A Climate of Uncertainty

 

The local climate in the period since Christmas has been so changeable as to make it almost impossible at times to select a suitable location for a few fish. Not so much gradual global warming as continuing local chaos.

 

The Avon & Leam; Grand Union & Oxford canals and various stillwaters could all have all been on the agenda but for a variety of reasons there have been times when none of these were likely to work-out favourably.

 

Ice, rain, wind direction, clear water, fluctuating temperatures, etc., detrimentally influenced each in different ways.

 

Under such circumstances one tends to seek comfort in what one knows best. Usually canals, in these instants.

 

Anyone who follows these ramblings will realise that in the world of F, F & F eliciting a bite against the odds is of considerably greater value than a guarantee of, for instance, a net full of tame carp from a sold(not to say souled)-out mud puddle.

 

In stillwater terms it has become increasingly difficult to find naturalised ponds, lakes and reservoirs. Largely a result of the glint of gold that continues to sparkle in eye of certain water owners as lead by CRT.

 

A couple of birding trips resulted in a very active long-tailed duck and a couple of pairs of red-crested pochard of note. Which, on the one hand, brightened the intermittent angling consternation but, far more importantly, made for a very enjoyable change while The Dog descended this year with his First Lady for a few very happy days indeed

 

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In the immediate aftermath of the festivities, mild, calm conditions prevailed and fish were relatively easy to fool, albeit at their own somewhat steady speed, and to find roach freely topping at dawn at my current reservoir-side haunt put them under potential threat. Catches of between 3 and 8 pounds-odd of fish that peaked at one pound four ounces with a smattering of perch eased the depressingly unbearable burden of being off work for a few days quite nicely.



Roach to 1.4.2

 The GUC managed to cough-up a nice zander of over 3.5lbs, with proportionately the biggest tail you ever did see, when partly frozen. This was highly likely another p.b. (had the scales not been in the garage!) but that will never be confirmed. Following this the combined GUC & Oxford canals produced a 2lb bream and a roach immediately after thawing on a particularly hard birthday session.

 

 

 

The birds have been affected too and as this is being written, long-tailed and blue tits, goldcrest and blackbird devour fat balls, winter flies and fallen apples out of the window, beyond the bridge. Grey squirrel chase and tumble through ivy and hazel while a robin serenades longingly, yet with a hint of resignation, into the still moist air. All dreaming of the hectic spring to come one might surmise.

 

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SATURDAY

 

Today though, the onset of mild weather again lead us back to the canal feeder lake that had offered-forth festive gifts of 5 tench to 5.9, 20-odd roach to 1lb+ and smaller perch two weeks ago.

 

It was a risk.

 

It would have been frozen yesterday morning but the likelihood of increased temperatures, cloud & fog meant low light levels and consequently roach in the sought-after bracket of 1lb+ would be possible...if they fed.

 

The method settled-on over those previous sessions is to fish two rods, one at 25-45m and the other at 60m and while the furthest of those has resulted in the most bites and fish all of the pound plus roach have fallen at around 25 to 30m.

 

The second roach today was 1.1.14 and an hour or so later a slightly larger version at 1.4.2. A total catch of 8lbs 5ozs comprising 13 fish including 3 perch for good measure was the bag and the confirmation that the bigger roach were closer-in helped in taking-up HonGenSec's idea to fish the float into dark. In fact, had it not been foggy that would have been the method of choice this very day.

 

The two biggest roach on top

Tomorrow it is then!

 

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SUNDAY

 

Arriving at 2.45 to set-up and get some bait trickling into ten feet of slightly tinged water before dark, the atmosphere had that feel of impending rain about it as the clouds dragged their heels over the broad tree-scattered landscape to the south-west.

 

The water was calm without a ripple to spoil it other than the tufted duck. A group of six that motored inwards with unstinting confidence at each blast of maggots, and out again once realising that the bait had gone by the time they would have arrived.

 

HonGenSec had started when we arrived, as is the norm, but pursued a similar method.

The Boy Wonder was to stick with the tried and trusted at 30m.

There is little to add other than despite this list from TBW's necessaries being at home - rods, landing net handle, head-torch - he stole my spare rod and took a 2lb tench (his first) from water just over 4degC while HGS and I blanked with aplomb.

 

 Kids! (Again)

A barn owl shrieked early evening and remained unseen but it's certainly back to Plan A next time.

 

Tomorrow it wasn't. However, if you don't ask the question...

 

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SUMMARY

 

The roach in the venue seem very likely go bigger than 1.4. Bigger fish top occasionally, although it is possible they are hybrids as two have been taken 1.8 in this brief period since mid-December but there are another couple of areas to try, as well as The Stillwater to revisit when conditions seem right.

 

Hope, motivated by good advice and that essential slice of luck, does not shirk from springing eternal and there is plenty of the winter to go at yet

 

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AND FINALLY

 

 I would very much like to mark the sad passing of Tony Miles with just a few words.

