North Yorkshire Fish-In

27th – 29th June 2008

Dave Smith

It’s a long drive up to North Yorkshire and with the price of diesel now over £1.30 a litre and petrol heading rapidly towards £1.20, quite an expensive trip, and it showed in the attendance with just four Eel anglers in attendance.

Steve Gardner making the 75mile trip from Oldham was first to arrive and settled into a far bank swim after being told by the owner that all the big Eels come from that area. Roy Piggott followed shortly after, driving the 115 miles from Derby and settling in to a swim on a section sticking out into the main body of the lake, I arrived at around 14:30 looking over the pond from the car park I was drawn to the field bank unfortunately only one swim on the field bank was fishable with a bivvy and a carp angler had made that his home for the week end. Most of the other areas I liked the look of where either taken by carp anglers or where restricted because a carp angler was in a close swim with lines in the water at various angles. Finally I decided on a swim in a bay created by the section sticking out into the lake where Roy was making home on. Quite literally as he was collecting scaffold boards from the car park and laying decking that Tommy Walsh would have been proud of, Well it was a bit muddy on the point! Driving the 160 miles up from the Midlands was an arduous task especially as a lorry had managed to drop it’s load over the M1 and block four lanes…as I erected the bivvy in the rain (always the bloody way it was nice and sunny until I get the gear out of the car then it starts raining before I get the bivvy up!) Nick Rose was sat in the same traffic that had hindered both Roy and myself. Nick finally arrived at 15:30 and set up fishing into the new part of the lake looking out towards an island and a small reedlined bay.

Once settled in bait we set about catching some bait which didn’t prove easy not that it was difficult to catch on the waggler rods but the size was too big as quite a few half pound roach came to our nets, finally a few small perch and skimmers where caught. And sufficient bait for the night was caught.

So who was to catch the first Eel of the fish-in. well Nick had managed to catch a few small rudd, and it was the tail section fished off bottom which was to signal Eel activity first, Nick’s Delkim came to life at around 10pm but the run stopped and Nick recast his bait to the same spot, and just a few short minutes later a small Eel was lying on the unhooking mat. My rods where next to signal a take and at 01:30 my first NAC Eel was caught, after seven blank sessions on local waters it was more than welcome. Even if it did prove to be the smallest at only half a pound… small but perfectly formed!
No other Eels where caught that first night though Pike and Bream where caught by Roy and Nick.

The second day came and went quite quickly… this was my first NAC fish-in so I didn’t really know what to expect… I’d heard the stories of members sleeping with dead rudd, and the legendary beer drinking that went on but none of that happened, at least I hope not I never did check that sleeping bag!
Instead the highlight was watching small toads walking past the front of the bivvy and being broke by a largish Tench while failing miserably to catch bait for the second night. Up until this year I’ve always fished alone so it made a nice change to fish with others, and Nick makes a nice cup of tea or three as we sat around discussing our plans of attack for the second night.

As darkness fell my confidence was boosted by two missed takes on my worm rod but that was my lot, and a good nights sleep followed. Fortunately Roy and Steve both had their sleep interrupted, Roy by a 1.09 Eel and Steve showing us all how it’s done by catching a magnificent 6.04 on a Bream head. And that was it four Eels to four members biggest Steve’s 6.04 and smallest my baby at only half a pound. And so we departed having drove 1010 miles between us.

Hopefully more of you can make the Northampton Fish-in in August, you never know you just might catch the Eel of your dreams, but even if you don’t spending time in the company of other Eel anglers having a chat over a cup of tea or can of beer and putting he world to rights has got to be better than sitting at home watching Coronation Street….. look forward to seeing you there..

Dave Smith