The loss of a big fish!

Today we have rain. It started at 6am when Polly, my semi-wild cat, asked to be let out. It started to rain moments later, so now she is sleeping on our ride-on lawnmower, and looks set to stay there as long as the rain continues.

I hope that's for the next month, because that's how much rain we now need, to bring the water level back up to normal for the time of year!

Clearly Polly wants it to stop, as our meadow is currently full of wild mice right now, and that's real fun for a semi feral cat!?

It does look promising however; as the sky is dark, thunder is in the air, and the air temperature has dropped some 10 degrees overnight.

The last time I fished the river Touvre, I lost a big fish. It may sound strange but it's taken me some time to come to terms with it. The reason is I have spent so much time in search of a monster trout over the past few years, it feels very personal when you lose one. Clearly its not the fishes fault, its almost always operator error, but it's still painful!

I know one part of the river that has four large fish in a relatively small area. The fish are not often seen, due to heavy weed, but late evening they do leap especially if big caddis are on the water.

I guess the best fish is over 65cm, maybe 5lb, the others between 58cm and 60cm, again huge fish for a wild, understocked river, in France.

I have been fortunate over the past few seasons, to have my fair share of bigger than average fish. But I have "paid my dues" with the amount of time on the river. However a really big fish (60cm+) as always eluded me.

This time, it was the simple brute strength of the fish bolting through weed that did for me, and the hook pulled out.

I had seen a big fish roll during the evening, and had 'marked it down'. Fishing with a successful caddis emerger pattern, the fish took first cast, and pulled the rod tip down into the water. I had just not been prepared for such power.

I suppose if fishing didn't mean as much to me, such a loss would not matter. But fishing is the fabric of my life, it's one of the few things in this world that makes sense. Fishing is as important to me as breathing in and out, it's that simple.

I expect racking havoc with the mice in the meadow, is for Polly, what fishing is for me. She wants the rain to stop, I need it to continue, so does this whole part of France!