 

I did not know Tony well though I had met and exchanged emails with him a number of times in the past two or three years but he was clearly a very open, amiable man with a huge wealth of angling knowledge that he was keen to commit to print in books, blogs and various publications in order to help others.

 

It is always an immeasurably great loss when such giants of any sport take their knowledge with them and, while he could never convey all of the nuances of his chosen path to his contemporaries and effectual descendants in angling, we can all be thankful that much of his knowledge is not lost through his so eloquently articulated writings.

 

Certain angling names trip off the tongue in a hallowed cluster:

Richard Walker, Ivan Marks, Chris Yates, and Co. Tony Miles unquestionably falls in that same echelon. Humble yet ground-breaking anglers all. 

 

 

 

THE STILLWATER - A MIDSUMMER UPDATE

Never entirely certain when the seasons end or begin it is with some risk that I entitle this piece as I do, but it feels right.

The Stillwater continues to piscatorially bamboozle me. Yes, the perch fishing had been a lifetime's best by quite some margin, approximately double the best other catch I can recall in weight per perchy capita in fact, but, as yet, the other fishes have tended to leave me alone quite nicely thank you. Obviously they think I am there for the tranquility and that it would be rude to disturb my peace too much. At all, in fact.

Recovering from a rather debilitating illness has seen me on the bank quite regularly, if dozily, these past few days, being ignored by the fish, and The Stillwater has set me to giving ever more consideration to birds, and especially the birds I am likely to encounter there.

The more advanced birders at the site have taken me rather into their world and now accept my record submissions with alacrity. Being immersed in the nature that appears magnetised to the place makes one realise what exactly one is missing by not fishing still waters of necessarily significant proportion.

On a personal level my birdwatching has been very much along the lines of my approach to angling over the years in that I have hardly ever knowingly 'twitched' a bird and the vast majority of the time have been, and remain, contented to compile a list of whatever species can be mustered from wherever I happen to be, or perhaps travelling to and from. In fact, very much like angling, it's the not knowing rather than the knowing that makes it engaging, enjoyable and rewarding in that very same order.

Since taking up residence at The Stillwater when the river season ended, it has been the birds rather than the fish that have engaged the most. Albeit a bite takes precedence over a passing bird in that moment, it cannot be denied! It doesn't begin and end there however for the attractions are many and varied. Butterflies still exist here unlike many of the places that used to have their flora spread with them not that many years ago. Dragon and damselflies abound and a good smattering of various mammals are more than possible, in fact likely, sightings too.

 

Southern hawker dragonfly at rest

Botanically I am generally totally stumped but there appears to be an interesting array of wild plants that, were I capable of pinning them down, would produce another even more extensive species list. The natural bottom line of course is that the botany dictates the invertebrates present and it is they in turn that dictate their consumers and so on it goes up that invisible line we used to call the food chain to top predators.

Like any former, but intrinsically since trapped, schoolboy it is the latter that seem the most appealing and cause the most excitement to the majority of us. Somehow they seem that bit more incredible with their extra, imagined, calculatingly cold-hearted dimension. Of course a kestrel catching a vole is no more unusual than a wren catching a spider from many different angles but the more advanced the prey the more impressive the captor appears to us.

This spring and summer I have had the sudden surprise of the noise made by the wings of a hobby pursuing sand martins in a strong breeze close overhead jolt me out of my slumber; the intermittent flap, flap, gliding of the osprey down the centre of the lake seeking those big roach I have never yet connected with; the floating giant moth-like foraging of the barn owl before my very eyes in daylight and the pursuit of all manner of small passerines by the sparrowhawk. Yet the most fascinating thing, the all consuming subject, is the wider picture. The whole wondrous ecological spectacle. It too I am happy to be bamboozled by.

 

Hobby silhouette

The all but inaudible high pitched squeaking of common shrews chasing in and out of rushes growing from the rocky bank.

The clouds of common blue damselflies flushed out of the grasses with every step after their daily emergence as marching armies of nymphs exiting the water for any promontory, however little it may rise above the water, there to transmogrify from little green alien larva to beautiful, here bountiful, imago.

 

 

 

The rudd, sucking sedge flies from the surface between phragmites stems with an audile slurp and the remant thick oily bubbles left long-term in the surface film.

The raucous barking of the muntjac from deep cover at dusk and the replies from distant cousins.

 

 

The frantically fluttering Small Skipper in search of a food plant for egg-laying.

The inquisitiveness of the sedge warbler, creeping ever closer through the reeds to check-out the large unnaturally dressed mammal examining it in return.

The creaking sound of the pond snails emerging through marginal water plant debris at dusk as they suck and blow at the surface.

All of these and more can and will keep me amused, quite literally, for a lifetime.

No fish? No problem!

Tench. Time.

Time is a strange concept i'n'it?

My whole angling life has been driven by relatively short sessions on a variety of venues, but groups of venues that have come in fads over the years. Warks Avon & Trent; The East Midlands/Anglian rivers and Lakes; Thames; South Midlands Canals; West Midlands canals and, now, various appealling waterbodies and courses of the Feldon landscape.

