Three Weeks In…The Hiatus at Home

A Long Season Behind & a Long non-statutory Close Season to Follow

There was a time when life was simple

A time when a close season was accepted, when fishing was uncomplicated and when people knew where they stood

They knew right from wrong, in a sense

The glorious 16th. Of spring fishes, sharp mornings, misty views, gritty eyes and the heartbeat of uncertainty

Those of unfathomable feathered feats of migration would start to trickle in. A few waders, the odd martin or swallow; overwintering chiffchaff and blackcap might start to sing, boosted by a far greater number of visitors and, conversely, some would leave; redwing and fieldfare most notably, but they can also be noted hanging around seemingly far too long (7 fieldfare in a mature garden aspen just 2  weekends ago)

Wildfowl leave and wildfowl return; cetaceans follow prey into the waves warming coastal waters and, somewhat intriguingly, become spotters’ fantasy sightings

Frogs, toads and newts; snakes and lizards; invertebrates; fish; every living thing becomes caught-up in the palpable swell of Spring

Except this year, 2020, when we British humans are to be denied our Spring

Questions are begged

"But what about the League?!"

Liverpool, perhaps Coventry City, Celtic, Dundee Utd, Cove Rangers they could all be declared champs and not many would be bothered but when it concerns tight current positions like those of Leeds, Crewe/Swindon, Raith Rovers, etc., plus the numerous also rans seeking promotion and those trying to drag their legs from the rubber towel holder of relegation, what’s to do? Well okay the, disrespectfully so called, lower leagues have been scrubbed but firstly, does it not seem quite incredible that none of the leagues seem to have rules set-out under the heading “Massive Disaster Contingency Plans”, especially as the majority of them survived at least one and probably two World Wars?

Surely the simplest solution is that if a delay of more than ‘X’-weeks occurs the places each team occupied at the time of suspension will be their finishing positions. If the rules state it there is no doubt and everyone goes into it with their eyes open, but to take decisions in multi-million pound situations mid-flow could/would result in complete chaos with the legal system being swamped with claims and counter-claims arising therefrom. One would think they’d be ready

So that’s just one issue in this crazy COVID-19 world of isolation. I’m told there may be others


For F, F&F though there are bigger fish to skin and many ways of frying a cat (to use dear old Psycho’s method of phraseology. For the can’t be bothered at heart, he once said, “We could see the carrot at the end of the tunnel”) and some of those creatures will be positively contributing to this, the Hiatus at Home, while others will suffer

Research, conservation, breeding, crime, birth rates, death rates, sales, mental illness, wealth, etc., will all have wildly swinging fluctuations of fortune and we’ve just got to bite the bullet and make the most of what we have without any great release other than conversation, community spirit, siege mentality, gardening, home decorating, health and fitness, families being drawn together, helping each other, playing games, cooking. Blimey, sounds quite plausible actually.

So, for our part, it’s been a case of writing up angling notes, imagining what one might need to prepare for and what options might present dependent upon the timing of our release.

Revisiting those notes is always rewarding, not least because the number of hopeless trips become apparent and being confined to literal gardening duty seems nicely profitable in comparison to those

One aspect, it being a Bloggers’ Challenge season, is the noting of those slightly more special fish. There’s a little schedule that qualifies a fish in FFF-land and anything above gets underlined in red. So it’s quick to glance through and see how successful a period has been in terms of fish that have hit the mark of being noteworthy, albeit they all get noted anyway

They’ve become known as Stone-fish

PB’s merit a red box around them. Any type of PB. Best for rivers, canals, lakes; best for individual watercourses or lakes or of course the actual overall, indisputable, species, ‘with knobs on’, Lifetime Personal Best

PB’s came along like mornings when the Float & Flannel elements of the Blog were growing and the first Bloggers’ Challenge entered was underway. A few years on, a PB has become more of a rarity as the number of pyramid topping species has racked-up. Indeed, it’s become more a case of seeking epic moments than PB’s in their own right.

But is this right? Is angling all about breaking previous barriers?

The Bloggers’ Challenge  is all consuming.

The inner competitor breaks-out of dormancy and influences every move.

