Two edited extracts from How To Fish by Chris Yates, which appeared in the September 9th and 16th editions of the Telegraph Weekend Magazine.
September 9th
The First Cast is the Deepest
September: one of the loveliest and most generous months in the angler’s calendar. The lengthening nights, heavy dews and the cooler mornings and evenings remind the fish that the summer is almost over and they must grab what they can before winter comes.
In a few weeks’ time, after the equinox and the first serious weather of the year, the river will be transformed from a chain of quiet, secretive pools into a deeper, stronger and continuous flow. All the midstream vegetation will be swept away and the fish will have to change their habits and their haunts.
Changing habits and haunts at the end of summer was something I did all through my formative years, just like everyone else, so maybe my urge to explore new territory today is prompted by a conditioned reflex. Sixteen slightly intimidating Sepembers, each one confronting me with new classrooms, new tutors, new books and new problems, must have left their mark. Alternatively I am seeking new water because of a genetic memory, an echo from those millennia when, every autumn, my ancestors followed the migrating herds southwards.
Heading upstream, I naturally had more chance of spotting fish as I was approaching them from behind; however, the rising sun threw a long shadow ahead of me and, at a turn in the river, it must have been cast across a group of chub because there was a sudden plunging splash. Until that moment, all I had seen since I'd arrived were shoals of minnows flickering through the few weed-free, shallower glides and it was reassuring to be startled by such a walloping commotion. Years ago, when I was a chub devotee, I would have waited all day just for a glimpse of one of those creatures, but today I'm not really interested in them: I have another, more resplendent, fish on my mind.
Fifty yards after the chub hole, I came to a seductive, willow-shrouded pool that seemed to possess all the features I'd been looking for: a shelving riverbed where a steady current slowed and divided around the remains of a sunken tree, the main flow deflected over to the far bank, the rest coming round in a slow idling whirl beneath the overhanging willows. However impatient l am to get to the river, if I’m not completely familiar with it and it refuses to make any promises, hours can pass before I finally decide where to make my first cast.
But once I’ve chosen the place it’s a matter of life and death that I cast immediately. All my expectations, frustrations, all the pretence about being happy doing other things in the days I wasn’t fishing — everything is resolved as soon as the line is in the water and I’m reconnected with reality.
My bait slowly sank into the depths of midstream and I checked its descent by gently tensioning the line so that the worm would come round into the underbank eddy where I thought the fish might be waiting.
First cast into an undiscovered, unknown pool; anything could be down there; anything could happen. The line twitched, began to tighten, fell slack, twitched, fell slack once more. Minnows? Chublets? Even before the line moved I sensed the river might have deceived me with this perfect-looking place; it was perhaps too obviously a lair or a santuary for a big fish. Later in the season when the heavier currents made any deep backflow more appealing, it would almost certainly hold something rod-splitting, but today the river's generally slow pace made it suddenly seem, contrary to my first impression, just too soporific. Finally the line made a steady decisive movement and I upped sharply with the rod tip - and reeled in a bare hook.
Almost certainly a minnow, I thought, or, more likely, a dozen minnows all fighting over one worm. I re-baited and cast again - the second cast less urgent, more leisurely, more considered than the first. Minnows, I told myself, were a sign of a healthy river and, despite their worm-whittling presence in my pool, there was still a chance that bigger fish were lurking nearby.
Once more the line began to hesitantly tighten and slacken as soon as the bait sank to the bottom. Then, again, the steadier draw, but this time I connected - and the curving rod tip told me it definitely wasn't a minnow. Something went round deep down in a couple of tight circles, but though my old cane rod remained nicely bent not an inch of line clicked off the reel and I eased the fish towards me.
I was sure I recognised the soft thump of the tail stroke and identity was confirmed when it swirled and skittered on the surface, showing a lovely blue flank. Mixed up in the spray, the bright red fins looked like radiating beams of light. It came over the net without any more fuss; I hoisted it ashore, dampened my hands on the wet mesh, quickly unhooked it, guessed it at a pound and a quarter and skipped it back into its home - the first roach of the season, but an accidental one.
