Footballers & Panda Food

With England reaching the last 16 of the World Cup I felt a little self indulgence was in order. Not for me a trip down the local for celebratory drinks, not this time anyway.

An evening session on the Gt. Ouse with my new (old) Chapmans 500 cane rod,Youngs Purist centrepin,a drilled bullet and a pot of lobs.

The air was hot and buzzing with insect life, the cows looked as if they'd had enough of the heat as we lumbered past each other.

It occurred to me that for the first time in a while I was fishing just for the hell of it and not tunnelled by the "specimen hunter" mentality that often drives me

As I sat in the long grass with this old rod for the first time, I took a while to ponder it's previous owners.



The fellow who had wandered into a tackle shop and purchased it new, all those years ago, couldn't have imagined it would still be being used in 2010.

I wondered about the fish it had caught and was impressed by it sensitive, yet still steely action.

Out plopped a large lobworm and off it rolled downstream with the flow until it found a place to settle.

Laying back in the grass I felt the fading heat on my face, a cuckoo called out in the distance and a heron flew above me, pure unadulterated bliss, the whole scene akin to those set out by Venables.

The tip twitched, then again, a bit more. I struck, and after thumping around for a while, a beautiful small 'Footballer' (Perch) christened my rod for me.

More of the vivid and uncaught fellows followed, getting bigger as the evening progressed, keeping me entertained until darkness fell.

Remembering Bernard Venables describing a group of Perch as a "Swagger" I thought how appropriate it was. The fish I caught, and indeed the whole evenings events wouldn't have looked out of place in the pages of Crabtree.

It was my favourite fishing session so far this year.