What points-scoring fish do current conditions suggest the most likely? Catching it is uplifting but there are many, many failures and its easy to look back at a year via the notes and (lack of) underlining to see the fact

Some nice fish have been to grace the net, certainly, but the whole period has been more about quantity and filling the scoreboard with ‘nice fish’. The final part of the plan, this current river close season from mid-March to mid-June, was to have been the icing on the cake but of course, chances are it won’t now happen at all

Post-Coronavirus I envision a world quite different

When nature bites humankind on the proverbial, there is usually a quick return to whatever normality is, and it’ll be different things emerging from this pandemic that will stay with us. Sadly however, it will probably be the easy things that have little effect on people’s everyday lives that will be retained

In reality of course its the more fundamental far-reaching changes that need to become the norm, family, community, walking, supporting nature, growing food; all locally undertaken. British holidays, and, as the air now clears, a massive reduction in air and car travel, and so on

Personally it strikes me that if this lockdown has taught us anything surely it is that we’ve lost touch with the natural pace of life. The increasingly confusing, rushed, frantic daily grind that is neither natural nor healthy, nor sustainable is the new black. A place of darkness driven by the constant search for economic growth. More of this, more of that and less/no actual time to simply live. A pace careering to an inevitable collision with mental health and physical issues, which all begs the simple question, “Why?”.

One final question:
Could CORVID-19 be caused by a flock of rooks?


Seat photograph: Copyright Florian Müller

A Good Day by the Water

The angling winter has been peppered with blank sessions; the birding equivalent however punctuated by just the odd sparkling find - a garden brambling and two lesser redpoll just a couple of weeks ago; the Hawfinch at Draycote Water and such like.

Now that the river season has emitted it last feeble lung of air The Stillwater has become home. Prebaiting for nearly 2 weeks now eventually the fish will become active (with the water temperature have breached ten degrees centigrade today) and find the bait when loaded hookbaits are included with a bonanza to ensue but, until then, a recent barren angling excursion littered with birding highlights will keep us warm with its memory.

An hour after dawn, the plaintive call of the curlew from the north. Drifting on the barely perceptible breeze it flew, gently, as curlew do, as if the air itself could counter gravity and support them aloft without muscular propulsion, perhaps a male with less extravagant bill, directly overhead and disappeared South across the water. A pair had completed the same journey a week ago at a similar time of day.

That would have sufficed as a highlight, we're not greedy, but at 10.15am a returning osprey gently cruised along the north bank. It's flap, flap, glide flight combined with its size, obvious white areas and wing profile made it unmistakable as it likely headed in the direction of nesting areas in deepest Rutland.

By this point the fact we were biteless was but an insignificant midge bite compared to the emerging imago from a pupa of excitement that was unfolding.

This morning would yet get better still.

Unseen the "choo-lu-lu" of the greenshank overhead and a nice early record too.

As I shared this information via the ether I caught a glimpse of a heavy white bird. In no way the jaunty flight of a common or arctic tern but a steady 'gait'. The view too fleeting to achieve a positive i.d. but Norman (my gut, he's had a name since I suddenly put on two trouser sizes and took on a life of his own) said, "Sandwich tern".

I lost the bird from view as it headed east but it came back from a second circuit and the unmistakable whiteness, steady flight and close-up of the yellow-tipped black bill confirmed that it was indeed a sandwich tern.

A first ever F, F&F inland record to complete a rare old treat of a birdwatching day; the only slight irritation the lack of camera, as I'd tried to travel as light as possible given a long walk and boggy terrain.

Ice and a Slice

Dawn was sullen. Cold and unmoving in the crystalline shroud

Fingers burnt to metal, numbness pervading. Conductivity seeking to turn flesh to ice. Hard pellets of snow blistering the complexion like a hundred wind-driven air guns

The cocoon would stretch to its limit by both the day's acts of God and chronic Festive fall-out. The nylon mushroom, stout as a defence, would only offset so much bitterness

Gulls cackled in a rural melee as wild duck took flight and out of the fear a solitary brown, beautifully tortoisehell-marked, downy feather braked from a burst of turbulence and floated to earth, landing suspended by its quill, from least year's dock. A reminder of a fragility we oft-times lose sight of

There was tingling water; there were clouds indistinct from the frozen pearls that swept in arcs towards the pitch and there were open fields; ridge and furrow magnified by a coat of pristine perfection but, sub-surface, who could predict? Any attempt would be decorated with more pessimism than encouragement but the pitch was free and, with an unstinting confidence in the outcome, we embarked on this foreseen 'one bite, one fish' morning with, at times, as many as three hands tied behind our back; the first by winter

A guru, once deposed, but an oracle nevertheless, advised that if anything would be sufficiently enticing in a challenge such as this it would be a caster. We had bread and lamprey; the latter in preparation for an inaccessible location this easily avoidable invisible sunrise

