No Day Tickets

It's strange where you end up fishing sometimes. This thought comes to me as I flick a Mepps No. 2 at the green plastic bottle that floats serenely down the middle of the canal. It bounces off the plastic with a satisfying 'plink'. My aim, I reflect,  is improving, but I really should take the day more seriously. Perhaps then I would actually catch something (other than amoebic dysentery).

It's strange where you end up fishing. Rewind to 7am and I'm bowling up the M1 in my veteran campervan without a care in the world. The sun is shining, the engine is purring and the wind is playfully ruffling my hair.. WAIT! I haven't opened a window!? This sudden realisation is accompanied by the sound of my nearside fanlight flapping dementedly about before the wind finally rips it straight off and flings it back down the motorway. It had looked closed but it must have been left unlatched. Fortunately the carriage is clear. Now all I have is a window shaped hole in the hightop. Lucky it isn't raining.

All of which has knocked me off plan, changed the course of my day. The original intention was to drive to Nottingham for a quick fitting of a new fridge, then a sneaky bit of trad' lure fishing on the way home. I have a lovely glass spinning rod by H.W Aiken of London that needs baptising and today seemed a good opportunity. Except that now, because of my motorway calamity, I have to leave them the van all day to fix. So I have some time on my hands in Nottingham.

A quick squint through the idiot goggles throws up a nice looking canal just over the border in Derbyshire, and day tickets, it seems, are available - not that I expect to meet anyone much on the tow path. So I jump in a taxi, in a tangle of tackle, rod bag serving as an impromptu face covering. (Did you know, a traditional cloth rod bag also makes a very fine scarf indeed? I discovered this once on a bitterly cold winter pike foray.)

I give the driver the postcode from the website, he says he knows just where I mean to fish and drops me off in a lay-by somewhere. Nearby is a rather lovely looking lily-fringed pool with a spit of water running parallel. It didn't look this nice on the website. Things are looking up, although I'm surprised though to see so many angler's congregating. And I can't see a canal. I ask two old fellas where it is.  They exchange glances and say I'm standing by it. This confuses me because I believed the canal to be an open-ended continuum, not a dead end, but still the penny has yet to drop. I decide to forge ahead, away from scrutiny, but I can feel two pairs of eyes boring into my back as curiosity  hardens to downright suspicion.

After about fifty yards I stop, put up my rod and begin threading my line. I'm just poking through my old tin for some perch-appropriate metalwear when two voices chime from behind. 'Have you got your membership?' They've followed me up the tow path. No I say but I understand I can buy a day ticket on the bank? No day tickets here I'm told by two mouths set in a determined way. 'But the website said..' even I can detect the slightly pleading tone in my voice. 'The thing is you see, the thing is.. ' - somehow these old boys have regressed me back into that ten year old caught scrumping in Mr Wilson's orchard. 'Well what happened was my window fell off on the motorway. It was blown off actually and I was only coming here for a fridge.' The nearest one leans in a little closer, squinting at me as if I'm some newly discovered species. 'So I have the day to kill, as it were, and I thought having driven all the way from Buckinghamshire it would be a lovely chance to fish here on the canal.' My friends digest this latest information.  'I've no car' I add. They exchange another glance. 'No day tickets here' they tell me in unison, but just then one of them spots my old glass rod and Mitchell reel. At once I can feel the mood lighten. You can judge a man by his shoes it is said, or it seems by his tackle too. Pressing home my advantage I ask 'If there was a day ticket to be had how much would it cost?' while simultaneously pulling a tenner from my wallet. 'No day tickets here!'  Well you can't knock their consistency.

After some further discussion it transpires that I'm not on the right canal at all. I've been dropped off by the taxi driver about five miles short of my real destination. 'Look can't you just pretend you haven't seen me, I mean I've driven such a long way and I've no transport now because the garage is fixing my van and I'm happy to make a donation to your club..'

Before they can say it,  I'm back at the lay-by now telling the taxi firm that I have no idea where I am but they'd better bloody well send a car and pick me up because they've dropped me off in entirely the wrong place. So an hour later and here I am. Where there were water lilies now there is just urban detritus. Every lock is defaced with graffiti. It's not even good graffiti. I read later that every lock had been left open recently by some wag so that an entire stretch of the canal drained completely, leaving fish flapping about in the mud and the junk. I feel like I'm angling in dystopia.

But, while the graffiti remains, the canal gradually takes on a slightly more pastoral air, while if not entirely bucolic, is pleasant enough. And there are fish. Chub, roach, rudd, perch, pike and here's the thing - they are all unusually small, every single one. I don't see a single fish of any species bigger than 6 ounces. Save for the roach and rudd I do end up with one of each coming to my spinner. Both the chublet and pikelet come unstuck but a juvenile perch does come to hand. Some how though it doesn't feel right fishing in this blighted kindergarten, so I lose heart, and begin using the flotsam for target practice, just for something to do. It's strange where you end up fishing sometimes