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Dave Gladwell on Bales Nursery Lake at Ellingham and Highfield Fishery at Thorpe Abbotts

Well there is no real need these days to be stuck in the back garden or up to your ears in decorating just because it is the Closed Season for River Fishing. Gone are the days when the only escape was to head off to Ireland or Denmark in May to cast a line where the legislation was different from our own. True this is still a great time for doing all those jobs undone around the house and even more important - to overhaul our many items of tackle both large and small. Attention to minute rusty swivels and eroded hooks which can let you down are worthwhile.

Okay nobody has to sand down their old Spanish Reed or split cane Coarse rods and replace a few rusty rings with a bit of expert whipping these days either. Tackle has moved on and in lots of ways is much cheaper in relative terms to start up. My Alcock's Viking 11 ft cane rod with its Greenheart top joint cost £4. 3s. 6d in 1954 and was, from my 12 shillings a week apprentice Compositor wage, several week's savings. The Grice & Young Gipsy D'Argent centre pin reel I still have.

Today a fibre glass 3-metre whip need only cost £6 and a rod for under £30 quite normal. Silstar fixed spool reels are very reasonably priced. Then of course that great invention the Car Boot Sale opens the door for the possibility of enormous bargains. Here often distraught widows (and malicious wives it is rumoured), have the beloved's fishing equipment they cannot get rid of quick enough after all the sharp words and excuses for absence it has probably caused over the years.

The fishing available locally is really quite good and reasonably priced for a day. Waters are well stocked and comfortable with easy parking and short walks. Look at what Nigel Bales Nursery Lake at Ellingham produced for me on an evening session of just three hours. Carp to 3- 4 lbs; roach, rudd, a small bream, and even a dazzling goldfish. All taken fishing simple fresh bread squeezed on to the size 14 hook, with just one number four shot a foot from the hook down the line, and a three pound line fished straight through on a 3BB waggler no more than 20' out from the bank. Just a few slices of sloppy mashed white supermarket cheap bread introduced in pinches from time to time, sinking slowly and breaking up as it goes down. Way-hay lovely stuff! 

Thorpe Abbotts is not far down the road after Harleston on the way to Diss, turning up right to where Highfield Fishery is situated on your left. Look at the Bream they have put in during April. Charlotte who runs the place and sells the day tickets, with her Dad on the left are ably helped by friendly Bailiff Gary. These fish are just a few of the thirty-nine 5lb to 8 lb specimens which went into the Long Lake waiting to take your bait.

How should you fish that water for the best results? Well Pellets are a great bait, will last you several outings, and fairly cheap too. Best bet is  to have two sorts. Some small 3mm ones which sink to throw in. These just need to be dampened a bit to make them sink straight away. Otherwise a few float off and get blown off course by wind or surface drag, beside attracting pesky ducks you do not want to catch. Besides this you want to concentrate your feed right where you are going to fish.

Only throw in about ten at a time to carefully build up the fish presence in your swim slowly. A whole handful this time of the year will just fill them up quickly. Remember too that you will only have one on the hook. That is about a one in ten chance of being located to eat, reducing the odds. Eventually we are looking to have enough fish in the swim for them to be competing for your hookbait with their fellows in the shoal - and bingo - you are in! A size sixteen hook is about right for your "hookers" which are best if they are from your different bag of sinkers and are "Expander Pellets". These are soaked slightly to be soft and hookable, and the directions are on the bag; but a top tip is to cadge a little pack of strawberry jelly from a generous Granny and melt half this down with a hot water into a mug.

Put some of your expander pellets into this and as they swell they will absorb the gelatine. Don't leave them in too long and then put them in the fridge to cool. This makes them more durable on the hook and tasty too! Another good tip is to get some uncooked pastry made up and add custard powder to it making a very soft flexible paste for the hook. The normal female of the human species is not often rated very highly in conjunction with angling excursions and has a clear history of complaining about dirty hands, trousers and muddy shoes, let alone great levellers of criticism on time-wasting.

As lads my mate Paul Style's Mum looked like a film star and smelt like a dream, and clipped our ears like a professional boxer, but she was also an expert at producing bread pastes. So those flashing eyes and well rounded hips can be most excellent in their interpretations of the culinary arts that can be adapted to angling for baits, so mature relationships can be well worth nuturing.

Practise all this now and by the time the summer gets here you will be well away!

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