In last month’s blog I wrote about fishing in Lanzarote again, it was great fun, not at all difficult to catch “something” and it made an excellent break from lounging by the pool in a masochistic attempt to evaporate the substantial layer of hard earned fat that I had been chiseling away at for the previous three months.

It is a well know fact that I am a yo-yo dieter with my weight swinging around 2-3 stones across the space of 12 months, it has been like this for quite a while now and I think that I have finally lost patience with the never ending battle to trim down before ballooning up again, so bread has gone to the wall, carbohydrates are controlled and that being so laying by a pool doing nothing except sweat, drink beer and nibble snacks whist reading some pap shite such as “50 shades of Grey”, now just bear with me a minute or two here, there must be near on 50 copies of this drivel in every hotel across the world because sexually frustrated wives try to spice up their sex lives by implanting some weird ass kinky BDSM subliminal messages into the minds of their “meat and two veg ” style husbands…a bit of advice…don’t try subliminal with the male of the species girls, just buy some fluffy handcuffs and a flogger from Pulse and Cocktails and tell him exactly what you want to happen . OK, that said let me get back to the hungry, hot and sweating on an ice cold beer by the pool while trying to keep the blubber at bay, this is in my opinion utterly masochistic, it is better to get up in a morning and head off out for a bit of exercise as you walk down the beach to your favourite spots.

There is no better way of burning off a couple of hundred calories and avoiding taking on countless empty calories whilst trying to stave off the complete boredom of sunbathing by the hotel pool hoping that a bikini malfunction may at some point alleviate some of the complete monotony. That said, I do love a good bikini malfunction..

Yes…I am a bad person, I know.

Anyways back to the fishing, I found that after the run in with the Stingrays I no longer had much of an appetite for the tiddlers, I wanted more of the good stuff.

This had me fish into darkness a couple of nights and the difference was marked, the smaller delicate baits were stripped bare in seconds and only the tougher boga actually stayed on the hook doing what it does best…catch fish!

One evening, I went down just on darkness with half a dozen boga, the wind was up again, the sea was really rolling in with spray coming over the back of me, I tucked in tight at the top of the pier and lobbed out both rods with “half fish” baits.

I did not have to wait long before the baitrunner was engaged and the rod looped over into a full on fighting curve…unfortunately the fight only lasted a minute or two before the hook pulled, I was gutted, the weather was getting a little harsh by now and the wind was touching gale force, I wasn’t going to stay out here much longer, it wasn’t cold and it wasn’t raining but the sea spray was starting to soak me…The fun was fading.

As I retrieved the rig I noticed to other rod tip knock….Ohhh…I wound in faster, as I placed one rod down I picked the other one up, bang went the strike!

Fish on!

Oh my, this thing felt huge…it simply drifted, I went “Total Recall” and tried as best I could to impart some wisdom on it but this thing was having none of it…Not one fricking word…It seems I had forgotten to specify that I wanted to do the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of Total Recall and not the shit poor Colin Farrel cover version…I was having my arse handed to me on a plate here,  arse on a plate, sprig of parsley and wedge of lemon.

Shit or bust time.

I have to stop the slow steady run, this bugger has done me for a hundred yards of line without reply, it’s time to go all Rocky Balboa and come out of the ropes swinging lefts and right into the ribs!

Thumb on the drum!

Rod hoooooooping well past its safe limit, the splice is creaking like a bastard and threatening to explode at any point in time…and then it happened….The fish turned, I started to make line, progress was being made.

Slow progress… minutes passed…not any of these bullshit nanosecond ” I was playing it for half an hour” minutes  you hear on the Trent in regards to barbel and carp of barely double figure, I am talking about five minutes of hardcore three girl Thai massage and a bottle of baby lotion minutes where you are banging at it like a bastard and sweating like a blacksmith forging Valeryan steel on the hottest day of the year whilst powering his forge with dragon flame ( Game of Thrones series 7 Gendry spoiler I reckon)

I could not give it any more, the wind was wild, the rod full on, the line at its breaking point and the Shimano clutch doing exactly what it says it will do on the box.

I was winning, Clubber Laing was spent, The fish was below me, my 42 inch  net would drop to the level of the sea or I could climb down the rocks and land the fish at sea level but the swell was mental, it was also dark and I was on my own…I would try the net.

I turned on my head torch and looked over the edge of the jetty…

Fuck me.

I put the net down.

I was looking at the white underparts of a stingray wallowing in the swell, it was four or maybe five feet across, it was bigger than the one we had seen at Porto del carmen the day before….

Err.

My name is Lee Michael Swords and not Steve Irwin, I was not going down into the sea to wrestle this thing, no.

I did what was sensible, I reached out for the hooklength, spent a second or two looking at this wonderful “Thing” this magnificent creature and pulled hard and sharp for a break, the gloves saved my hand and the line parted as I hoped it would.

