Rudd

The fish in the photo below was called "Jaws" and, for several years, there was a reward for his capture; but no-one could catch him.

A good sized rudd in temporary captivity.

He was the biggest creature, and the only fish, in our pond which was not supposed to have fish in it at all because it had a population of great crested newts (salamanders). So we encouraged young lads from the village to bring their rods over and hook him out. They tried worms, maggots, bread, corn, hemp and all the usual baits, but he simply became uncatchable. In the end, a group of MSc students from Reading University took off their shoes and socks, rolled up their trousers and went in after him with nets. The game was well and truly up!

It's unusual to imagine a rudd as a predator, or even to see one on it's own, because they usually patrol in schools. They are classic bait-fish really and  I would guess that a lot of the old pike spoons that were made of copper or brass and had a red wool tassel for a tail were supposed to represent rudd. The sight of a colourful shoal of fish, flashing gold and red, probably attracts more predators than a solitary fish would, but the sheer numbers involved might cause confusion. It's the same with a flock of starlings coming to roost in the reed-bed at dusk: The hawk strikes time and again but frequently misses.

"Jaws", who had been literally "a big fish in a small pond" was released into the Cloudy Pit where he dropped pretty low down the food chain. Perhaps he swiftly fell prey to a pike, otter or cormorant. In Fenland nature reserves they stock large numbers of rudd to feed one bird; the elusive bittern. This secretive, brown heron is now a globally threatened species and millions of pounds and euros are being spent annually to stop the decline. It doesn't help that so many of its haunts are coastal. Rising sea levels inundate the marshes with salt water, killing the stocks of rudd that shoal within the reed-beds. Now, new habitat has to be created away from the coast where rudd (and eels) form an essential ingredient in the recipe for success.

Rudd, usually weighing just a few ounces, form shoals that can become immense, especially in still waters. In the early '60s I remember going with my family to the most beautiful ornamental lake I have ever seen. It had follies, grottos, bridges, tunnels, waterfalls and specimen trees, all arranged to please the eye in the neoclassical manner. It was on the Stourhead estate in Wiltshire and we were allowed to fish there!

As far as we could make out, the only fish in the lake were rudd and they were easy to find because they shoaled near the surface in the middle of the day.

My dad was in charge of proceedings and he used a fly rod while we had rather stiff, fibre-glass spinning rods, but we all three baited up with bread that we float-fished. We soon realised that the fish didn't like the resistance of a heavy float and that they were put off by rapidly sinking bait that was weighted down with shot. I supposed at the time that they were used to snatching bread that was being fed to ducks, geese and swans, which were prolific on the site, and that they liked to see it sinking naturally. Later I learned that rudd look upwards and that their upward turned mouth has evolved to allow them to feed from the surface film. They simply aren't comfortable feeding downwards off the bottom, like roach or bream do. In a way, they are still-water dace.

We resorted to free-lining the bread, using no weights, with a match-stick as a bite indicator. I soon used the same tactic to catch dace on the Itchen, but using maggots.

Anyway, between three of us, we caught 200 rudd in an afternoon. My Dad, being of that generation and coming from a trout fishing background, killed a couple of dozen which we carried home in a rucksack. They were practically inedible. We went back a couple of times and caught plenty of rudd, but it was too easy. After a couple of years the National Trust, quite rightly, stopped allowing fishing and we went elsewhere.

Unlike roach, rudd have amber eyes and a tipped-up mouth.

Every year, long before there were motorways or motorway services, we used to go and see my gran in Yorkshire and my dad's folks in Edinburgh. The day-long drive northwards from Southampton was broken up with frequent stops to brew-up at the side of the road, usually at a farm gate. We would have a hamper of food with us, but water was always boiled fresh with a temperamental Primus Stove that was fueled with meths. The jet would need "pricking" and my Dad had to pump a brass knob to keep the pressure up in the tank. Wind was the constant enemy and had to be fended off with improvised screens, so brewing-up could take an hour, giving my brother and I time to explore what lay beyond the verge. Maybe there was a tree to climb or animals to feed.

On one such stop in the Midlands at Whitsuntide, we parked by such a gate, under a leafy oak tree. A rutted lane ran away through scrubby, overgrown hedges with fields on either side but we didn't explore the lane because, immediately through the gate, under the spreading trees and bushes, was a shady pond. It was full of fallen branches and really not much more than a puddle, but we were fish-mad and so was our dad. We had to check it out.

We unloaded fishing rods and some white bread that was meant for our lunch and pushed our rod tips through any spaces in the black branches that we could find, then lowered our bread upon the black, oily water. All this in blind faith.

Our reward was instant and it was pure gold. Scores of small, red-finned rudd threw themselves onto our hooks until we had to be dragged away to sit in the old Austin for another 6 hours. We never forgot it, but we couldn't ever find the place again. It might have been in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire or Northamptonshire. I'm still looking for it.