21 December 2016 (Wednesday) - Pike (?) Fishing



I woke rather early, and once up I tiddled the dogs. Both then wanted to go upstairs to bother "er indoors TM". "Furry Shark TM" charged up under her own steam, I had to carry "Furry Face TM". Since he’s taken to eating the high-calorie puppy food he’s piled on the pounds and climbing the stairs is a bit much for him.
My SkyPlus box had recorded another episode of Dad’s Army so I watched that over brekkie, then got my fishing gear together and drove round to collect "My Boy TM".

We had a spot of brekkie then drove down to the canal at Kenardington. We’d been planning a spot of pike fishing for months. Imagine our disappointment when we found the canal was empty. Yes – empty. Someone must have opened the sluice gates; where once the canal was ten yards wide today it was an expanse of mud with a trickle of water which was barely two yards wide and one foot deep. It was utterly unfishable, so we resorted to our backup plan; Shirkoak lake.

According to the information sign the gate to Shirkoak lake is opened at 7am every morning. We got there at 8am to find it locked. We rang the enquiries phone number but it went to answerphone. Thirteen times. We walked up to the nearby farmhouse where the fishery owner lives. There was no sign of life. We had little option but to try Chequertree fishery.

We were soon at Chequertree. We set up and started fishing. Fishing was slow; but what do you expect for the shortest day of the year? Dan had caught seven before I caught my first, but I eventually got going. We both eventually lost count of how many we had, but using our usual criteria of counting species I won by seven distinct types of fish (perch, dace, rudd, roach, common carp, mirror carp and crucian carp) to five. Mind you "My Boy TM" did catch a goldfish. We’d neither of us seen that done before, let alone done it ourselves.
The weather forecast for the day hadn’t been good. We’d gone along expecting rain for the morning, and rain came. It stopped for a brief spell around mid-day but soon came back. There was a minor disaster when we found that the stake for the brolly didn’t actually fit. By 2pm we were both rather cold and wet and decided to call it a day. I took a few photos whilst we were out. I would have taken more but I wasn’t keen on having my phone out in the rain.

Once home I ran the dogs round the block then watched the last episode of “The Young Pope” whilst the dogs got into mischief. I understand that there is to be a second series of that show. I’ll be interested to see how that pans out seeing how he croaked in today’s episode.
I then had a little doze in front of the telly. Despite having got cold and wet on the shortest day of the year I still somehow caught the sun.

"er indoors TM" boiled up a rather good bit of tea, and then Charlotte came round and we spent the evening getting savaged by "Furry Shark TM"… not a bad way to spend the evening.

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