort he puts into his fishing - and just as important, how much he lives for it.

I show the wife. Look at this lump Rob caught today. I'd have probably been down there if I wasn't at work. I'd probably have fished that bank. I might even have...

That's nice, says the wife. Did you remember to get the milk..?

Unexpected item in bagging area

Must be five or six years since I've fished this bit of drain, I enthuse as we clamber up the flood bank. We need to be a bit further down, that used to be the bagging area.

"How far," asks TLC as our breath steams in the cold dawn air. Another mile or so, I shrug. Half an hour later, we're in what used to be the spot. It doesn't look like anyone's been here all season.

This fills me with confidence, for obvious reasons. We agree we'll give it a half hour, then begin the long leap frog back to the car.

I remember one of Digger's pearls of wisdom for some reason. The one where he reckons he's leap frogged a mile of drain or river for every twenty he's caught over the years. Once we've got the rods out, I have a nose around the bank for signs anyone else has beaten us to what used to be a rated area.

Something has. Down in the grass, there are otter spraints. I look around and find a few more, in varying states of decay. Neglected by the likes of us, it seems Tarka has stepped into the void - very nicely, too, judging by the amount of droppings.

I did see an otter, several miles away, on the same drain earlier in the season. We give it half an hour, get itchy feet, and start swim hopping back towards civilisation. 

We find more otter droppings, here and there. But no fish. After half a mile or so, we began seeing signs of other anglers. Otters aren't renowned for their love of Marlboro Lights, with health warnings written in Polish.

We press on, as the sun starts dropping away to the West. TLC wonders when the mile will be up and we'll catch one of Digger's twenties. Looking back down the drain, we must have covered a mile by 3pm, as we cast the baits into the umpteenth swim of the day.

"I'm in," he shouts, as a float finally shows some signs of life. I reel my rods in and walk down with the net. "Don't reckon I'll be needing that," he says, swinging in the smallest pike I've seen all season, which might just go a pound on a good day.

"Come on," says TLC. "We want yer mum - or yer granny..." As dusk creeps in around us, one of his floats plops under the surface again.

He briefly hooks what's obviously a much larger fish, which comes off inexplicably after a couple of head shakes.

Our mile's well and truly up. That might even have been one of Digger's twenties, if you believe his maths. We sit it out the final 20 minutes or so until the sun sets, before we trudge the last few hundred yards back to the car.

Did we find the only two pike in that entire stretch of drain - or did they just switch on briefly as the light levels dropped. There must be a reason the otters like it so much around there either way. Definitely worth another look.