The earliest visits were often quite long by my more recent standards, perhaps eight hours or more. Then as club fishing kicked-in with the, then, Rugby Midland Red bus co. angling club, they reduced to 5 or 6 hours and, as time passed through open matches on canals in the East and then West Midlands to the past three seasons of increasingly short sessions around dawn and dusk, they went to four, three, two hours, sometimes even less...and rarely the same peg fished twice.

So the past month has seen a massive change of outlook and direction since the river season ended.

 I am now around 40 hours into what I hope to be a real, not fantasy, tench campaign without even so much as a nibble to show for it. Not consecutive hours I might add, but 40 hours' fishing the same peg in bursts often preceded by baiting visits the night or morning before.

They've been rolling and laughing at me, and the pike have been avid munchers of the inanimate as I've wound back in various contraptions of bait placement but not a proper bite to show for it

Metal crunching, feeder munching Automaton

When I first stepped-off the river bank onto The Stillwater the water immediately seemed quite 'warm' to the touch in comparison but I now realise that it had been heated by the sun in a manner impossible for a shaded, narrow, winding, deep stream and, in fact, to its inhabitants it was still inconducive to much feeding activity.

Now though, a month later, the water temperature is approaching that level at which it starts to be similar to hand temperature and, were it not at the same time wet, it would be undetectable

Comforted by the fact that others are not lowering the water levels by removing myriad tincas I have become, on the face of it, bizarrely content to watch motionless tips

Superficial this situation certainly is however as what this outwardly tedious, if not pointless, exercise has rekindled is my passion for birds. Having been a birdwatcher for as many years as an angler I have hopped-off the ornithological perch in the past decade, largely due to work and the boys' cricket commitments but, since the end of the so-termed noughties, also by an earlier resurrection of angling interest of course.

Here though, at The Stillwater, I have a specific view from the peg combined with the walk back and forth, and suddenly the local recorder finds himself inundated with sightings. Largely common or garden, yes, but the odd flashback to birds not seen or enjoyed for so long together with the returning migrants...and bats

Highlights thus far have been green sandpiper, the returning chiffchaff, then first willow and sedge warblers of 2015 for the location and flocks of twittering sand and, eventually, house martins interspersed by swallows, as well as departing goldeneye, regular barn owl foraging activity and then more arriving warblers such as whitethroat

Chiffchaff

Wednesday I was also able to wend my laden way back to the car park listening to the 'slapping' of common pipistrelles, the 'chip shop, chip shop' of Noctules, our biggest common bat at 16" wingspan (no, that's not a typo!), and the Geiger-counter-esque Daubenton's bat...that hovercraft of the natural world...as they fed freely over the water, margins, carr and treetops. Their calls interspersed by the raspberry-like 'thrrrrripp' of the feeding buzz on contact with tiny and not so tiny prey

The, close to, two days of wider natural study has rekindled this naturalist and I am sure my friends and colleagues are sick of me ranting about observations but sometimes it just has to be shared to extract true value. I know I've seen it, but sharing it and making use of it in the written record adds an extra dimension that's been missing for so much time.

Buzzard and mobbers

Yes, tench time has its benefits, even when they are not quite ready...yet

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Mouse training update:

'Big set-back when Monica went stiff and had to be ejected as she was becoming food for Potty. Well, it's just life (and death) in the FF&F study

Subsequently Potty became less trusting but, only tonight, a breakthrough that took us back in time and fast-forward simultaneously to the point at which she clumb (that word has a wiggly red line under it, I wonder why?) completely onto my hand for a black sunflower heart...irresistable to Pot-Pot are those

So we're back on course and I'll be able to imagine taking her to school in my pocket again soon

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Bloggers challenge diary:

Only 7.5 more sleeps to the starting cast

Still time to book-on at:
http://canalangler.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/blogger-challenge-who-in.html
and if you struggle with the link feel free to comment on this post accordingly and I'll happily let Russell and Jeff know

Going into an Arc Four by Four

 

So with a bag full of new sweets I headed to the stream

I can't imagine, except when spinning, that I can ever have set-out to fish with so little kit - new bait & tackle waist-band with matching mat plus the usual net and travel Avon quiver

A number of factors pointed to this day...

• The river had been swollen and was falling but, I hoped, would still hold sufficient cover.
• The air temperature had been hovering around freezing since before the rains that caused the river to rise, hence the water temperature would be correspondingly low but, four or five days in, the fish might be used to it.
• The Christmas festivities had taken priority.
• I now had a cheap liquidiser (in fact, like so many modern products,  it is much more than that but that was, at least, the purpose I bought it for) for bread.
• Three days' full sun and clear skies preceded this one which promised to be cloudy from noon so the prospect of afternoon sport on these very short days around the new year was one I could not ignore. Equally the idea of fishing into dark after the fish might not have eaten much for the best part of a week was irresistible, and, on top of all that I also had my sweets to try.

