A Day with Dad...

Shocking really, to think that this weekend’s trip was the first time I’d taken Dad fishing. Having said that, with the new addition to the family fishing time has been much tighter to that of previous years. Nevertheless, I should still have found the time for a little session with Dad, he loves fishing and being a non-driver kind if relies on me.

Originally we were due to fish Headlands, Dad could catch a few carp and I could target the perch, but at the last moment I opted to switch to Vale Farm, one of my favourite day ticket waters and somewhere new for Dad, its lovely fishing somewhere for the very first time, especially somewhere as lovely as Vale farm.

I got to Dad’s around half five, made a flask of coffee and bundled the tackle into the car. We were on our way by six and drove the forty minute journey through pockets of fog which made the journey feel very atmospheric ad added to the excitement. We got there a little before seven and found a handful of cars already there, although they were folk who had been there all night.

The first thing we noticed when exiting the car was how cold it was, the car told us it was 3.5 degrees and it felt very chilly. It did mean, however, that the lakes looked amazing, full of mist and with carp splashing around in various places we couldn’t get going quickly enough.



We chose a couple of swims close together on the middle pond to start with; we had big willows either side of us and felt sure the carp would be hiding under them. I set Dad up with a newly acquired 11ft glass avon rod, a small fixed spool reel and soon he was watching a float tip which sat a foot or so from the willow fronds. Before I could get my rod out of the bag he was into the first carp of the day and he smiled wonderfully for the camera.



Once my rod was assembled I began fishing crust across to the island close to another willow tree and was soon rewarded with a nice common which fought like a tiger. Until I saw the fish I was sure it was something very big, but what it lacked in size it more than made up with character and energy.



Dad went on to catch two perch of around 8oz apiece, on luncheon meat! He missed a few bites too and after seeing me have some action with surface baits he asked me to rig him up to fish crust also. The willows here are great fish holding spots and with a few crusts just a rod length out either side of the weeping trees we sat back with a cup of coffee and waited for the fish to find the free offerings.



Carp began to surface, vortex swirls appeared at first followed by small carp snatching at the crusts, but we were waiting for the big lips that usually moved in after the scamps had their fill. Soon enough up came the better fish and after a missed strike by Dad I connected with an old common that didn’t much feel like going on a run and decided instead to just plod round and round for a few minutes before giving up.



After the common things went a little quiet. The sky had cleared but what followed was a downpour that had us rushing to get the brolly up and for the next ten minutes we were huddled underneath taking cover from the deluge. The rain subsided and with things still slow we decided on a move. The pond was getting busy with day anglers and the left hand pond had nobody fishing, so the decision was an easy one.



Almost immediately we had fish feeding, Dad went back to float fishing and I stuck with crust on the top. Dad sat concentrating on his float tip watching a series of dips and pulls, mostly due to the hordes of small roach and rudd, but also to our surprise, crayfish. The float eventually did slide away properly and with a small fish hooked he was certain he’d hooked a roach or similar. He couldn’t have been more wrong and the best looking fish of the day was brought to shore, perfection in miniature!



With the little stunner released and Dad’s swim going quiet we rigged him up once again for crust fishing and flanked the willow with one either side, which resulted in a flurry of action for both of us including a wonderful zip linear for Dad and a nice old scaly mirror for me along with a common with a lovely yellowy/gold colouration. This is what I love so much about Vale Farm, yes it can get busy at times, but with three ponds there is always a quiet corner you tuck yourself away in, and the fish are lovely, and grow to over thirty pounds too.







As always when you catch a few fish, the others seem to wise up and although they still feed, they do so in a very wary manner and seem somehow to avoid being captured. When this happens its best to move swims, so we carted the gear opposite us, now with the wind on our backs and managed to set up just in time to duck under the brolly once more and ride out another heavy shower. It gave us time to reflect upon the day, share a coffee and a blueberry muffin and work out the next move.

Once the rained passed over we scattered a few pieces of torn bread along the margin and patrolled up and down keeping low and quiet and soon spotted some interest. We noticed also that a bush close to the eater’s edge had started to shed some leaves, and that carp came up to investigate the leaves quite regularly, something very interesting I’d seen before but not really taken too much notice of.

By placing your crust next to a big leaf it was spotted by the carp quicker than if you didn’t fish next to a leaf and over the next hour or so, the last stretch of the session, we caught well with commons and mirrors, to the extent that we removed the bait when a small fish came sniffing in favour of the bigger specimens, almost selection he ones we wanted to catch.









At nearly four pm we started to reluctantly pack away, it was a superb day and wonderful to see Dad smile so much, he loved it. I promised him that I’d find a day on October to take him again, perhaps back to Vale, maybe somewhere else. He soon fell asleep and started to snore on the journey home, and once back home Mum presented us with two lovely roast dinners. What a perfect end to a perfect day.