Of Mice & Men
(well rats actually)
I have never quite seen the point of cowering in a bivvy throughout the night waiting to be woken by the scream of a bite alarm. However, generally I think it ill advised to dismiss something one has never tried. So it was, that I accepted the invitation to go ‘all-night fishing’ from a school friend, Ron Pateman, when I was about fifteen years old. Over half a century has passed but it remains as crystal clear in my memory as morning light on a cloudless day.
We met at his home as it was within walking distance of a group of lakes, some of which were ‘free fishing’. The gravel had been so recently extracted from the lake we targeted that there were no trees on its banks and very few bushes. Grass had grown here and there but the shingle was still close enough to the surface to crunch under our feet as we tramped to the lakeside in the warm evening sunshine. It was July and the sky was clear and blue. There was so little wind that no ripples marred the mirrored surface of the lake and when we sat on the bank, sky and lake were divided by a thin shingle line like a mirror’s frame. When a tiny cloud dared to drift across the sky its brother mimicked it like Narcissus studying his beautiful reflection.
As we had walked we carried the minimum equipment, rods already ‘made up’ with reel and line so that our pockets were sufficient to hold spare hooks and weights. There was but one bait when carp fishing in those days… bread. We carried ready-made stiff paste and a stale loaf for floating crust. We had all we needed for a successful night and were practically guarantied double-figured carp or even a ‘twenty’.
Neither of us had caught any sort of carp, but we were at the right place (the lake was stocked), at the right time and ‘knew’ that fishing at night was guaranteed to produce runs a-plenty. We were well prepared with the minimum of kit and bait, no understanding of carp lore and we both wore a woolly jumper in case it cooled off during the night. What could go wrong!
The ‘shore’ of the lake was like a shingle beach up against a three-foot high bank where the topsoil had been dug away before the gravel was excavated. The scene was starkly beautiful and I lay back against the bank and watched as the sun lowered and clouds slowly formed then drifted across the orange, pink then purple sky. A full moon shimmered on the water’s surface and stars began to appear. It was dark but no too dark to see across the lake. It was a magical scene of nature with the only hint of humanity being the outline of my companion and the dull and distant hum coming from the paper mill a few miles away.
An hour sped by without any hint of a bite so we hauled in the lines, re-baited the hooks and cast them out again into the deep. Settling against the bank once more I felt soil and sharp stones. As time moved on so the temperature dropped. Soon I had drawn my knees up and stretched my woolly jumper down over my knees, but the chill air turned our breath into steam and the bank turned my spine to ice and sent chills to every bit of me. Trying to get comfortable I used the loaf of bread as a pillow but the cold permitted no slumber.
I got up and stamped my feet and we took turns in pacing off the cold while the other concentrated on our rods waiting for the first bite that would surely come.
Settling down again I could feel my teeth chatter as the night drew on, but fatigue overcame the chill and I nodded off. Moments later I could hear the snores of my fishing chum – not unexpected as he was dozy enough to drop off to sleep during maths lessons only to be woken by streaking chalk or a board duster lobbed by our mad maths master.
I tried to sleep again and must have managed another twenty winks as I suddenly came awake to the noise of scurrying feet. I pushed up against Ron and shook him roughly awake. He had our only torch. Shaking with cold and anxiety he swept the beam of light along the bank illuminating the scurriers. Beneath the overhanging soil loomed dark denizens of the night… it was alive with rats attracted to our bread.
Robbed of any hope of sleep I paced through the dark for hours until pre-dawn light sped across the lake and then the early sun began to neutralise the chilled air.
Then the night horrors were vanquished by a dawning, morning fear. On the lake there was a ripple that turned into a ‘V’ as something swam toward us. At first, I thought it the fin of a fish then I realised I could see a raised scaled head… a snake swam at us. My fear could not be banished by logic. My brain knew only harmless grass snakes swam in England’s waters, but my Neolithic heart only knew Ophidiophobia. I grabbed stones and flung them at the snake in terror… and it turned aside and sped away from danger. I’ve no doubt the dawn was at least as beautiful as dusk, but I had spent a freezing night dodging rapacious rats, was stuck with shingle knives and made starkly awake by serpents.
However, the warming sun began to cheer us and we hauled in our lines and tried to cast them, weightless, into the lake with floating bread, which must surely bring carp to our net. Impossibly large slices of bread, flaked and fell from our hooks seconds after being launched across the water. We compromised with smaller chunks of crust that drifted in the morning breeze attracting nothing more than a damselfly in search of a floating haven.
It was at this point that Ron rose from his normally disappointing status into a giant among friends. From his bag he pulled a tiny primus stove and kicked it into life. Out came a battered pan, some lard and a couple of rashers of bacon stolen from his mother’s larder. Into the pan they went and, as they sizzled and triggered all our digestive processes, into the pan went a couple of slices of bread. It was never hot enough to crisp the bread but we breakfasted on dripping ‘fat bread’ and half-cooked bacon, burning our fingers as we scooped it from a plate made of the waxed bread wrapper, and then scalded our throats joyously.
