Back out soon

Getting my appetite for fishing back now I seem to be on the mend. In response to a few comments from people I've lost touch with over the years, I've now added a contact form.

Andy, where've you been..?

Matt, definitely - e-mail me.

KinkyKev77, don't worry - the doctor will be here soon.

Fishing through the pain barrier

There's another reason I haven't been out much lately. Pain as in sciatica, as in it hurts to drive, walk, bend down, cough or even fart. I didn't feel too bad last night as I checked over the bait rods and got the gear together.

This morning was so-so, as in might get better by the time I get there, might wish I'd stayed at home. But on the one decent day of the week, wind dropping round to south-westerly and no rain, I had to risk it. Let's face it, you would have.

I'm stiff as a board by the time I get to the pits and it seems to take an age to get the rods arranged in a reasonably accessible swim, with unhooking gear, net and everything on the mat. I reckon if I hook one I can net it without having to bend down too much, drop to my knees, get it on the mat and sort it without too much grief.

I get the odd twinge but it doesn't feel too bad standing there after the strongest non-prescription painkillers I could get my hands on kick in. The sun's up. The birds are singing. I sit down awkwardly on my cool box and let the day wash over me.

One of the blobs I've managed to get 30 yards out near an island keels over. I struggle onto my toes, grab the rod and ow, ow, ow, ow; why did I have to swivel around when I bent into it. It hurts even more by the time I've pumped the lanky-looking jack over the net.

No pain, no gain. At least I've caught one. I've beaten back the pain and decide another painkiller and a dose of deep and meaningful progressive rock track on Spotify's next on the agenda. Out come the hooks, back it goes. As I'm re-baiting the rod, a blob I've tucked under a marginal bush goes.

Back out comes the same lanky jack. I get a picture this time before I drop it back into the lake. I don't feel too bad now I've caught something. Even if it was the same one times two. I cast the rods back out, plug my 'phones in and scroll through 'Spotty until I find what I'm looking for. Comfortably Numb. That'll do.

OK, OK, I need some information. Just nod if you can hear me, sings Roger Waters. One of the floats nods and slides off. I think it's the same jack at first, but it's a different, tatty three-pounder. Time for a move - maybe to the swim where a decent fish came unstuck not long after I hooked it a few weeks back.

Out go the rods, big baits this time. The afternoon drifts past without another pull but I get quite into just sitting there, glad I've forced myself to come out and proved I can more or less beat the pain that comes back almost every time I shift position or get up to do something.

As the sun sets, I can hear curlews punctuating the raucous skeins of greylag geese that loft up from neighbouring pits. I remember I lost a big fish at last knockings here. One of the baits is in more or less the same place, where a shallow bar drops into 12ft of water.

From where I'm sitting, I can get a lovely HDR picture across the water on my phone. While I'm doing this, the blob waddling in the breeze over the end of the bar where I briefly hooked into a big fish falls flat and slides away.

It hurts all the way down one side as I lurch to my feet and grab the rod. I let the line tighten and sweep it back, connecting with fresh air. It hurts even more when I sit back down again.

Water under the bridge

Plenty of water's gone under the bridge since I last went fishing - literally. The low, clear drains and rivers have turned torrent after all the recent rain. I didn't fancy my chances watching the Ouse gushing into the Relief Channel when I went out for a recce a couple of afternoons back.

With the Little Eyes - as the wooden gates which normally allow water out into the tidal river are called - shored up with boards, the whole of the river's flow is going to be diverted down the channel for the forseeable. A bit of water coming in can be a good thing, but once it starts going up and down like a yo-yo between tides I always seem to struggle.

The rain's forecast to stop tomorrow. And the wind's going around a few degrees to a south-westerly. That spells gravel pit to me.

Talk about lucky

What a glorious afternoon, I tell myself umpteen times as I head through the Fens to the place where even I can catch fish at the moment. I can't wait to get the rods out of the car, do the cowpat slalom and hit the drain.

Except it's not quite like it was a week or two back when people were filling their boots. The water's standing, almost flat calm and clear as a glass of Gordon's. As in the gin, not Gordon's, um, you know what.

A few casts, watching the lure shimmy back towards me through the margins, and the Chipper Bailiff appears. Hella Cress, they h'int bin catchin' much here lately, he chuckles. Time for a re-think, obviously.

I know. I'll try another drain. The sun's sinking below the far bank by the time I get there and it's also calm and clear. The water's dropped a foot or 18ins below it's normal winter level as well, which doesn't fill me with confidence.

I try a couple of swims until I see a big swirl scatter the rudd and it's game on. Well, sort of. After a couple of missed hits on a Hammer shad, I switch to one with a bigger hook and whack into a jack which comes off as I go to chin it.

A few chucks later, I hook a slightly bigger one that stays on long enough for a picture. It's almost dark when a pike that looks like a low double takes a shine to the shad. Nice scrap, as I give it some stick and it bangs around on the end.

I kneel down to grab it and snick the hook out of its scissors. The camera's up the bank, so I let it slide back into the water.

As I go to cast again, there's something wrong. As in no lure. As in its lying on the ground near the pliers. I look at the trace and the clip's somehow opened up and distorted. I've got so immersed in the fishing over the last half hour, I haven't stopped to check the trace, clip, lure, hook etc every few casts as I normally do.

Talk about lucky.

After the storm

You can see how close the storm came to breaching the sea banks if you make the long walk from the King's Lynn AA lakes to the bird hides at Snettisham. Bathed in the low sun's morning light, you wouldn't believe how close we came to catastrophic flooding on this part of the Norfolk coast.

