Laziness

As a young fella I tried my level best to cram in all of the seven the deadly sins most weekends. I damn near succeeded on a few occasions but these days I set my sights much lower and can really only be justifiably accused of laziness. I’m not talking about spending each day in bed, neglecting personal hygiene or any such dire lapses of judgement. No, I get lazy around my fishing and am always looking for ways of reducing the effort I put into my angling to a bare minimum. Needless to say, this rarely works out in my favour.

Hot weather this week coupled with a seemingly never ending easterly wind put me right off the idea of doing any trout fishing so instead I headed up to the Royal canal on Monday after work. This is becoming something of a habit for me and I find the Royal is kinder to me than the Grand canal to the south. Across into county Longford and on past Ballymahon to a wide basin at Ballybrannigan under a sky that spoke of thunder coming this way. Car parked I tried to logically assess where the fish might be but that small bit of mental exercise sapped the last vestiges of energy from me and so I just set up where I stood in the shadow of an abandoned ruin.

There was only one rod in my armoury, 13 feet of Nordic carbon fibre which looked like it had had a rough life. Not bothering to bring a feeder rod with me was a decision taken to reduce hassle for myself. The feeder rarely catches me many fish on the Royal so it was left a home. I tried to kid myself this was a smart tactical move but deep down I knew it was me being lazy again. I mucked about mixing the leftovers of three different bags of assorted groundbait and lobbed the balls into a swim a rod length out. Don’t ask me what the three different ground baits were, I had picked them just to use them up rather than any great scientific logic. Loose fed maggots over the top added a bit of sanity to the proceedings.

The rod was strung in seconds as it was still rigged from my last outing. Pulling at the hook length before I started turned out to be justified as the knot failed when I applied a sharp tug on it. Dropping a size, I tied on a size 14 barbless, baited up with three lively maggots then rested my weary bones on my stool. The sun beat down and the wind blew strongly enough to ripple the surface of the sleepy canal. After yet another tough day in the office this was sheer bliss.

Maybe 20 minutes or so had slipped away as I sat in the golden light before the float was pulled under and the first fish of the evening came to hand, a pretty little perch. Two more followed, one of them a nice fish of close to a pound in weight. It went quiet again for a short spell before the rudd showed up. The Royal is home to some huge rudd but none of the ones I was hooking were anything to write home about.

The pattern of quiet spells interspersed with busy rudd/perch/hybrid bites kept up. Should I have tried to optimise my end rig? Yes, I most assuredly should have but I could not be bothered. Instead I sat there and whipped in the odd fish or just enjoyed the warm air and birdsong. My mate Vincent called and we chatted on the phone about the lack of salmon in the west, the dreadfully low water and other matters around our joint love of angling. As we talked the well worn float slid under the glassy surface and I lifted into a nice tench. Putting Vincent on hold, I netted the fish and could see the poor thing had been in a tussle with a pike. All down the right flank of the fish was ripped and gashed. Still red, I thought the wounds were fresh but upon examination it turned out they were healing and and the redness was scar tissue. The ability of some fish to survive horrendous injuries is amazing and judging by the fight this fish put up it was on the road to a full recovery. I lowered the tench back in to the canal gently and off it swam, back to the cover of the weeds where it had come from.

By now I could see some tell-tale bubbles from feeding tench quite close in. The last of my ground bait went in, rolled into small balls to reduce any disturbance when they hit the water. Some small rudd showed their appreciation by gobbling up my maggots but then the float moved off before plunging down. This second tench was a lovely fish which put up a great scrap before sliding into the meshes. In contrast to its predecessor, this one was fin perfect. A perfect example of an Irish tench.

That fish was the last action for the evening as hunger drove me to pack up and head back to the digs for a bit of nutrition. Who knows, I might have landed a few more tench if I had stayed on but I lack the willpower for long sessions, especially ones on an empty stomach. There were some maggots left over…………

Roll forward to Wednesday evening and the thunder of the previous days had dissipated, at least for now. Looking for a new venue just seemed to be hard work so I opted for the Royal again, this time at the village of Abbeyshrule. Here, the canal comes within spitting distance of the river Inny as they both kiss the edge of the hamlet. Not knowing any better, I parked outside the church then crossed the road to find a spot on the towpath. First I looked to the east of the old stone bridge but the wind was coming from that direction. It would be hard work fishing there so I took the lazy man’s option of setting up on the other side of the bridge where there was some shelter.

Out came the same float rod, replete with the same reel and the same float and even the same hook length. Soon I was fishing again but just loose feeding maggots and not bothering with ground bait. A Polish angler wandered over to me but his English was poor (and my Polish non-existent) so we we could say little to each other. He sat on a nearby bench and watched me at work. The very first cast I hooked and promptly lost a good rudd or roach (I didn’t get it close enough to identify it). The second cast I did exactly the same thing, much to the disgust of my audience. I took these quickfire failures as a sign that even I had to take some action so I cut off the hook link and tied on a new one with a similar sized hook.

That astute change resulted in a total lack of any bites of course. Ah well, it was a glorious evening again so I just relaxed and took in my surroundings. A kids playpark behind me was the source of much hilarity. Above me, a rookery was alive with cawing birds while the towpath yielded a steady stream of walkers who gently enquired if I had caught anything. The odd tiny rudd dimpled the otherwise calm surface but the world felt sleepy; drunk on sunshine and the smell of new cut grass. I kept up a steady stream of loose fed maggots in the hope that something fishy might come along.

Finally, after maybe 30 or 40 minutes, I hooked and landed a good hybrid, then a perch , then a couple of rudd. The canal was wakening up as the sun ever-so-slowly sank in the western sky. A positive bite resulted in a fair old bend in the rod and a fish took a little bit of line off the reel. I can’t say this was an epic battle but the rudd certainly did not want to come to the net. He dashed around and refused to settle down. Into the net he slipped though and I had in my possession and wonderful fish of close to two pounds I’d say. Even my watcher on the bench was impressed and gave me the thumbs up and a deep throated ‘GUUD’. With that, I released the whopping great rudd and thanked my lucky stars I had changed the hook link earlier.

After that I sank back into my torpor, neither overly concerned about catching anything else nor bothering to address the need to get back to to my digs to eat, shower and have an early night. I just sat there as the light dimmed and fished on in that glow of a happiness only anglers know. Some other fish came and went, little ones mainly but another good hybrid fell for the alluring maggots on my size fourteen. When the final red and white wrigglers had been scooped out of the bait box, I could put the end of the session off no longer. Packing up only one set of gear is the way forward for me I think. In seconds I went from fishing to walking back to the church where a steaming hot car awaited me.

I am not entirely sure that laziness deserves its place as one of the deadly sins. Maybe idleness does have its place in society? I need to sit back and consider this further, preferably while holding a fishing rod on the side of an Irish canal.