The inestimable Lady Burton had bought me reel cases for Christmas but sadly I had too many already and so I swapped them yesterday for an eva (I'm told) completely sealed, welded in fact, net bag to keep in the car

[I also had two robust bird feeders (not to support Great Uncle Dubes over-ripe pigeons I might add!) and soon after I hung one out full of fat balls I coincidentally noticed a flock of around a dozen meadow pipit leap-frogging each other in the winter wheat-sewn field behind the bungalow, accompanied by jackdaw, rook, pied wagtail, woodpigeon (of course) and a blue tit nearer to the place we are temporarily calling home for a year]

A further treat, more a liquorice hose than a fruit salad, would be the stream itself. A quarter-mile stretch, never before seen, proved a winding, alternating mix of glides and deeper holes with numerous overhanging and, occasionally, fallen willows

After some initial confusion faffing about with liquidised bread I reverted to a mix of it rougly 50/50 with mashed bread so that it was soaked, and suitably sinking

The attack was to feed two swims downstream of the one I happened to be in, give each 15-20 minutes and move-on

It was not until the fourth swim, and the first with a branch in the water, that a sign of interest emerged running from the water and up the line to the tip but an early strike proved as equally futile as impetuous

Evidence that the levels had been higher recently manifested in silty banks within a foot of so of the waterline and, in shallower areas, ice had been left behind to float above decaying vegetation, like a miniature crystal canopy perhaps to protect a surreal exhibition of water shrews' wares, close to the waterline from the previous night's hard frost

 

Three more glides, one with a good-looking slack below a dramatically projecting rush bed, produced nothing but, again, the fourth, a distinctive location on a deep tight inside bend with overhanging trees, seemed the place. A  tremulous indication was missed and, by the feel of it, I may have just nicked the fish as I struck. I hoped it had been glancing submerged weed and cast back down towards the branches hanging over and into the water

Another bite, ponderous but also more positive, resulted in a pristine seven ounce roach coming to hand 

Third cast to the branch and another missed nibble. The fourth however was perfect, within inches of the branch and allowed to sink before tightening-up. As I sat there thinking things were going in fours and feeling the likelihood was...hang-on that moved a bit then, and again, gentle nods of the tip...whoah!...it arced round and the strike met with what felt like a better roach. As I started to tighten to the fish with it swimming upstream toward me it started to get distinctly bigger. It burrowed deep and shook it's head. No roach. Soon it was up from the depths and a chub appeared looking around 1-12-0 I thought, from an acute angle

 

It was soon in the net despite the customary lunge for near bank roots and with what appeared a bite out of the tail tipped the scales at 2-8-0 pretty much confirming the Leam average

Keen to try another peg in woodland before darkness engulfed the valley (and I wanted to return to the peg that produced the first bite for an hour after dark) I moved on, but to no avail despite the strong foxy aroma of the soggy bankside. A tiny, unkempt and unreasonably buoyant dabchick drifted past with the flow as if with motorised feet in the wrong gear while they whirred away to little effect, seemingly and unusually oblivious to my presence

I took a moment to investigate the next thirty metres of wooded bank which looked exceptional with two large branches laying across the full width of the watercourse but there was insufficient time to prime yet another swim

Minutes later I settled into the murk at the intended resting place for dusk, crawling under a low horizontal limb to reach the comfort of the only small area where it was in fact possible to swing terminal tackle to hand, and waited...

The screech owl did just that and the temperature actually appeared to rise reflecting the moon's rise higher through the thick spiny hawthorn to my right, and I waited... 

One thing is becoming clear, that the fallen branches and one or two of the very deepest holes now offer pretty much the only hope of bites on the stream. The challenge becomes even more challenging as winter bites

More time. Less fish?

Two trips down the river this weekend, both p.m. and both in swims I has fancied from previous visits but at ten minutes door to gate it ain't no hardship

Saturday was spent trotting bread under a balsa in what appeared the perfect smooth water glide, up to and beyond a bush, and then a link-leger into dark under the bush with two reasonably decent bites, one missed, one pulled-out, and therefore no fish

Ever-present family of swans slip past backwards in the dark...why?

The seed was sewn however and with the river falling to inversely reflect a contrary increase in air temperature predicted on the Sunday all seemed to point to an unavoidable opportunity. Shopping was pulled-in early with Parps and I waltzing into the shops as soon as they opened and Sunday's first gentle indoor net as he builds up for next cricket season between ten and eleven this would leave a good slot after dropping The Old Duffer and The Old Trout for a show and then night out just after lunch

Having enjoyed running a float through with the centrepin, but sadly not having anything to show for it, I decided to revert to the new pole method which had been reasonably successful a fortnight ago tempting a nice chub first put on the pole and then a sequence of roach

Slowly the tactic is starting to evolve into something worth using regularly and, if anything, it seems slightly more productive than the standard techniques, largely because, in a river dominated by 3 to 12 ounce roach hitting their bites on the 'tip is a recipe for certifiable frustration

A peg was chosen at the end of a mid-river crease where a glide started and I intended to pole-fish that line. The river was still two foot six above normal and nicely coloured with a few smaller roach topping from middle to far bank. An added bonus was a nearside slack downstream of the peg behind a rush bed which I would drop a link leger into as a sleeper option (wit' lobs on't t'hook)

Somehow I wasn't quite 'with it'; the wind was painfully awkward, despite not hitting the water as such, and I was easily distracted. Fifty fieldfares flapped their staccato randomly undulating flight overhead and buzzards mewed as the rode the gusting breeze over the paddocks off the far bank with an eye out for the local bunnies. Other things drew my attention. Dog walkers, wrens, car headlights in the distance, anything but the fishing. On dropping in however a sail-away bite resulted in another first cast chub on the hook, probably around a pound and a half, and in taking one too many joints off the pole too quickly I allowed it to bury itself in rushes under my feet before I had it beaten!

