One That Got Away

What a summer!  After the last year there was at least the hope of more normal weather, but day after day, angry clouds built up, with cascading rain and unseasonal gales, almost without respite.

The productive summer months on the upper reaches of the rivers passed by, with few opportunities to fish.  Deep pools that were normally full of flashing golden flanks of feeding Mullet, were a thick and soupy brown, or crystal clear with coppery coloured acidic water and totally devoid of life.

Common sense dictated a different approach.  The obvious choice was to try in the harbours and marinas which were unaffected by the cool and perpetually wet weather.  Failing that, the lower extremities of the estuaries provided better prospects of fish than further upstream.  True, I tried with some success in these places, but all the time I was drawn back to those so very challenging up river marks.  The thought of a good Mullet on fine line in shallow and clear water, and the ensuing breathtaking fight, was enough to keep me trying.  And yes, it was particularly difficult with many sessions without a bite or sign of a fish.

Mike Bailey holds a fine Mullet caught from the River Dart June 2008 Photo courtesy of Mike Bailey

It was moving nearer to the end of the season on the upper Dart where I spend so many hours.  Yet again I had been unsuccessful.   I had been able to see through my Polaroids that there was nothing moving through the swim, and so, very reluctantly, I started to pack up my tackle and call it a day.  As often happens, a passer-by came across to chat.  He was clearly an angler himself, and he volunteered the information that he was staying at a nearby camp site.  He’d tried a few times using method feeding, which he told me worked very well at Christchurch where he lived.  He further explained that he had taken Mullet to 7 lbs there using this approach and that he thought it would be successful on the Dart too, which interested me because I have so little experience of bottom fishing for them.  He said he had been looking along the river bank at low tide for a few days and hadn’t seen a single fish, despite the clarity of the water !!!

You might have thought that information would have been enough to finish me off for the year, but there is an innate sense of obstinacy combined with patience that made me even more determined.  And so it was, that after packing my gear away, I started to walk along the banks of the river, searching carefully for any sign of a fish.  At first all I found was empty pool after empty pool but then, suddenly, I was aware of a shadow right by the side of the river bank.  It was a Mullet and a very big one, holding stationary against the flow of the current.  I carried on stalking and a mile further on I spied another two fish and again they were very large; how big is always difficult to establish in the water but very impressive in size.  Another half hour of exploring and I had spotted one more fish.  Not one of these very solitary specimens was under 6 lbs and a couple looked enormous.

The next day saw me at the banks of the river again as the tide started to drop.  I had decided to fish the mark where I had spotted the two fish together just in the hope of a bite and hook up.  The clouds were dark and threatening but the wind had fallen light and it was quite mild. The stretch I was going to fish was new to me.  The river here was very broad and not as deep as some places I fish, but plumbing just after high tide still showed 8-9 feet of water.

The water was gin clear and so I tackled up well away from the bank, all the time introducing small amounts of bread as loose feed well upstream of where I was going to fish.

Soon I was ready and I was able to flick my bait of bread paste a few feet from the bank and well upstream.  Slowly the float settled in the water and started to drift towards me in the gentle current.  I let it trot well past me before lifting it out of the water and starting again.  The tide began to drop little by little and I was busy with small adjustments to the float.  All the time I waited expectantly, hopefully, watching for the slightest movement to the float.

You can lose yourself for hours once you have built up a pattern and so it was that the next two hours passed without the suggestion of a bite.  The water was now shallow enough for me to see the river bed starting to show and I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see a fish.

Sometimes there is a warning, a light tremble on the float, a hesitant dip, a slow pull.  This time my dream like trance was woken rudely as the float smoothly shot under and totally disappeared from sight!

Striking was almost a formality.  The rod locked over immediately into its full test curve and the line howled from the clutch.  I kept steady pressure on the fish and waited for it to slow down and stop.  The wide and snag free section I was fishing gave me great confidence that I would soon stop and turn it.  This proved to be completely misplaced as the line continued to empty from the reel until the fish neared the opposite bank, where it started to lunge and dive frantically.  Realising that my line was suddenly in peril from overhanging branches and unseen obstacles I jammed my thumb down on the spool and waited for this to have the desired effect on the fish.

There were tremendous swirls and boils of water just under the surface from a stupendously powerful creature.  I’d stopped it from going into the far bank and thought I was winning.  At this point the fish took off without hesitation running downstream on another sizzling run and nothing I could do slowed it down.  On and on it went until there was a huge distance between me and the fish.

I kept the pressure on the fish the whole time and at last it slowed and stopped.  Great judders shook the rod which was under maximum pressure, and again there were great swirls in the oily black water.  I held on for dear life and then slowly, for the first time started to get some line back.  Little by little I gained some line.  I was winning!

The power of the fish was frightening but I knew I now had it under some degree of control  Concentrating like mad I settled down for a long fight, and each moment became more and more confident that I would land a fish of a life time.  And then, quite without warning, the line went slack.  There had been no hard lunge from the fish, no violent shaking, just a steady, powerful weight, and then it was gone.   I reeled in slowly to find my hook still attached, the fish had slipped the brand new chemically sharpened carp hook.

I sat there for a few minutes open mouthed.  I didn’t shout or swear or throw my rod on the ground!  I think I just sat there re-creating every last second in my mind.  The fish was gone and I had no appetite to carry on, knowing that one like that only comes once in a very special while.  I packed up slowly again and again picturing every moment of the ten minutes that I had been joined to this veritable leviathan of Mullet.

The strange thing is that as I write this I do so with a smile.  It was bad summer for Mullet but I caught over 100, including some fine specimens.  However, on cold and wet winter days, the moment that I remember best in the year was the fish that I failed to catch.  What size was it?  I have no idea, except to say I have landed Mullet to over 8lb whilst fishing abroad and this was right up there with them.  How big it was in the end doesn’t really matter.  Sometimes it’s not hooking and landing a big fish.  In a way NOT knowing how big it was is what drives me on to return in the future.

I suppose it’s what makes me want to go fishing.  I  wonder if I had landed it and found it was so monstrously large, would I have ever wanted to go out there again with the same enthusiasm?  That’s the thing about fishing…it’s the fact that it can be difficult and challenging, that there are disappointments, but there are also those magical moments of success often when they are not expected.  And the losing of that fish was balanced by the memory of its enormous power and the thrill of hooking such an immense creature and the pulsating ensuing battle.

A Wintry backdrop; the River Dart flows wide here, but Mike Bailey is waiting for the late Spring, when huge Mullet are possible on this stretch January 2009 Photo courtesy of Mike Bailey

The snow has been falling heavily in the last few days and we are still in the grip of a fierce winter but already the days are lengthening and late spring will see the first Mullet nosing up the rivers in search of their favourite weed growth.   You can be sure I will be visiting a certain swim with thoughts of a mighty struggle that almost ended in success .… Perhaps this year it might happen?   It’s the not knowing which brings me back again and again to spend more hours trying catch the most of elusive of all quarries; clear water upstream Mullet.