Two hands tied

Knowledge though was on our side we thought. Banking on success in bad days on the bank, seek out the banker location. The outcome would never be in doubt. The inevitable speck dispatched into the margin swayed and drifted down so slowly that it seemed never likely to disappear from view, but it did, captured by the brown hand of the depths and dragged into the dark. The top quarter of the mirror visible to the straining eye

Pre-planning had been absolute, nothing forgotten yet nothing unnecessary

Some overspill attractant flicked along the path of geological soup for those more in need would be consumed by a bouncing female bomb of that contradiction, a brown blackbird, followed by the red of breast in waiting for the red of fin

Flow

Week in. Week out. The Captains were afloat, nothing contains a percentage. Not even this most miserable of days.

Within a hour three had slipped past with the barest hint of commotion but we knew that, on days such as this, when tranquillity would deliver the prize, this would clamp our third hand, shackled and useless...and so it continued

Once the hour-glass was spent the sand settled the account at zero, the motions to be repeated. An uninviting yet disarmingly productive desperation spot took the imagination and soon the cast was made into the by now enlarged stars of ice that floated toward the face like perforated marshmallows, iced and sliced

That thing that is always against us would soon bring itself to bear. The cocoon at thermal breaking point, the ice water trickling down to the boots of mud-pie. It would not be long before a line had to be drawn and tidied away

Endurance is one thing, stupidity another. The latter was on the white horizon

The lamprey rod broken-down and all peripheral paraphernalia packed; a quick glance, a twitch, a lift and that confirmatory delay. A strike, a curve, a whispered, "Yes!"

"It's a roach", the fight said

"Now don't come off"

"Ooh, a nice one too"

The obligatory, "C'mon you beauty", over the net and lifted clear without so much as a splash

"Not quite a pound, I'm giving it 0.14.8", was the internal reaction to this lifesaving chill pill

The scales suggested 0.15.10 over three measurements but never has a fish been so beautiful, so pleasing

So huge

Variety and Application...or...What to do when it gets tough

Christmas Day a warm memory, the FF&F household refreshingly quiet as the others recover and a scattering of Santa seed brings a small flock of chaffinches to the bare bonfire surrounds, but the male dominated group are flighty and currently peer out from the trees awaiting the first mover to trigger the rest to follow.

A lone fieldfare, a much overlooked species but quite beautiful if one takes the time, in violent pursuit of anything thrush-like, ensures the fallers are his

Pondering the last month, it has been outstanding in its unpredictability and, largely weather driven, hit-and-miss-ness. It pays to plan carefully and ensure anything is possible at any moment but even then these intentions will fail more often that not without stable conditions.

Applying the experience of the decades is so important at such times and, rifling through the notes, it makes for a veritable eclecto-feast of tactics:
15.11.17 - Canal - sea deadbaits & lures
17 11 17 (am) - Reservoir - Cage feeder & bread
17 11 17 (pm) - Stream - Cage feeder & liquidised bread
18 11 17 - Reservoir - Slider & caster
19 11 17 - Reservoir - Experimental 'zig rig' with bread
20 11 17 - Reservoir - Waggler & caster
22 11 17 - Canal - Spratt deadbaits
25 11 17 - Canal - Lift method & bread
26 11 17 - Reservoir - 2 x maggot feeders
28 11 17 - Canal - Lift method & bread
29 11 17 - Reservoir - 'Zig rig' & bread
02 12 17 - Canal - Lift method & bread
03 12 17 - The Stillwater - Mackerel deadbaits
17 12 17 - ditto
18 12 17 - River - Pole feeder & bread mash

Minus 10C overnight; five or six inches of snow; heavy rain; 11C in the day; clear skies & sun have all been over and upon us during that period and none of them to any benefit for the angler unless they were to stick around and become the norm

The above and more determine the unquestionable need to keep the mind active and look to apply methods that will work in the particular circumstances that prevail, led by the preceding and present weather

In all those trips since the last post (not now bugler!) there have been one or two highlights that must not be omitted. Top of the list, firmly, a call from a dear old former traveling companion who, since our paths diverged, made his merry way into one of the handful of top English match angling teams as soon as I stopped holding him back(!), captained them until 3 years ago and took part in the World Club Championships. We could have spoken for hours and it took only a few seconds of the call to get onto angling! I can see it will be regular thing now that we're back in touch

Onto actual angling - a second-largest stillwater pike of 8.11 was rapidly subsumed into the afterglow of a p.b. dismantling lump of 16lbs precisely. The third bite in three casts at dawn. A perfectly spotless fish, well those spots that weren't supposed to be there at least, if you get my drift-float. To top it, there was still some snow around to enhance her visage

A three pounds nine ounce chub first cast on the pole feeder with bread was welcome on a particularly tricky day on the Warwickshire Avon. The somewhat subdued fight brought about by the elastic a boon when fishing this method. Unfortunately a slip and sudden flip saw it back in the drink before I had even taken the camera from the bag, so to speak. Accomplished as ever.