A series of nice hand-sized and just swingable roach followed, and maybe during the forthcoming holiday I may just ditch the effort to seek slightly larger samples and try maggot under a waggler just to see what is in really in there

While the breeze subsided I decided to have a hot drink and triangle of pork pie, only a Pork Farms  jobbie but welcome none the less. Head and tail of lob meanwhile were lowered into the slack while the pole was rested in the field for the time being. As I tightened the rod tip dived toward the surface and a good fighter was on. Ten feet of murky water and a light avon rod helped and hindered the prey but soon it was at the surface and what I thought to be a guaranteed 2.8.0 perch, angry with its erect dorsal flagging capture (and later stabbing my index finger) was netted.

This was one a chubster of a perch, very wide for its length, but it must've swallowed a tennis ball as it went 28.5 ounces on the scales; which was on the one hand disappointing and on the other quite brilliant as it beat the river p.b. by around six ounces and was the second Leam p.b. from the stretch in around three weeks

A veritable pig-perch but quite a beauty nevertheless

At the close the local barn owl screeched just once as it left to quarter the river margins and rough grassland further afield in its massive winter vole-producing range. The net was lifted and three pounds ten ounces of quality fish were carefully returned to the cold water in this the shortest of days, though without a photo as I was rather keen to get away on this occasion

The quite incredible, nay delightful, annual display of Christmas lights in the local village made the single track lanes akin to motorways in weight of traffic with every under twelve, and quite a good number over, visiting to absorb that festive feeling. I however, wishing to avoid the melee, comforted myself in the prior sunset

The Vagaries of Natural Fortune, or, Always Something to be Happy About

So there we were back again on the new stretch, Parps with sections of lobworm on the crease of nearside slack on his trusty twin-tip Avon quiver and myself on the new experimental method in a glide running up to a raft

The Leam was at 0.65m which equates to about 0.4m or 16" above summer level and still carrying a nice amount of colour but not enough to prevent us being wary of breaking the skyline as we moved around

While I prepped the new gear I dropped a piece of bread on the tip close-in to the raft and immediately had a roach of seven ounces. Subsequently the rod was quickly thrown up the bank as I could see my preparations were to be interrupted. We were sharing a keep net placed halfway between us as we felt today could produce a few fish and to see the ultimate catch might just be worth sharing

Parps was flicking regular chopped wrigglers into the crease and let them settle in the slack and sat back to await his first bite

Meanwhile a heron flew up across the trees barking as it did so and a wren whirred it's little round clockwork wings as it traversed the water from rush bed to rush bed

First cast once I'd organised myself resulted in a early bite and some resistance. I drew the fish upstream away from the swim without breaking surface and P was there ready to net whatever it proved to be. A chub, as it happened, just over two pounds and a nice start

With each feed another bite came, but not rushed, just steady; and I was under the impression that it was once the folded bread hook bait became fully soaked and expanded that the fish took a gastronomic interest

My companion of the angle was starting get bites and lost two fish with soft action rod doubled over that had me wondering what the problem might be. Of course his adversaries were likely to be footballers and so the possibility of the hook not lodging appropriately in their bony mouths was always a possibility, if not a probability. I offered a few words

A sparrowhawk at one point whooshed over my left shoulder, the turbulence evident in the sound of its wing and tail feathers, twisting to maintain a course on track towards gathered thrush species in the scrub beyond. The local family of swans previously referred to glid (new word) past without so much as a ripple and their number, at four, was now stable it seemed, the cob uttering that odd 'whoopa' sound they make when excited

Two or three further nice roach were then rounded off by a beauty of thirteen ounces before Parps lost another two or three good fish and it was time to pay him a visit again. I allowed him to proceed as before and then struck at the bite for him which was quite positive, without being savage, and a fighter was on. Between us one pound six ounces of angry perch was deposited in the net, and all was well. I suspect it was just the strength of strike that was lacking but another lesson had been learnt and his all-important angling experience widened for future reference when needed

By this time it was approaching dark and we decanted ourselves into the one swim to try a big lump of crust into darkness in the hope of a big ol' rubber lips, nothing was doing as the fieldfares crashed into hawthorns seeking roosting opportunities for the night and so we gave it a few more minutes and then packed our last few items away and undertook the obligatory weigh-in and photo session, and a nice picture the make in the gentle flash of a remarkably good quality camera phone