Just a week earlier, we were out covering the storm surge and its aftermath. People lost their homes further round the coast, as the biggest North Sea surge for 60 years lashed our coast.

After covering my patch for the papers, I ended up at the Sea Life Sanctuary where staff were racing against time to save sharks and turtles as the centre flooded, cutting off power to their tanks.

They got nearly everything out in one piece, during an incredible rescue operation. which involved catching the creatures and running through the flood water to the waiting vans.

Once or twice, I wondered how the rivers and drains would be affected as I binned the day off I would have spent on them and got stuck in with colleagues covering the aftermath.

The bridge at St Germans was seriously damaged, closed to traffic. I headed down there for a look and found the incoming tide higher than I'd ever seen it. Water had come gushing through the expansion gaps the night before, villagers told me.

I watched the river as the tide turned and the water lapped high up the banks. I checked my quotes, uploaded my pictures and filed my stories.

The water topped Denver Sluice at the height of the surge, as the tide lapped around the Custom House on the quayside at King's Lynn. Friends who were there thought the barriers would go as the sea came coursing up the New Cut.

At times like this, you realise just how vulnerable parts of the Fens are - truly a landscape living on borrowed time. Thirty years. Maybe 50. Perhaps even a century. Sooner or later, the waters will come rushing back into the great sink the Dutch drainers reclaimed.

I don't like Mondays

You should ha' bin here yesty - one bloke had 20-odd, says the Chipper Bailiff. I know this is probably true, as I also filled my boots with jacks last time I fished the current 'going' water. After half an hour's poncing about which yielded a couple of follows and the tail nipped clean off a Kopyto, I decide on a move.

The Chipper Bailiff mentioned it in passing. As in haven't seen anyone down there in ages. So I trog down there and find it deserted - apart from Rob, who's sat behind his bait rods looking like Rob sat behind his bait rods.

Hella mate. W'oss gorn on..?  Come out for a couple of hours with the lure rods, haven't been all week, I say, explaining why I haven't been all week. I wish I'd bothered to bring the bait rods, I think to myself, watching Rob's spread of floats in all the right places.

Hey ho, three or four swims later I decide to sack it. Had a 15, says Rob. I drop the rods and have a wander up the bank, to see if a bit I fancy might turn the day around is fishable, but it's not.

Here, you know Ashley's 30 was the 26 you had on here the season before, he says, as I sit down for a mardle. This fish, that fish. Who's caught what, your float's gone. I watch Rob nail a couple, as dusk comes and a parliament of rooks descend on the far bank.

Should have brought the bait rods, I keep telling myself all the way home. Four more jacks and a low double, says the text when I get there.

Anyone know what did this to a pike..?

One of this fish we caught yesterday had this damage to one side of its upper jaw. Any ideas..?

Unhooking practice

I need some more unhooking practice, Hawkeye observes in his Mancunian brogue as we head down the coast road towards the Not Quite As Secret As The Secret Pit pits. Should get one or two today, I reckon.

After a frosty start and ice on the car, it's bright, still and clouding over when we rock up on the causeway between two pits. I fancy one, H fancies the other, so we're soon fishing back-to-back in different lakes.

We're on deads today. I fancied a change from lure fishing but it feels strange lobbing out baits on 12ft rods, tightening up to set the blobs and then standing there, staring at them. Half a dozen chucks here tops with the lures and I'd be on my toes.

Half an hour later, a blob goes sailing off. Hawkeye gets his unhooking practice a few minutes later, as a six pounder finds itself engulfed in the net. Both hooks well in the mouth, but he whips them out like a good 'un and slides the fish back.

A move or two later, the bailiff comes along and tells us a fallen tree which had blocked access to another part of the complex has been cleared. Hawkeye reads my mind. Let's give it another five minutes here and move then.

I fancy a move, as the bit you can now get to again was good to us a few seasons back. It was also once the scene of an incident involving skinny dippers of the female variety a few years ago, but this has nothing to do with my desire to up sticks, bearing in mind how cold it is.

I've got the rods broken down, kit squared away for a move when Hawkeye's float bobs and jinks away. More unhooking practice, this time a low-double which puts up a decent scrap before we bundle her into the onion bag.

Hooks out, quick picture. Still fancy a move, asks H. Yeah, best part of the pit, got to be worth a look, I say. I feel a bit bad about this an hour and a half later, when we've tried a deep corner, a shallow bit and a bit in between without another pull.

One last move sees us finish up on another pit. Hawkeye nails one, right next to the tree where you always catch one, where he caught his first pike around a year ago. Since then, he's caught quite a few and has probably got better at it than he realises.

This one's a bit challenging, unhooking practice-wise. The bottom hook's nicked in the throat entrance, so I make a brief guest appearence, and show him how to pop it out by going through the gill arch.

Just before we have to go, as gloaming descends on the Not Quite As Secret As The Secret Pit pits, one of my blobs bobs and dithers 30 yards out on the edge of a bar. It drops it, I pick the rod up and when the line twitches a minute or so later, I wind down and give it a ding.

The rod hammers round, yes good fish, good fish, good and it's gone in a swirl and a bow-wave. Beau locks, as they say in France. I know how big it felt, for a brief instant. When I reel the bait in, the bottom hook's somehow turned 45 degrees, meaning it was never going to plant itself in the fish's gob.

Hawkeye says he's learned a couple of things on the drive home. I just wish I could go back there tomorrow and catch that pike.