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My quest for 100 species within UK waters goes on unabated. My latest target was a 3-spined stickleback, a species found in both fresh and brackish estuarine conditions, also along the seashore in some areas. Unlike most kids I never tried for sticklebacks as a nipper, so it was a species I’ve come to late in life.
Telling my mates what I was up to the general consensus was that they wouldn’t dream of being seen fishing for fish that struggle to make 2-inches in total length, though a couple admitted they’d caught them before and that they were supposedly easy to catch. I had no such concerns and couldn’t give a monkey’s if others think I’m off my rocker. I’m a man on mission!
A little research was necessary as to where I might find these monsters of the deep. I located them in a ditch just a half hour away from home where I’d never even thought to look for fish before. The ditch is mainly fresh water fed, but floods with seawater on the big equinoctial tides in the spring and autumn, so would be classed as brackish.
The ditch is just a couple of feet across and maybe 18-inches deep in the deeper sections. It has patches of weed cover with a small flat wooden plank foot bridge nearby for added cover. The water is gin clear, and I mean gin clear!
My first attempt saw me fishing a simple small split shot above a size 26 hook and baiting with a tiny section of small garden worm. Although I did get one stickleback mouthing the bait by twitching the rod tip to induce movement they seemed more interested in the shot and kept mouthing that but not fully attacking it.
My real problem was the gin clear water. There’s next to no bank side cover where the fish were concentrated. As soon as I got within range to drop the bait in the sticklers would rapidly disappear. I tried under the bridge with the same reaction.
I worked hard for an hour or so, but quickly realised this was not going to be so easy and would require much more thought.
A week later I returned. I’d put in a fair bit of thinking about how to approach them given the clarity of the water. My new set up would be a short 18-inch rod designed for Ice fishing in the Nordic countries for maximum control, a miniature old fashioned thin quill float with no shot. To get the tiny bait and 1½lb hook trace line to break the surface film and sink fairly naturally I degreased the line below the float with fly fisher’s mud, but stayed with the 26 sized hook.
Instead of fishing straight away I put on some Polaroid sunglasses and crawled up to the ditch side. I watched the stickleback’s for maybe 30-minutes and realised that the sticklers go swimmabout periodically leaving the swim briefly fish free. This then would be my opportunity to get a bait down in to the water without spooking them.
Predictably the fish swam off and I dropped the tiny float and snippet of worm into the water. The worm sank but stayed just up off the bottom and was clearly visible in the clear water. I was laying flat on my stomach now using a tussock of grass to break up my outline but I could still see the bait.
A few minutes later I noticed a stickleback nose out of the weed and swim in towards the middle of the pool, nosing the ground as it did so. This was a female fish and dull coloured. It swam up to the bait but stood off it making no attempt to eat. It was difficult without scaring the fish but I managed to twitch the short rod just enough to make the bait lift slightly and flutter back. The stickleback couldn’t resist and wolfed the worm in. A quick lift of the rod and the stickleback was lifted from the water and species no 95 was achieved.
I caught two more, one a bright red bellied male with a pale blue eye, just to prove the first was no fluke, and they all went back alive to sulk in the weed for a while. I was also amazed when I hooked and lost a small slob trout that appeared from underneath a sunken log like a bullet to attack the worm bait. What a tiny little trout maybe 5-inches long is doing in that ridiculously small ditch, God knows, but it illustrates the point that even small waters can hold interesting fish.
Like the title says “size isn’t everything” and even the little fish are fun to catch and not always as easy as some think. I went fishing for stickleback’s nearly 50-years later in life than I should have, but then it’s often said we lads never really grow up!
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