Careering Through Nature: The Eye of the Fisherman

Monday 21 March 2016

The Eye of the Fisherman

This afternoon took me through the cemetery and around the two lakes to see whatever I might see.

We are into another transition time in the cemetery. The crocuses and some of the mini daffodils are past their best, and instead we have large patches dominated by squill and primrose. Hyacinth is appearing, and also the first stirrings from naughty spanish bluebell, with their flowers pointing in all directions.

A treecreeper put on a show for me; you'll see photographs of that separately. I hope they are good enough.

The day's top encounter occurred about halfway around the Balderton Blue Lake. I noticed a fisherman with his rod bent in half, landing what was very evidently a rather large common carp. Nothing too unusual about this, although I've never seen anyone land a fish of that size from this lake before, but his method was.

He was a stalker, a fisherman with eyes good enough to see specific fish and target them. He was riding around the lake on a bicycle with his rod ready to go, when he spotted two big carp from yards away while whizzing past. He then jumped down from his bike, attached a lump of bread to his line - no float or weights - cast it over the fishes nose, and watched it take the bait in a matter of seconds.

He landed it quickly, photographed it himself while kindly allowing me to do so, and had the fish back in the water in under two minutes. Now I have very mixed feelings about fishing, but I could not deny this angler's attention to the welfare of the fish.

He even put it on a sort of fish sofa while he snapped it!

So that was today's exercise, a slightly lazy 8km walk after a slow start. But, it was worth it.

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.03.16