I was set up in good time but even the worm was left alone as the sun began to sink.It was quarter to ten when the right hand deadbait absolutely tore off. Eels one, me nil. Over an hour and a half passed without any indications. The signs were that it could be a night of infrequent action but the chance of a big eel. Then the right hand rod was away again. This time I hooked the culprit. and it was doing so little it felt like I'd hooked a soft snag. Something was slowly coming towards me against the pressure of the rod. I threw the landing net in the edge and tried to push it forward to sink the mesh. Damn. It was caught on something. Keeping the rod bent I managed to untangle the mesh with my left hand. The eel was then easily netted. It wasn't as large as I'd hoped. Later I started pulling weed in from the same area and wondered if the eel had wrapped its tail around a clump.
A fresh bait was hooked up and cast out. This was picked up after 25 minutes. Another missed take. And so the usual selection of dropped and missed runs proceeded at very infrequent intervals. So infrequent I managed to nod off a time or two. Even if not for long. A couple of fish were bumped off on the strike. All the action coming to deadbaits, which was unusual.
Although the night wasn't warm it didn't feel cold either despite the heavy dew in the morning. It was a noisy night though. All night reed warblers were warbling their scratchy song, possibly because of the bright full moon, a water rail or two spent a mad ten minutes squealing, and what I took to be a snipe flew by making it's strange whirring sound. Thankfully there were no ratty rustlings in the reeds and the only rodent that made its presence known was a wood mouse. As we approach the solstice the nights are short. The sky to the north hardly got dark at all. Which only gives a few hours of 'eel time'. It was still good to be out after dark on such a night.
