Picture yourself in the early Spring sunshine alongside a rarely fished,un-named pool,alone except for two Mallard Ducks and your thoughts.Not far from the lake I've been fishing for Roach is a pool of around one and a half acres.It is relatively overgrown,receives very little angling pressure and its fish population remains a bit of a mystery.Just my kind of place,in fact.
The brutal cold of the winter months rendered the pool a virtual ice rink for over a month,I feared for its residents and made holes in the ice whenever I visited.
This week I decided to be the first angler to throw a bait into its depths this year.I must admit that I didn't really have a clue what I was fishing for,so opted for the reliability of my feeder and maggot set-up.
I soon discovered that beneath the surface lay a whole different world of fresh weed growth and fallen twigs,yes,after all the cold and lack of oxygen,there was incredibly an abundance of vegetation down there.
After some searching I finally found a clear area and bites started to come,tentative bites.Roach,I thought,the tip went around and a spirited battle for a small fish resulted in not a Roach,but a beautiful golden scaled Rudd with fins of blood red,one of my favourite freshwater fish.
From then on,the bites came steadily and all the bites resulted in a cracking Rudd,not large,but from the plucky fight I was quite sure these fish had never been caught in their lives.
This small pool was fished in the past by Kevin Maddocks and his angling colleague Bob Baldock, for Catfish..Bob once stated that he saw a massive fish in the clear margins but it was never banked.I can tell you that some of the Rudd I caught bore injuries from the grip of a small Silure,so maybe Grandma is still there.Some also bore the toothmarks of narrow escapes from Pike.
After steadily catching these Rudd for a good few hours I was joined by my girlfriend Sarah who spoiled me with the kind of picnic items that this Intrepid Piscator rarely sees.She gladly sat watching me catch bars of gold for her delight...I have to admit that far from being appreciative,I ribbed and teased her,not in a malicious way mind.This proved to be a grave error on my part as she declared,"You'll not catch another fish unless you say something nice to me"..I scoffed at such a crazy notion and cast with bravado,however,the tip stayed still.She raised her eyebrows as I reeled in,"Just hung up in the weed" I said stubbornly.She gave me 'the look'.This continued for almost an hour,my excuses for not catching becoming more and more outlandish.I looked at her lovingly,she was cold (in the way girlfriends are but anglers aren't !!).."Please wear my coat"I suggested gallantly.
Next cast?......another fine Rudd.
A wonderfully told story. I recently caught a rudd in the Niagara River, Canada, and to my surprise, was told to destroy it because it's an "invasive species". Under appreciated and much maligned by others, it has become my favorite.
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