As I reintroduced the catch to the water, catch - water, water - catch, Parps massively whispered 'Dad!, Look!, Owl!' along the bank and of course as I looked up it was gone but from his description it was our friend Tyto alba, the barn owl, often seen on our own stretch half a mile or so further downstream

 

We had mustered six pounds of nice fish between us, and not a sprat among 'em, in the receding high waters and I'm not sure whether the highlight for the boy wonder was his best ever perch or the owl but it probably doesn't matter; either way the pleasure was huge and he chattered all the way back to the lane bursting with enthusiasm for life and all that it could throw at him

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So today found me there again. The method had worked and it was time to refine it further

 

A heavy frost awaited me however and the stream was now clear to over a metre down under the bread ball test leaving me less than hopeful and sure enough I was right to be sceptical with only one quick rap of the tip in my fourth of fifth swim on a light quiver tip

 

 

Company today was again the heron, of which I attempted a long-distance wide-angle shot (okay so the phone camera isn't that versatile!), and his tiny partner in Piscean crime the kingfisher

 

The is no doubt what the highlight of the morning was though (sorry hornet!)...as I crept through the villages on frosty roads a shape suddenly was upon me as it ambled onto the verge and then bounding in the lack-lustre, "Please don't hit me. I'm not that fast", kind of manner which only the badger, of British land mammals, can display. It made it to the other side following which I, and probably it, breathed more easily

 

So you'll have gathered by now that nothing was caught but it did offer an option to wander into the unknown and suss-out future swims within the new boundaries for plotting the downfall of some unsuspecting inhabitants once there is some more water on and tinge of fishy colour.

 

Meanwhile I suspect the canal will call again, a good heavy frost never bothered those hardy residents

Autumn in Full Flow

The rate of decomposition of aquatic plants has been quite surprising and given that the daytime temperatures have been more akin to a poor summer and the first noteworthy frost only bit this week this appears to prove that, unlike the triggers our so called intelligence would have us believe apply to such events, it is not simply heat that controls the reaction of life to the seasons

On the stretch of the Leam that Parps and I have the rights to the arrowheads were slipping into browning dormancy some weeks ago and now, it always seems sudden, the bulrush is losing its bottle green shade in many stems, and ‘cabbages’ break up into slimy, khaki folds as, with the oncoming winter, they prepare for that which will ultimately leave only the rhizome intact


Ten days ago the first seasonal redwings sipped in panic as they burst from foraging to the shelter of thick hawthorn in the nearby Warwickshire countryside and only this past week their erstwhile companion the fieldfare followed a similar pattern as a flock of forty took an undulating course parallel to the Fosse

The gnawing sound on stems being trimmed becomes ever less frequent whether I sit bankside or walk quietly near water and the family of six swans on our stretch is reduced to four by the ravages of predatory instinct and the need to feed the next generation of ‘higher’ species

Yesterday morning a train of five jackdaws sky-jacked a quite massive cronking raven as it headed out to the meadows, its Maltese cross profile as evident as ever it could be in this fascinating individual. How long before we become blasé about their presence in the central and east midlands much as we have with the buzzard, and yet at the same time we worry about the loss of species? Strange times indeed

I read recently that the great ecologist Edward O Wilson was marking the start of the MEMO project to build a shrine to the species which have become extinct since the dodo began the decline, now known widely as the sixth mass extinction, on the ‘Jurassic Coast’. A thirty million pound investment in what, to my mind, could prove to be the most powerful reminder to us (in Britain at least) that it really is time to act. Human life created the issue and, if it is possible to reverse the collapse, surely we owe it to the earth to urge it back to fitness

(see here www.memoproject.org)

 

Speaking of counter-intuitive increases in populations as I was, I am seeing, preceded by a deep dull drone, regular hornets in many locations now and yet, until about three years ago, I could only recall one dead individual noted on a bathroom window cill during a survey of a rural house a decade ago. A friend of mine had a swarm take up residence in her porch just a month ago but while they seem somewhat breathtakingly repulsive, with their bloated wasp-like appearance, they are apparently quite docile and unlikely to attack unless, like the bee, they are provoked to such a degree that they feel the need to defend themselves – such as at food sources or nest sites. In fact there is only one documented record of anyone seeking medical attention after a hornet encounter in the whole of Europe! So, like the buzzard and then the raven, is the hornet expanding in Britain having been restricted to southern counties in the past? Well yes, according to the Natural History Museum, it is indeed as they say ‘a known fact’ that hornets are spreading from their historic stronghold around the Exeter and New Forest area

 

The wet weather towards the end of this week has pushed the Middle River Leam level from the standard summer range of 0.25-0.3m to a positively healthy 0.75 over the past two days and with this in mind fresh vigorous lobworms were obtained and are added to the bait range with the obligatory bread. So with a simple Avon quiver set-up and the contrary, but still relatively strong, sun bursting across the field and in through the windows a plan was hatched

Roach, chub and anything else daft enough to be fooled would be the target. The spaniels seemed to know too but they, with live lamb on the agenda, would be staying to bathe in that same sunlight from indoors

