THE MILL POOL MONSTER
and my Creek Chub "Rattie"
by John Palmer

Editor's foreword: ANGLING WRITERS AWARD
We congratulate John on being awarded the prestigious ILFA Angling Writers' Award 2002, for this article — enjoy it! Nick Caine.

The WaterMill
It's not a working watermill any more but it was when I first discovered its magic, especially during the harvest months when, water levels permitting, the big wheel turned almost every day.

Behind the Mill was its huge Mill Pool holding a big head of water, its volume and level rising and falling as it was used to drive the big over-shoot water wheel.

Although the Mill owners allowed free fishing in front of the Mill, downstream of the wheel and in the Mill Race, it would be a while before I could get permission to fish the Mill Pool itself. My uncle Cyril was farm manager for the Farm Estates which owned the Watermill but they didn't do any favours for family or fishermen !

But I often used to hide my tackle in some bushes, and sneak round behind the Mill to gaze at the deep, dark waters of the Mill Pool. It was months before the Mill owners finally relented and allowed me to fish the Mill Pool every Wednesday (I don't know the reason why!).

Until then I got most of my angling pleasures from the Mill Race and the swirling pool at its confluence with the out-flow from the big wheel. When the wheel was turning, the out-flow was impressive and where it met the Race, the water surged, swirled and boiled like a cauldron.

As soon as the sluice-gate was closed and the big wheel stopped turning, an eerie calm descended on the pool but the Mill Race itself merely gathered pace as the extra water over-flowed its own small sluice gate and weir.

The Mill Race
The Mill Race was a magic place, rich in many species of fish. The gravel bottom held gudgeon, stone loach, Millers Thumb (bull heads) and in the margins swirled myriads of minnows in their synchronised swimming shoals.

This was a paradise for perch who darted out from slacker water in the margins to plague the shoal of minnows or dropped down to grab the odd gudgeon or two from the gravel bottom.

The perch were by no means giants; very few weighed more than 1 lb but they were they in big numbers and they loved my little 1.5 inch mackerel spinner to bits -- sometimes they would grab it even in preference to a minnow as I retrieved it through the darting shoals.

It's true what they say about perch: there are few braver or more defiant predators - often, as you release them carefully back into the water, they seemed to turn as if to say " Do you want another fight then?" And nothing looks bigger than a big perch.

That said, perch appearances can often be deceptive because a fish that you're sure is a magical "2-pounder" often turns-out to weigh not much over 1.5 lb - no matter, a 1.5 lb perch is a superb fish by any standards.

I spent many happy hours battling with these fighting perch, my favourite spot being just downstream of a steep sandy bank with a selection of holes where a local kingfisher had its nest every year.

The flashes of iridescent blue and bright orange as the kingfishers flew rapidly back and forth, often made me take my eyes off my lure - but what an excuse for missing so many fish!

And the kingfisher wasn't the only bird that the perch had to share their food source with, oh no! Of course there was the obligatory haughty heron that came and went, seemingly aloof to all the other anglers, feathered or human, competing with it.

But when that big water-wheel stopped turning and the confluence pool became much calmer, my attention turned to that other omni-present predator, the pike! Once again, the pike in the confluence pool below the Mill weren't very big, just plentiful. Within minutes of the wheel stopping, I would cast my spinners into the marginal slacks and small pools and, in turn, the pike would hit them almost instantly.

But always at the back of my mind was the lure of the big Mill Pool itself - surely it had a large head of small prey fish and one or two giant pike? Mill Pools never have tiny pike, do they? They always hold giants, and I wanted one!

The reality of Mill Pools is very different though. The rise and fall of the water level as the sluice is first lifted so that the water rushed through to drive the water-wheel, and then closed, has a big effect on the fish. Not withstanding that, I was sure that as the prey fish which inhabited the Mill Pool would have had some predators not too far behind, whatever the water level.

The same could be said for the various species of waterfowl which inhabited the Mill Pool! One evening I was watching a procession of little fluffy black moorhen chicks frantically paddling to keep up with their mother who was leading them to safety for the night in their nest in the reeds.

Suddenly there was a swirl and a splash and in a trice one of the chicks had vanished into the deep waters of the Pool ..... so, just as I'd thought, there WAS a Monster pike in the Mill Pool, and what's more, she was on the feed ! But it was a long time before I came across any signs of her again.

One of my other most favourite hobbies is photography and although wildlife photography isn't easy and I'm not very good at it, I've still enjoyed making a photographic record of my happy days in and around the Water Mill.

During one Closed Season I was wandering along the bank, camera in hand, and glancing down into the shallow murky water at the edge of the Mill Pool I got the shock of my life …. there was "The Monster" or at the very least "A Monster" !

Of course you can never very accurately gauge the weight of a pike that's in the water but this one WAS big and very broad across its back, another good indicator of its weight.

In fact, I've always been told that if a pike looks big in the water, then it is BIG! What do you think? Any idea of its weight?

But how to tackle that Monster with my lures? If that Monster was feeding on waterfowl chicks and the like, grabbing them off the surface, then it seemed to me that the most obvious route to follow was a surface lure of some sort.

In those days, there wasn't very much available as far as surface lures were concerned so I decided that some DIY was called for - I decided to make my own water-rat look-alike by wrapping some fur around a Creek Chub Pikie and called it my Creek Chub "Rattie".

I fished my Rattie across the Mill Pool for many weeks on my allotted days without so much as even a swirl, never mind a "take". Then one evening I rather despondently and absentmindedly cast my Rattie casually into one of the many small bays in between the reed beds in the margins, just as I had done many, many times before.

I was gently tugging and twitching my Rattie across this small bay and during the second or two but while I was looking where to cast next, you know how you do, the water close to Rattie exploded as though someone had thrown a hand-grenade in!

I was too shocked to strike and by the time my heart had re-started, the ripples were dying away and there on the surface was my Creek Chub Rattie, completely intact and un-touched.

I twitched it again and again in the vain hope of triggering another attack from the Mill Pool Monster but no, everything remained still and calm. I tried again and again, every week until the end of the Season without so much as a sign of the Monster. I was really down-hearted …. I'd missed my chance! Damn! In fact I had resigned myself to the fact that that I might never see signs of the Monster again.

Naturally I decided that I'd go back there the next Season and have another go at getting that Mill Pool Monster with my Creek Chub Rattie but you know how it is, other commitments got in the way and then I moved away from the area with my job and I've never had the chance since. But maybe that Monster is still there in that Mill Pool, waiting to have a go at YOUR lure! I hope so for your sake, and please don't make the same mistake as me - keep your eye on your lure all the time!

Good luck whichever Mill Pool Monster you're after !

John Palmer

Editor's Note: ANGLING WRITERS AWARD
We congratulate John on being awarded the prestigious ILFA Angling Writers' Award 2002, for this article — we hope you enjoyed it! Nick Caine.

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