Norfolk gems

It's warming up and so are the ponds. Lovely to see fish bubbling and early morning mist rising and drifting wraithlike over the milk warm surface. Cow Parsley everywhere and the May Flower turning pink, flowers set to turn to fruits. Except this particular morning in a pea souper along the A47 and A11 and into the Brecks before the sun won. Many muntjacs skilfully avoided. Stand-off at the gate with an interloper struggling with wet pay envelopes and padlock till we went left round the Crabtree Society bog shed (no blue) and an open entrance. The Loafer looked on incredulously.

Fish tight to cover and find holes in the (prodigious) weed was the Loafer's instruction. The indicated spot seemed fishless, the far side of the swim soon bubbling but weed to the surface, luckily a fish grabbed a soft hooker on the drop and I'd got half of what we had come for. A lovely unmarked tench in a ball of hornwort.  Split cane and cat gut? Not for me today.

Pressure off went to watch the Loafer go about his well honed business and this lovely little crucian, the other half of our intended quarry.

I'd found a decent clear patch, big enough for two floats (one peacock and one plastic) so we both fished together for my last couple of hours, eating, listening to cuckoos and the distant Snetterton race track and talking the usual bollocks. Being 60, or being nearly 60 for a start. And Mark E Smith. The man, the myth, the...and catching fish. Don't get much better than that.

My first crucian for decades.

The Loafer stayed on and added another 4 crucians and 6 tench to his tally. Cracking place, cracking day.

Work loomed (bah humbug) but once finished nice family meal out. Perfect.