On arrival, the afternoon sun was starting to slide behind a comforting blanket of light cloud while two herons took flight and barked, as only they can, their raucous contact call. As I sauntered to the water’s edge kingfishers piped and their neon blue streaks abounded. Jackdaws jack-ack-acked as, in their fluster, they exploded from the wood with fears all their own…and all was well in the valley

I all-but trod on a field vole as it scurried underfoot into waterside rush margins where cattle and sheep had broken the bank into terraces as it dropped toward the water. But it was not him I sought. For me it was the waterscape that drew me in search of undercuts, slacks and glides; and therein, I dreamt, the aforementioned quarry

Recently I had discovered an undercut with overhanging grasses and hoped it would offer steady water under these first suitably raised water levels of the colder months, but it was not to be; the water gently, admittedly, boiled and surged through the channel and I would need to wait for levels to fall, or rise considerably more, for this area to came back into play

 

An enticing slack I had harboured far from complementary thoughts about when approaching from the opposite bank in the past suddenly seemed all the more attractive downstream of a substantial bed. As the main flow cut past the outside of the shelter, it cried-out for a stab at its likely refugees. Heads, tails and indeed the haemorrhaging middles of a series of unfortunate lobworms were offered to its inhabitants, and, cast after cast, bites ensued. Roach, perch around 12 ounces, then a river best (though far from exceptional example) of 1-1-3 battled and failed to get under the decomposing but, at the same time, high water-animated rush stems. Then another roach before the closing gloom of the evening pushed me back to my prepared bread swim to engage in the last rites of the angling day at the head of an awkward to access shallow gravel run

Last weekend I had been buzzed by a tawny owl elsewhere on the river just minutes after briefly observing its barn-dwelling cousin hunting over rank bankside vegetation. An incoming message from mission control had lit me up in the dark and the enquirer came for a closer look, delaying his fly-by with a brief hover and eventually alighting over my left shoulder until, as I reached for the camera he slipped with the flow and out of sight. This week was to be little different, a male buzzard had landed in bare branches on the opposite bank but soon realised there was a bigger predator already here and silently flapped north and away from this imposter but, as darkness fell and before the evening hoot commenced, another tawny owl swept in from behind willows to my right and settled ten metres in front of me. This time I managed to reach the camera but the owl, wiser than I and fearful as to survive, saw this as an invitation to drift back from whence he appeared and to my horror the gadget slipped from my grasp, bounced down the grassy bank and settled part-submerged in the water. As I write it sits upside-down, stripped-down as much as is possible, next to a radiator – in hope, whether vain or not is yet to be revealed

Although another two small roach were quite taken with the bread after dark the swim wasn’t ‘right’ and I decided to tidy-away and weigh the perch with a heavy dew coating everything at hand

Next week. There's always next week.

When the Fishing gets The Bird

Distant washing moggy

At the crack of dawn this morning on former moorland by the canal with a young plantation nearby it was evident that willow warblers had this year arrived in good number, with three simultaneously singing from different perches both within the wood and in standard hedgerow trees

A mistle thrush struck-up it's somewhat limited repertoire from a distant branch and the occasional blackcap, chaffinch and dunnock joined in

Of greatest interest however was the faint calling of the lapwing later fully brought out of his carefree staccato patterings in an arable field by a passing corvid, causing him to take to the air like Mo Farah with dodgy joints. Rocking first this way then that with his over-sized pied wings exaggerating each movement and giving away the nesting activity his imperceptible mate undertook below on the bare earth

The bird interest was exceptional for a fishing trip, mind you my trips are never just fishing trips, they ought to have another name really, 'nature observation' or some such title perhaps. Again the enchantment stemmed from the numerous songs to be heard at various times. The morning had commenced with the slightest hint of frost on the banks in isolated pockets opposite the wood and it was there that the angling expectation took root with a good helping of mashed bread deposited down the middle of this narrow stretch, the first two casts produced roach of just over and just under the pound...no longer the wait of an hour or two for a bite with the gradually increasing water temperature. The peg was the most pleasurable, with a short section of subsided bank allowing a seat to be taken down at water level - always preferable for that feeling of being at one with the water and surroundings

Despite a burst of topping fish half an hour after dawn no more action was to be enjoyed. A first boat at 06.38 did not help greatly but that is the risk of early Saturday mornings, when narrowboats hired by the inexperienced need to cover too much water in getting back to the marina for handover, necessitating an early start for them too

So, armed with some knowledge gained in recent weeks, more bread was introduced some four pegs to the left opposite an open field. Immediately it was noticeable that the bird list was growing just for the sake of an 80 yard walk into a adjoining habitat linked only by the canal and its margins, as the gear was relocated while the feed settled. A male reed bunting could be heard forcing out his feeble notes in the now suddenly emerging rushes and the previously seemingly distant lapwing was now more visible and careering over his chosen field in a manner evocative of an age gone by; when, on many a rose-tinted balmy spring evening, The Old Duffer and I, would wonder at their ability to tumble apparently out of control without breaking any wings or losing feathers and yet braking before hitting the ground too. All to distract the intruder, and what a distraction! 

