Its half past four and dawn is breaking and I`m pottering in the kitchen, only a nutcase would be about at this time of day without being
forced, well hello. This routine has been honed to perfection over many years and my executive gentleman`s carriage is quickly loaded
without fuss. As per usual the old girl fires up first time and I spend a few seconds listening to the hum of Stuttgart`s engineering excellence.
The sausage eaters may have invaded Poland and bombed Stan Boardman`s chip shop but they do know how to build a motor car.
My destination is a small but pretty lake on the outskirts of Ashford and the journey takes just ten minutes, a couple of hours later and it
will take forty. I have the place to myself, tench are the quarry and my outfit is the same as for the estate lake but after catching numerous
small tench I am obviously overgunned. A couple of decent roach lifts my spirits, the roach in this water are truly beautiful and I can only
think they have some river in their genes as they are almost chub like in their shape.
I am using a red topped quill, I will never use anything else when targeting tench. Ledgering for these wonderful fish is sacrilege and I will
leave this unholy practice to others, as for those who use electronic bite indicators I hope their souls burn in hell.
Things go quiet for a while and then the crucians kick in, I have about twenty before home time. Now crucians look like fish and smell like
fish but for some reason they remind me of a teddy bear and even though on the small side they are deceptively powerful. I have been
fortunate to catch three crucians about two and a half pounds from a pond at Woodchurch {could even have been the same fish} and they
are as strong as any wildie.
I make my way back to the car and there is another parked next to mine, never saw anyone else and he would have had to have walked past
my swim but obviously never said hello. Perhaps he doesn`t like me {yes I find that hard to believe as well}, the drive home takes me past
the roadworks at J10 on the M20. The unspeakable things we are doing to mother Earth just so we can scuttle from A to B just that little bit
quicker, we do not need smarter motorways we need some smarter highway planners.
