Special Baubles

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Fishing tales

This spoon (see photo) was presented to me by a Finnish angler when I was in the country of Suomi. Outwardly, it seemed to be nothing special: a brass plate with a thickness of one and a half millimeters - an uncomplicated shape (slightly curved), the color is so-so, frankly, not at all original …

The front side is red with a stripe, the back is white. But, as the Finn assured (if it was correctly translated from Finnish), they say, this is a crazy spoon. Since, as they say, “they don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”, out of politeness, of course, I fell apart in gratitude to the donor.

At home I showed this spoon to my fishing friends, and their verdict with insignificant variety was: "The spoon is like a spoon, nothing special." Only my relative, an inveterate fisherman Alexander Rykov, was original, as he suggested: "What is good for a Finn is unlikely for a Russian." And for some time I consigned to oblivion the donated "shaker".

Having lost three spinners on another fishing trip, I finally remembered about the Finnish gift. The peck was bad that day. The reason for this was either heat, or strong wind, or something else, but my constant fishing companion Vadim and I made no less than fifty casts with a spinning rod. And … not a single bite! It was then that I decided to use a gift spinner.

In the place where we fished from the boat, the depth was one and a half meters. The first cast I made towards the reed and reed wall. As soon as the spoon sank to the bottom, he began to slowly raise it. And then the grip followed. I hooked, and my trophy was a kilogram pike.

The second cast is slightly away from the first. And again the pike. Two meters further - another predator fluttered in the boat. In half an hour we managed to catch four more pikes. After that, the biting of toothy robbers stopped, but they began to take perches. True, all are small.

- Why don't we try to catch bigger "sailors", - Vadim suggested: - Let's get up at the depth.

No sooner said than done. We moved to another place, dropped anchor on the edge of a pit four meters deep. The very first cast brought a half-kilogram humpback. And then the bites followed one after another.

As soon as the bait, being at the bottom, began to move, a bite followed immediately. I was tempted to catch and fish, but I decided to stop: our household with Vadim obviously cannot process so much fish.

“The occasional bite is always rich,” my partner concluded when we finished fishing.

But he was wrong, because in the future, in any circumstances, in different reservoirs, my "vibrator" invariably attracted predators. Thereby providing excellent bite. Observing the ardor with which the fish chases the spoon bait, familiar and unfamiliar fishermen asked to show it.

And another of my many years of fishing companion Igor even made at his factory, it would seem, exactly the same spoon. Outwardly, it seems to be one to one. However, it is not for nothing that popular wisdom says: "A copy is always worse than the original." Alas, Igor's "shaker" turned out to be far from being as catchy as mine. Indeed, it turned out as in the famous proverb: "Fedot, but not that one." Probably, this copy did not have the zest that makes the bait original and unique.

Apparently, the manufacturers of the spinner given to me by the Finn put something invisible, intangible to humans, but extremely attractive to fish. Hence the stunning result.

I was repeatedly offered to sell a spoon, moreover, often for a lot of money. It would be possible for this amount to buy a dozen imported baits. But I did not even allow the thought to part with such a catchy spoon. And therefore he took care of her like the apple of his eye.

Alas, nothing lasts forever under the moon. In October last year, Vadim's colleague at work told him that on Ladoga, at the mouth of the Volkhov, the autumn course of pike perch began. The weather was pre-winter, very nasty: from the sky it poured a cold drizzle, then snow pellets fell. I really did not want to go fishing in such a wet area, but Vadim still persuaded me.

Having chosen the day when the heavenly chancellery had mercy and the precipitation stopped, Vadim and I moved to Ladoga. We arrived at a familiar place, anchored the boat in a small bay, closed from the main Volkhov Bay by two islands. The depth is two and a half meters.

Since pike perch is a bottom fish, the tackle has to be lowered to the bottom. I started fishing with a spinner. But time passed, and the bites were zero. Then I put on a wobbler, then a twister and finally a popper. Empty. Only after these failures did he decide to use his beloved, trouble-free "shaker".

As soon as the spoon disappeared in the water, such a blow followed that the spinning rod escaped from my hands, and I barely had time to intercept it. A short fight - and a two-kilogram pike perch flopped into the boat. It was followed by another one, but much less: about a kilogram. The third cast was fatal!

A sharp bite followed, I hooked, pulled the line and went cold: the spoon was clearly caught on something. In vain I pulled the line in different directions: up and down, left and right, everything was in vain - the bait did not give in.

And despair seized me: on the one hand, I wanted to pull the line as hard as possible, maybe the bait would free itself. On the other hand, from too strong jerks, the line could break at any moment, and then goodbye to the spoon! The detachment did not help either.

In the summer I would not hesitate to get into the water, but now, in October ?! B-r-r-r. However, I did not give up. I lowered the spinning rod into the water and Vadim and I went to the shore. I cut out the stake and we returned to the fishing spot. Vadim hooked his spinning spoons and pulled my spinning out of the water. I tied the line of my spinning rod to the stake, drove it into the ground. And then the fishing ended.

Vadim and I returned the next day, with appropriate equipment for diving. I donned a wetsuit, put on a mask, took a pipe mouthpiece in my mouth and plunged into the water. Visibility is no more than half a meter. He started, naturally, with a stake.

It is not for nothing that it is said that trouble does not come alone…. Having easily found the stake, I began to examine it, in search of fishing line. After all, it should lead me to a stuck spoon. However, it was not: only what was wound on a stake remained of it. The rest of the line is gone!

Then I began to examine the bottom. Ignoring the terrible cold, the tremor shaking the whole body, I literally inspected and felt the ground centimeter by centimeter until I came across a snag, which presumably caught my spoon. True, the driftwood was almost completely in the ground, only one branch was sticking out. And around the flat bottom.

I dived and dived, literally, until I was blue in the face, until Vadim stopped me:

- Come on, Sasha, this gimp. You look for a cat in a dark room when it's not there.

Reluctantly, I had to come to terms with the idea that my "vibrator" was lost forever. Discussing the situation with the spoon with Vadim, we came to the conclusion that, most likely, the fish, twitching, freed the spoon from the driftwood, and then cut the line at the stake.

Now, returning from a particularly unsuccessful fishing trip, I remember with longing that truly miraculous spinner that never let me down. And I often look at her photo. However, nothing else is left for me …

Alexander Nosov