September 16th
Catch Me If You Can
A full September moon - when visible - is an impressive sight, simply because it's so much more dominant than the preceding summer moons, which ride a much lower arc in the southern sky. The October moon will be higher again, so, though the evenings are closing in, the periods of brighter moonlight must affect the feeding times of a big-eyed fish such as the perch. However, whenever the subject of fishing by moonlight is discussed, there seems to be a general pessimism, the consensus being that a bright moon puts the fish down. But I have landed some great catches by moonlight. One of the best hauls of barbel I ever had was under a brilliant January moon, when the fish were clearly visible as they rolled on the surface, I could even see the little silver ripple that my line made in the water.
I remember once meeting an angler who, rather than being keen on a particular species or obsessed by a personal Moby Dick, was in thrall to the moon. He wasn’t in the least romantic about it — his was a scientific passion. He was convinced that every single moment of a fishing day was not so much influenced as governed by the moon. I told him that, if the moon can heave an ocean halfway up a cliff, it can obviously cause a measurable shift in the waters of a lake or river. It must also subtly affect the buoyancy of a fish; but only a true lunatic would calculate his every cast according to the influence of its gravity.
Fishing in moonlight shouldn’t, anyway, have to be reduced to an exercise in scientific theory; it should be more an appreciation of mysterious scene shifting and if a fish gleams into view, let it be regarded only as a needle to stitch the magic together.
About this time last year, I went fishing on the evening of a full moon and became so absorbed in the river that, when the moon appeared, I didn’t recognise it.
I arrived at the waterside an hour or two before sunset, thinking that the perch would probably begin to feed in earnest at dusk. There was more strength in the current than today, but the river was still clinging to most of its summer growth. I fished my way downstream, getting a small — a very small — fish on my second cast, then hooking and losing a much bigger one. My nose twitched when I was walking along a high bank towards a usually productive pool. I hesitated a moment, then flipped out the bait.
The sun was setting; every colour was smudging towards blue or gold, while the river seemed to be softening from liquid to velvet. The high bank made for awkward fishing, mainly because I had to keep low to stop myself being skylined. There were too many reeds to use a float, so I just fished free-line, letting the worm drift into the narrow clear channels. Being up above the bankside vegetation, however, meant I had a better view of my surroundings, which was why I became aware of a dull amber dome beyond the eastern tree line. For a moment I couldn’t understand what I was looking at. The colour was so deep and the object seemed so close that it couldn't have been anything other than an anchored hot-air balloon or a weird, circus-sized tent. Then I refocused properly and, as it rose gradually out of the trees, I wondered for the umpteenth time why proximity to the horizon should make the moon appear much larger when it's high overhead. It was the heavy, lustreless colour that, for a moment, convinced me it was earthbound. As it rose the amber brightened into gold, then pearl, then a radiant white that created a whole new world of shadows.
Something snicked at the line and made me jump. I struck and reeled in a fabulous gudgeon that must have weighed all of two ounces. He glinted at me in the moonglow and I could even see the speckles in his silver sides. Having plopped him back, I went down to the broader, more open pool that I'd intended to fish in the first place. I'd not long cast into it, however, when I felt a cold, chilling movement of air and within a few minutes a river mist began to form. All the brittle silhouettes of reeds and overhanging trees thinned into ghosts, and as the mist thickened, spilling over the banks, I almost lost sight of the water altogether. Only the vague reflection of the moon kept it in view.
I'm sure it wasn't because of the moon that I didn't get any more chances. Water may take much longer to cool than air, but if the process begins abruptly - and it was a very sudden chill - the cold-blooded fish usually respond in a cold-shouldering manner.
My hands became numb and I could feel the dank evening crawling down my back. I soon realised that unless I got bored with the fishing I would surely die. Also, it once happened, after I fished too long on a night of dense mist, that I got hopelessly lost trying to cross an open field, ending up going round in impossible circles and twice almost falling in. But last September was different because, when I finally walked away from the river, the moon was looking down over the head-high fog, guiding me safely home.