Many years ago, in the 1950's, my secondary school used to have an assembly every morning, and one of the headmaster's favourite readings from the Bible was about houses. It was the one where a cowboy builder builds a house upon sand "and the rain came, and the wind blew, and beat upon that house and it fell. And great was the fall of it, for it was founded upon the sand."
Then Barretts came along and built a house on good, rocky foundations "and the rain came, and the wind blew and beat upon that house. And it fell not, for it was founded upon the rock."
On Sunday, on Lou's lake at Decoy, the rain came and the wind blew and beat upon the eight of us fishing a Fenland Rods match, and we carried on. 'Cos we were all effing idiots!
Three members had called off - the sensible ones. But at least we tried to limit the uncomfortability by placing us so we all had some sort of backish wind, and seven of us erected our umbrellas, which gave us a fair amount if shelter. But to be honest the water felt dead, and after an hour no-one had caught a fish.
I started on peg 3 by having a look in the margin, where the bottom was really firm, so at least I felt I had the rig set right in case the fish came on later. Then it was on to a bomb with an orange wafter. When that brought nothing (not even a liner) I changed to a small Method feeder, and then to a pop-up.
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| Like gnomes, Peter and Allan wait for...well, very little, actually. |
Then I got one, and soon after that a small roach. I was bagging! Around this time, in the second half of the match, the rain stopped...and the wind got up and must have dropped five degrees in temperature. Believe me, it got very cold. Callum came along and said he had a carp on a feeder and wafter, but that didn't warm us up much. And in the meantime Roy Whitwell, on my right, started catching small fish galore. Every now and then the rain would start again.
I came up to a foot deep, using a dead maggot and had about 15 beautiful bites. The float would dip, then dive right down out of sight, and I missed every one. Probably tiny roach nipping the end of the maggot. A pinkie would have been handy, or a small maggot, but I had deliberately left all my live maggots at home because of the rain. By now Roy had cauight FIVE.
Half an hour to go and I looked round to see Kevin Lee on 8 fishing the margins. Ten minutes later I looked round again and his pole was bending! I felt like a cup of coffee, so put out a bomb with a pop-up, and started packing away my pole tops. Seven minutes to go and the rod wrapped round like a good 'un.
I picked it up and Yes, I was attached to a fish. It kited sraight through Allan's swim, but thankfully he was fishing a pole in the margins. After a frantic couple of minutes I could see it was a carp, but not very big. Then it was in the net, and I saw the hook was on a tiny sliver of skin on the outside of its mouth.
I suspect the carp had approached the pop-up, four inches off bottom, had a sniff, rejected it, and had accidentally brushed against the hook. Whatever happened it was mine! I rreckoned it was about 2 lb.
The Gods were laughing at us. The rain had stopped, and gradually the air became warmer, the wind died down, and by the time was had packed away it was a lovely Spring evening.
On peg 1 Peter Spriggs, on the Golden peg, had had two bites, probably liners, and did not have a single fish. Allan weighed in 2 oz, and to my surprise my 2 lb carp and the two tiny fish, gave me a magnificent 3 lb 9 oz. But Callum said that Mel on 6 had two carp, so I would be knocked down the list.
Roy and Dave
had ounces, and Mel said that he had indeed hooked a second carp, which had come off. He weighed in 3 lb 5 oz, followed by Kev with a cracker of 8 lb 2 oz, and Callum with his carp of 6 lb.
So I ended third in what was probably the worst Fenland Rods result ever (though there may have been worse results on the drains many moons ago before I joined). But Roy said afterwartds that the new section pool did give him some incentive to catch anything he could when things looked dire. Next match a week Tuesday on Willows, where we will probably all be in the first 18 pegs.
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| The result |
On a serious note, when the rain is making things miserable and I'm holding on to my umbrella as it tries to take off. I often think back to those poor sods, both English and German, who were poured into the trenches on the Western Front and all over Europe. Their days consisted of trying to keep upright in the mud while they shored up the side of the trenches in the pouring rain, trying to ignore the rats.
If they found a piece of wood, to stand on or to use as a shelter against the incessant stream of shells and bullets overhead they counted themselves lucky. They knew that within seconds they could be lying face up in the mud, mouth open and filling with rainwater. And if they survived that night they could be called on, next day, to go over the top to Hell on Earth, armed with rifles or bayonets against machine guns, with the likelhood of dying, eventually, in the mud.
Yet within an hour of finishing I will have packed up and be sitting in my van, ready to drive home, or to Judy's cafe, at a secret destination in Whittlesey. Then I reckon I have won life's jackpot.
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