Outfished By An Eight Year Old

[comanche 3,103]

With our local mill-stream settled after the recent rain and the end of the season looming it seemed an ideal excuse to spend a few hours on the bank with middle grandchild.

I took my wonky old cane rod and centre pin to add a touch of "Mr Crabtree" to proceedings while Den stuck to his Poundland gear. What was planned as a quick dabble turned into a marathon session as just about every spot we tried yielded fish .

 

Some were tiddlers-little perch and gudgeon- but bearing in mind the stream is barely ten feet across in most places and consists of long shallow stretches of gravel with just the odd hole up to a couple of feet deep we had some quite decent fish between us . Well Den had most of em. I spent most of the time unhooking his catch .

 

The biggest surprise was the number of jack-pike about. Between us we had half a dozen. Tackling Den up with a wire trace accounted for a couple using wobbled deadbaits but Sod's Law it was my worms and maggots on 2.5lbs line that scored best-albeit unintentionally. Amazingly I only had one bite-off and Den caught the pike responsible a little later -easily recognised by the fact that it still had my size 14 in its mouth.

 

Apart from the small stuff and pike we caught some chunky hybrids and I managed a two pound chub which the lad netted for me in fine style.

Variety came in the form of a dog lead which took a worm but once clear of the bottom gave a very poor account of itself and a passing West Highland White which pinched our bread and would have had Den's biscuits if he hadn't been so protective about them.

I finally delivered him home with a bag of chips and a big smile well past his bed-time,but that surely is what grand-dads are for .

Edited March 13, 2015 by comanche

[leethedog 3,071]

Brilliant it's those special times like that that he will remember gonna get my lad on the bank this year atb

[bunny tickler 876]

great days fishing made even better by haveing the young un with you i wish i had a wee stream like that around by me

[sussex 5,801]

Excellent write up mate , well done to you both ..

[Furry chaser 17]

Excellent write up mate , hopefully the first of many sessions .

[J Darcy 5,871]

Awesome.......it's nice to see a gudgeon too...

[luckyplum 50]

wonderfull times! thats the way to bring up children, i taught both my son and nephews to fish and they all love it.one story comes to mind seeing your pictures of when my son was about your grandsons age and we were fishing a local lake me in one swim my boy in the next, he got tangled so we changed swims so that i could sort his gear out. in the time it took me to sort his gear out he landed two lovely big bream on my gear in my swim!i took a picture which was displayed in the tackle shop who owned the lake for ages, happy days and tight lines,cheers plum !

[Hydropotesinermis 724]

Absolutely brilliant.

 

Well done you and your lad.

[Lid 194]

Fantastic. Well done both.

[comanche 3,103]

Awesome.......it's nice to see a gudgeon too...

They used to swarm in this stream when I was a kid, along with stone loach and bullheads, but -and its only my theory - the nature of the river changed when a load of crap-sorry carp- escaped from the mill-pond in a flood.

I'm pretty sure they hoovered up the spawn of these tiddler species as they became pretty scarce for a long time though remained common in some of the feeder streams where there were no carp. The carp have been shifted downstream to the main river over the years and the gudgeon and loach are making a come-back.

Only circumstantial evidence but food for thought.

[mackem 28,210]

Excellent read and the boy will remember it for life,good man,but one question?......................What happened to the dog-fish?

[tomburras 2,730]

Superb! You can't beat fishing small rivers and streams so much fun. Looks like a great spot there and some great fish. You got me itching to go fishing now lol.

[bunny tickler 876]

ah pikeski good to knowski good to eatski

[Bunnyblatter 1,012]

Fantastic mate. I bet the lad loved it. Hooked for life if you pardon the pun

[northern lad 2,292]

Cracking read matey That's what fishings all about........how anybody could sit on a commercial yanking F1s all day after reading that I don't know.The amount of unfished waters round here is growing apace,abandoned by the faithfull for carp puddles My only solace in the demise of "normal" fishing is in the fact that natural fish stocks should improve without the pressure of fishing,and the fact I can now enjoy solitude on previously busy waters Well done little man for kicking granddads arse