Article - Coarse
Evening
By Ian, added on 31/05/2007
John M wrote a splendidly evocative article recently extolling his love of morning fishing. I, too, love that feeling of being the only person awake and up and about. All is right with the world and there is nothing to beat a tench dawn in my book. However, these days I tend to do most of my fishing in the evening so I was inspired to try to pen a companion piece.
There are several reasons for my later tendencies – firstly, I am getting lazier as I get older and dragging me from my warm slumber is a difficult task. I’ll probably manage it on June 16th but after that it’s going to be a struggle. After work, when everyone has been fed and providing I’m not too cream-crackered, I do enjoy a quick trip out to the river or a stillwater for an hour or two as evening falls. From April to September this is easily achievable, close season rules permitting. Having a young family entails being there at one end of the day, if not both, as often as possible. This concentrates the fishing which is no bad thing; I can’t remember when I last spent more than four hours bankside and most excursions are two hours maximum. Having an evening session also means I might get the son and heir to accompany me – as yet he doesn’t fish but he likes to come along and provide commentary on my feeble efforts. I value these moments because all too soon they will be gone but I hope he will recall them with a smile in future years.
Evening is dawn in reverse. In summer, when the days are long and hopefully hazy and warm, too, there is gentleness in the air that soothes the senses. By the evening you feel that a long day of toil is over, and Nature feels it too. There is a temptation to collapse with a restorative beer, but the better option is to grab some tackle (travelling light is to be encouraged) and head for the water. You can, of course, take the tipple with you and get the best of both worlds.
It is remarkable how often, if there has been a wind during the day, as dusk edges in, the wind falls to a gentle breeze or nothing at all, rarely strong enough to dislodge the dandelion seedheads. Combine this with a slowly setting sun and you have perfection – the apparently still water, its surface like oiled green glass, reflects the dying sunlight and sets the world afire. Crimson tendrils, tipped with orange, ochre and red, reach out across the water and touch the fibre of your being. A ripple on the water creates a rhythmic pulse of light that can mesmerise. Everything seems to happen in slow motion, nothing is rushed. Sounds seem magnified in the gathering stillness – the metallic chirrup of a coot, the momentary slurp as a fish rises and sucks down a floating insect, a crash as another leaps for sheer joy. Perhaps our senses become more attuned in the gathering gloom – our ancient predator alert systems are switched on and we hear more intently than usual. Scents and smells also seem to intensify, probably because they linger longer in the calm air. If there has been a shower, the damp earth gives off a comforting musty odour and the vegetation smells, and looks, fresh and new. Later on, a mist may begin to rise in the cooling air.
Birds seek out the last morsels of the day and return to their roosts to sing for their supper – evensong au naturel. A kingfisher darts in a flash of electric blue and orange for one last foray, his loud “tseee, tseee” call proclaiming his imminent arrival. Night creatures begin to emerge and claim their kingdom. Bats, silent harvesters, cavort across the water taking insects at will. Reeds quiver and shake as small creatures nose around, exploring their territories to see what has changed since they were last awake. The world settles down and stars shimmer faintly in the sky.
Winter is no less spectacular, although the whole process is accelerated: the fragility of life is exposed in a hurried finale to the day, a time to gather a last, frantic meal before the long, cold dark of the night. Yet a setting winter sun, particularly here in Norfolk, can be a thing of great beauty that ignites the whole sky and warms the spirit even as the air around chills the bones. The angler can return home after his evening stint; but, for the wildlife, winter evenings signal a cold vigil and a dramatic struggle to make it through to the next dawn.
Although I can often just sit and drink in the atmosphere (or that cold beer) without wetting a line, contemplating the day’s events or life’s inconsistencies, evening is obviously a great time for fishing, too. The hour or so either side of darkness can be very productive for many species, and for the trout angler (which I cannot pretend to be, other than very amateur) the evening rise is like Mass to a priest. Fish will come back to the margins from the deeper water and feed more confidently and the careful and silent approach pays dividends. It is a good time to stalk that most beautiful of British fish, the rudd, whose golden flanks seem even more burnished in the diffused twilight.
As I write this I am fishing one early summer’s evening as May slips into June. My venue is a coastal marsh lake in Western Norfolk. Reed-fringed, shallow and clear, it nestles in a sheltered position between sea defences and wood. Beyond the two sea walls lies The Wash and I can just hear the sea breaking on the shingle beach, although I cannot see it. Warblers flit urgently amongst the reeds. I can also hear the myriad cries of seabirds getting closer and more insistent as the incoming tide pushes them up the beach. A curlew utters its plaintive call somewhere behind me. I do not turn around, for I am watching my float intently, willing it to disappear. I can hear oystercatchers, too, and judging by the numbers I am sitting in the flightpath of the local population of all manner of geese. I am alone with Nature and that is how I like it. My quarry is the tench (and the rudd if he should come along too). I’ve been here for an hour or so and raked my chosen swim on arrival. The ploy has worked: tell-tale bubbles of fishy activity are moving through the swim. I sit, heron-like, shoulders hunched over my rod, ready to strike. The wind, which was a stiff breeze when I first arrived, has muted to a whisper echoing through the reeds that surround me. A pair of courting mallards bustle past, the male paddling frantically after the female; they do not notice me, sitting quietly in the shade of a willow.
The reddening sun begins its farewell and dips in the sky sending a golden light through the shifting reedbeds that emphasises the outline of each proud stem. A noisy and aggressive coot bosses his territory, chasing away the mallards and taking umbrage at a water vole that has the temerity to leave its burrow. A family of greylags sails gracefully by, mother and four goslings, but she will entertain no nonsense from the coot, who exits hastily stage left, a pocket battleship seen off by a flotilla. In the sudden quiet of the gathering evening a barn owl glides above the reedbeds, a silent soul on the wing.
As though in salute to the passing ghost, my float dips gracefully away and the nagging fight tells me I have hooked a tench, but not a large one. A couple of minutes of gentle coaxing and in the folds of the net lies a lustrous green and bronze specimen, perfect in every detail. The condition of these marsh fish is something to behold: the tench are pristine and the rudd have a look of etched old gold, their spectacular scale patterns and red fins emphasised by the low sun. A few seconds contemplation of a marvel of Nature, a photo maybe, and back to the water she goes.
Somehow it seems right to fish in the gloaming. It is a fitting end to the day, a gentle contest but not to the death (for me, anyway); a chance to appreciate the bountiful natural world in all its splendour, as though you have caught it slightly off-guard and approachable. It affords an opportunity to relax and unwind, to engage with another place and time, then return home refreshed and replete, the cares of the day drawn from you by the rays of the sinking sun. Thence to bed, perchance to dream and pray not be awoken by the itching of mosquito bites – an evening hazard but a small price to pay for the privilege of sharing in perfection.