The Curse Of The Woolly Jumper.

First of all, I'd like to say a genuine and heartfelt thank you to everyone for the kind words about our Dad, both on the blog and in real life, it means everything to us that he meant so much to so many people. 

 

The fish are just a bonus when the world looks like this.

It's a good job Dad taught me to stop and appreciate nature whilst fishing,
 if it was solely about catching fish, I'd be a miserable sod fishing this place!

  Since Dad left us, I’ve managed eight trips down to my local syndicate water, first a couple of quick morning sessions after the elusive, but sizeable perch that live there, then a switch over to do six day sessions for the tench. I’ve only done one previous spring season on this lake fishing for the tench, and from what I remember, and my diary entries, I caught fish pretty much every time I cast a line into the water. This season has been very, very different. The perch fishing almost went completely by the wayside this year as I was busy either looking after dad, or helping to organise the funeral and everything that goes with that, so it was decided that I’d skip that and go straight after the tench, easy right? Important to note at this point that I have been wearing my dad’s favourite fishing jumper on every single occasion, not entirely sure why, it just makes me feel like he’s still with me. When I look back at all of the really big or really special fish that I’ve caught in my life, he was always the one who slid the net under them for me, followed by a fist bump and a big smile, I know that he can’t do that for me anymore, but this jumper is the next best thing. I have become convinced that the old man has been jinxing me via the jumper, purely because he thinks it's funny.

As I sat by that lake yesterday morning, I was six days into this seasons efforts after these tench without so much as a bleep from any of my alarms, so it was a most welcome surprise when my right-hand Delkim sprang into life at 12pm, after a nerve-wracking fight, legs shaking, I managed to slide the net under the first tench of the season, I finally broke the jinx. Not a huge tench by the standards of this place, but it means a hell of a lot to me. You can tell that Dad didn't take that photo, he would have told me to sort my hands out and get my fingers out of the picture. 

7lb 2oz of most welcome gravel pit tench.

I know people will blame the slow fishing this year on the never-ending easterly winds, the cold nights, the clear water, the lack of weed cover etc etc, but it’s definitely this jumper. I am going to continue to wear it still, no matter what. I'll keep updating the blog as the season goes on, I'm already thinking about targeting the unknown population of eels in there.

I have one last thing to say at this point,

I’m really going to miss that soppy old sod. 

Benno.