When I learned later that the magical carp could be tempted in daylight and fished for with a float I spurned night-time fishing. For many years I just could not see the point of fishing when there was nothing to interest the eye lest you arm yourself with a novel, and nothing to trouble the ear except for loud bite alarms to pull you from slumber. I knew from talking to others that, often, many hours of complete inactivity were occasionally punctuated with a screaming alarm to make you fall from your lounger and grab your rod and strike. In the dark you had to steer the running carp away from hazards without any idea of where they might be, save a vague memory of daylight observed snags and lily beds. I found it hard then to understand what relationship this bore to fishing as I know it, and little has dissuaded me otherwise since.
However, I have, twice tasted a little of night fishing. Once was the use of a lighted float. The other occasion was planned over-night fishing with my wife.
Maggie’s love of being in the countryside has been enough, on occasion, to persuade her to be my companion by the side of a summer lake. She would sit and sunbathe (no longer possible since she found she can develop basel cell carcinomas) or listen to birdsong whilst solving the daily crossword by my side as I drown worms. We have spent some wonderful times together stealing away from work and worries and trying to tempt a tench or two to the landing net. So, it was that I persuaded her that a weekend away in the depths of Lincolnshire would be fun. There was, I explained, a nice comfortable caravan for a night, which even had a TV to entertain her if she did not want to fish on into the summer night.
Relenting she allowed me to drive us to the lake and was happy to see that there were just two other anglers and that I could try and entice some very large carp from their surface cruising into tasting my carefully prepared luncheon meat or boilies.
We spent an afternoon with me trying all sorts of ways to get them to bite, with no success at all. Chatting with the other two anglers I learned that the main action was to be had after lights out and they even lent me some bait that had proven irresistible on the last two evenings.
We had enjoyed a pub lunch on our way so tea was made up of sandwiches that Maggie kindly prepared and even brought to me at the water’s edge. She wandered back to the warmth of the caravan while I settled down for the night. I wasn’t sure if I would stay all night long, but I was determined to try a few hours in the dark to lay the ghosts of that previous teenage foray and see if it was as productive as I had been told by many of the carp men I had chatted to over many years. This time I was prepared with good warm clothing, a brolly, a large torch and a caravan to retreat to if it did get too cold or scary.
Within an hour of darkness falling I found one thing seems common to lakesides everywhere. At night the rats come out to play. This time they ran up and down the shore but I was sufficiently above the bank no to be too worried by them. Rats are very clever critters and to be admired in many ways, but still evoke a primitive reaction. I may admire them in principle, but close encounters still send primeval shivers down my spine.
The night went on and I ran out of nibbles, found the cold still had ways of invading the chinks in my cold weather gear and that the steady drizzle dampened my spirits. Furthermore, as I sat trying to decide whether to ‘call it a day’ (despite it being night), I slowly became aware of a niggle of the dental kind.
I decided that, for whatever reason, night fishing is not for me. Slowly I began to pack away my gear until finally hauling in my untouched baited hook and slogging back to the lights of the caravan before midnight.
Maggie was more than understanding and even offered to cook me supper, which I declined, opting instead for a couple of paracetamols to settle the dull ache that now beset my front teeth. We settled down for the night, but not for long. By two in the morning the dull ache had become a roaring torrent of pain that nothing would dampen. The painkillers did nothing so Maggie re-invented the hot water bottle by pouring near boiling water into a screw-top bottle that she wrapped in a tea-towel so I could apply it to the affected area without scalding my skin. Unable to resist I poked and pried at my gum with toothpicks and held the ‘hottie’ to my jaw all to no avail. My face began to swell. Sleep was out of the question and I paced the caravan trying to find a route away from the pain.
It was early Sunday morning when we quickly packed the car and headed back for home. There was no point staying longer and I was already worried that if things got worse I could not concentrate sufficiently to drive safely. Even so I admit to taking advantage of the lack of traffic at that time of day and taking my chances with the speed cameras on the motorway.
Have you ever tried to get a dentist on a Sunday? I had no choice but to go to the local casualty hospital where they prescribed antibiotics and strong painkillers to see me though another night before a dentist could help. I was at my dentist’s surgery door as his assistant opened up the next day and by 0900, despite the ineffectiveness of the Novocain my tooth had been drilled to allow the abscess to drain.
They say that one must suffer for one’s art but it seems to me that a pastime is all about relieving suffering and avoiding the cares of the world of work or the exigencies of emotional life. I see no point in a hobby that causes fear and pain and, so far, night fishing has only given me such suffering and never even troubled my pleasure centres one whit.
I’ll stick to the wonder of daylight nature and the excitement of watching a float.