Of course the first cast in the new swim produced more of the same but this was some fighter. I prayed, in some sort of bizarre agnostic fashion, for a dream roach.....

Hybrid. 2-11-5 

Another big canal hybrid eventually relented and slipped into that dream-like state that finds them in the net. A couple more fish followed and an overall catch of over six and a half pounds was returned to the, by then (8.15am), strongly pulling water on conclusion of a brief but most enjoyable dawn to breakfast, pre-B&Q, session

Some chunky fish, now fully recovered from a hard winter but some showing signs of the excitement of spring with absent scales
Roach 1-2-5, 0-15-3, 0-6-0. Bream 1-7-8. RxB Hybrid 2-11-5

SPECIES LIST:
Willow warbler, carrion crow, blackbird, woodpigeon, mallard, moorhen, magpie, blackcap (singing, and female viewed), skylark, chaffinch, lapwing, bullfinch, reed bunting, jackdaw, dunnock, greenfinch, mistle thrush, goldfinch, collared dove, swallow, indet gull, wren, blue tit, robin, house sparrow.
Roach, bronze bream, (roachXbream hybrid).

If Saturday had been dream-like then Sunday was the real thing. Another early alarm call but this time ten minutes earlier to allow a longer walk should the opportunity present itself, as no decision would be made on destination until the wheels were turning. Last time this road was taken a barn owl was seen scattering jackdaws and this time it was in the same spot and slipped over a farm gate between trees to vanish into the mist

Only a few hundred yards on, Volpone trotted across the metalled surface with his bunny and disappeared into the darkness of the hedge destined to cause mayhem amongst the waiting cubs no doubt

I hadn't visited this stretch since match angling had lost its gloss but recalled two things quite vividly a match winning perch taken on half a pinkie in the depths of winter and an asthma attack from the long walk in a heavy frost; a day of extremes!

Similarities with today were initially limited to the frost with the fields white-over at 5am but soon cleared as the air warmed with the cloud cover that approached gently from the north-east. Mist gently drifted across the water as I approached an S-bend I had not seen for over twenty years, an area where I had learnt bread punch fishing by trial and error (and a few magazine articles) as a teenager

A narrowboat floated in the mist as if a cake decoration on icing with a deep ribbon of the frozen green field below. Soon the sky turned orange as the sun rose together with a number of large fish beneath the growing cloud cover and dramatically illuminated the whole scene with growing concentric rings of each topping specimen glinting gold

Rooks were the first birds to show as they ferried more beetles than the land can concievably support back to their young in bulging bald beaks. The first lift-bite came five to ten minutes in when a vigorous fight culminated in a noticeably silver fish coming to the surface, no hint of blue to the scales. A large silver bream pulled the scales down to 1-3-6, a sliver off the PB, and the best start imaginable

The first skylark took to the wing to declare the day open for business as a number of blackbirds practiced their own tunes from a variety of perches near and far

The worm line, 15 yards to the right at the bottom of the near shelf, was subject to the 'sleeper wand' but first cast the bait did not hit the bottom before a violent twang of the tip resulted in the hooking of a superb fat spring Dandy of the Stream resplendent in striped tunic and collapsible battlements. An all canals PB at 1-13-5

It was then fish for fish on the two lines but the undoubted highlight was yet another PB hybrid, where are they all coming from, and do they fight?! The seemingly impossible four pounds ceiling shattered by this fish of 4-2-3

The rest of the session was usurped by the bird life and a steady stream of smaller perch on the 'tip seemed somewhat insignificant as a mysterious repetitive warbling seeped from a scrubby patch to the left. Wandering along using the hedge as cover a closer view was attempted but the culprit was deep inside the thorns so I returned to my own perch but not before a pair of tree sparrows chirped their way from an ash to a field hedge in a landscape that has always been something of stronghold for them despite their apparent recent decline

Another hybird came to the net on the wand, this one 1-11-3 and swiftly followed by a good roach on the float, which seemed fairly modest until lying in the net, of 1-2-0

Soon though the warbling moved to a bramble patch with few leaves and gave the ideal opportunity have have another go. With all the stealth of a penguin in clogs I ventured closer and could see movement as the songster headed toward the camera. By this time the iPhone app had confirmed that the sound was made by a lesser whitethroat, all that was missing was a good sighting to ink-in the tick. Then suddenly, and equally briefly, he was all but in the open and a couple of long-lens record shots were reeled-off. Result!

Over eleven pounds of clonkers in a mixed bag including a few small perch out of shot and the surreal period of North Oxford Canal angling continues

What to make of this quality of fishing before the boat activity starts? Well, that's another story...

SPECIES:

Barn owl, red fox, skylark, tree sparrow, blackbird, indet gull, rook, mallard, moorhen, canada goose, dunnock, reed bunting, great tit, wren, chaffinch, lapwing, lesser whitethroat, kestrel, silver bream, roach, perch, rXb hybrid