I went back to the hotel a happy man.

But a happy man with a plan…A plan for next year

Shark!

 

Back on the Trent

The Trent…This year it hasn’t really happened for me on the barbel front, I think I have one double and about twenty or so in total with a pretty low average weight…And do you know what?

I am happy with that, I have been there done that and bought the fucking T-Shirt, I am not the sole single person that changed fishing on the Trent but I am of the cutting edge that did, I am one of the first that used boilies, braids, hi-nu-val pastes and all manner of scents and palatants…  so most of what I am seeing now is really starting to bore me.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like the odd overnight session, I really do, especially in autumn when the nights are starting to stretch out a little bit and the temperature isn’t quite so hot and sweaty as it can be in June, July and August, the barbel are in good fettle and the feeding windows are “open”

One fish that does interest me on the Trent however at the moment is the roach the numbers are on the rise and the average size is getting pretty good…The picture on the right however is not a roach, it is an Ide.

An Ide?

And how pray tell did this continental species end up in the Trent you ask?

As with everything in life money talks, day to day I am not an attractive man ( even less so now but we will come to that later), I do not possess the charisma and physical attributes of Ryan Reynolds but with enough money in my pocket I am quite sure I could have anything I want…And that is how the commercial pool owners force those that have the powers to say “No” into saying ” Yes”.

The Environment Agency is failing in its duties to protect the environment every time they grant permission to move and or stock nonindigenous species of fish, they have the power to say “No” but they don’t, they see the cash just like the very attractive girls of Spearmint Rhino, the same six foot tall perfectly formed blondes and brunettes that would not so much as look at me sideways if I was skint never mind gyrate naked in my lap giving me sexy little winks, nope the department of the EA responsible for stock policy and the movement of non indigenous fish is like a table dancer, when it comes to work time when the cash starts to show the panties have to go.

BUT SAYING THAT….

I will add this to my venting in regards to stocking policy, carp are the new trout and it is too late to spit the noo-noo out in regards to that, I remember many years ago when trout were completely for the table, catch and kill was the order of the day and trout of about 1 1/2lb were the mainstay in regards to stocking with the odd fish going a bit bigger still with the rare and elusive overwintered fish going to around 4lb maybe a bit more…

There was a day when carp were as rare as 8lb brown trout!

I can remember a time when there were only two venues in sheffield that held them in any numbers, they were elusive mysterious and “WILD”.

Now every venue has them, they are ok, they can fight like hell and they make good pictures but more than that they are the engines that drive match fishing and the even more lucrative carp fishing because between these two camps I would say 85%-95% of all monies generated in angling are spent.

And so it is natural progression that just as the trout scene came away from the catch and kill of plate sized fish to catch and release with a fast growing emphasis being placed on “trophy fish”, the war of pounds and ounces soon  had men and women travelling the entire length of the country to places like Avington and Dever Springs paying £40, £50 and even more for a days fishing with the trout record changing hands so often it was almost a weekly affair.

The trout farms soon became cutting edge affairs that were churning out pellet bloated beasts by the hundred to satisfy a hunger that to this day is not quenched.

I myself enjoy having a nice trout blow out every now and then, I pay about £40 to have my string pulled in the most dramatic fashion imaginable at a small still water called Roxholme. it is great fun!

And so I would be a hypocrite to whine on too long and too loud about the state of carp fishing and the depths that some would say that it has fallen because  the same thing is now occurring with carp fisheries.

Men and women want the “trophy shot” and they want it today…but…The most important part of this equation however is that they do not mind paying for it and that is the key to the entire scenario.

The punter is not only uninterested in the “bigger picture” he/she is more than willing to pay for the privilege of catching a completely farmed fish and if that is the case surely that is better than them being stolen or even illegally imported ?

My only issue is that once they are sourced and stocked they are then caught from  environments that in some cases do not even have to have the ability to naturally produce such a creature nor sustain their biomass or  even provide suitable habitat in which they can sustain their numbers naturally without repeated artificial stockings of ever more fish produced for  totally commercial purposes with no thought given over to their long term well being nore the negative impact said fish can have on natural and balanced environments.

It is the way of the world.

Money talks.

TIMBER!!!

Usually I finish down on the field, this time I will finish deep in the woods…I was walking the dog and a tree fell on my head.

The long and short of it is quite simple. the tree won.

I am now the proud owner of a selection of very good scars on my head a little bit less hair as that was ripped out, a broken neck and a fractured skull, the headache has been immense and the drugs have been trippy to say the least but I am mending fast.

There will be no fishing for a while and as such there will probably be no fishing blogs for a while, I am instead going to try to catch up with a few other jobs such as some cartoons and an article or two for another site.

In the meantime, stay say and fish safe.

best regards

 

Lee