I think I've lost my Carping Mojo - or is it just ring rust? I blanked at Redmire, at the end of November and, on Friday, February 27, my first outing since then, I blanked at the Other Pool. I had my chances - well, one
chance, actually, on what was an unexpectedly cold day. I walked to the bus stop on a day of frost, which was not forecast, actually; but the morning seemed to be warming up nicely as I strolled down the grassy verges towards the pool. The pool looked good
- but there were no signs of fish - no bubbles, no clouds of silt - nothing. I decided to move from swim to swim, giving each area about one hour to help me find the fish. Finally, in the bay, I did see bubbles - just one or two, and what John Bailey
calls "nervous water", - ripples caused by moving fins, far below. By then I'd been fishing for five hours. At the end of the afternoon, something accepted my offering of broken up prawns - a good take that dragged the sight bob into the depths; but I struck
into thin air. In fact, I had been dosing and I suspect it was a ham-fisted, snatched strike, - befitting someone who has barely cast a line for months. I stared towards the spot with disbelief - but missed I had! A few minutes later, I threw a few hunks of
crust against the far reeds and saw one piece go down - although the fish must have been well below the offering, for I did not see lips! I cast a ball of floating flake to the spot - but nothing rose. Typical.
Thirty
minutes on, however, I did see a good common head and shoulders out, and it was a fine looking carp, around mid-double I'd say.
So that was that. I had a long walk back to my bus stop and needed to leave before
dark. I saw buzzards and heard a woodpecker, so all was not lost; and I also started to bait up swims with par-boiled spuds - because I have a peverse desire, this year, to catch a carp on a spud. First of all, however, I need to catch a carp or two on my
usual methods, just to get back into the general swing of things.