The chaffinches have returned on the other side of the glass and, grabbing the bin's, we seek that gem of the winter, a brambling, but no such fortune as yet. It usually takes a prolonged spell of desperately cold weather to bring such rarities to the garden and today follows that pattern.

Slider-fished double caster was successful in teasing a two pound perch from eleven feet of chilly reservoir water in a clear patch when weed was problem further out but it took three repeat sessions of regular feeding that same swim to encourage the blighter and some of his small brethren to risk a nibble

The hawfinches continue to elude us but regularly visiting bearded tit showed well enough in the reservoir reedbed, a male again this year. Sometimes as many as six are seen but just the one on this occasion of passage. An agitated individual, seemingly unable to settle, and, flitting from reed stem to reed stem, made itself impossible to photograph and therefore there is no proof to share

Of course I would want normally to close on that now traditional note of a nice big a canal roach. In fact a fish of 1lb 3ozs 3 drams from the banker swim and a bright highlight in a largely testing six week period only very occasionally punctuated with gems but, inexplicably, there is no pic so we will have to make do with this unseasonal tench taken two days before Christmas on a rubber/real red maggot balanced hookbait hopefully wafting just above the reservoir bed. This welcome winter imposter went 2.15.0 but when it came to etiquette in front of camera she was clearly found flipping wanting!

The day will close with heavy rain and then snow

The only certainty therefore being the uncertainty of the weather

A Win Bonus in Tough Times?

The Stillwater is tough. 

So tough that a bite is at the very least a pleasant surprise and, more often in fact, something of a shock.

A couple of weeks ago I felt that floundering feeling when I wasn't enjoying my fishing enough as it seemed to have become directionless and predictable. Too many stretches of canal had turned clear and the banker stretch, although in perfect trim, could only be enthused over so many times.

A decision was made.

Target roach on all venues.

It started with blanks. In fact Monday would have been my sixth consecutive, but no one said it would be easy.

The Stillwater was too still, however I did see some quality fish topping at dawn which gives me future hope, but wind and colour are required.

The hours I whiled away on the banks were exceptional for bird life however and precisely fifty species were listed topped by a fantastic winter visiting firecrest plus a few brief glimpses of an otter bubbling it's way eastward in search of that which I could not find. That tiny bird was the harbinger of what we Burtons call a 'Let's Weep!' moment, such as I last felt when discovering my first ever Dartford warbler in Dorset. Magical.

No bites ensued in two visits and the next thing to make me emotional was meeting a good old friend or two by chance in the tackle shop. About fifteen years they reckon it had been. Cue selfies, tales of days gone by and, I'm told, Facebook may subsequently have been involved, though that is beyond my oldfangledness.

On a tip-off I decided to fine-tune the roach method on another pond where I might get a bite before returning when conditions would be right in search of the prey of palpitations.

As I used to think as a match angler..."You learn nothing if you're not getting any bites".

Arriving before dawn, good fish topped all round with the increasing light and just occasionally some real specimens rolled too.

Fishing two rods at 30m with maggot feeders it was second cast with each rod that the action started and continued unabated until I cut the flavouring from the feeder by way of a reverse experiment and the bites immediately ceased. Amazing proof.

Archie Braddock - you were right, as we're my informal mentors. I was tempted to call them Mentors A & B but that implies a hierarchy so I'm going with Mentor P and Mentor I. I suspect they will become MP and MI in no time...oh, they already have.

Roach, Rudd and a solitary perch completed a lively two hour session with nine pounds of fish which included the golden prize of a rather sneaky p.b. Rudd of 1.2.

Next day the air was a little less welcoming at three degrees but I had a couple more things to try out and so headed to the same peg again. This time for a quarter short of two hours but the hoped-for big roach showed themselves for the first hour of daylight once more.

Second cast again with each rod and two fighters were on the bank. Initially disinterested, but increasingly keen to get away the closer to the bank they came, the unmistakable fight of unseasonal tench was upon us. One could have been lucky, two worthy of comment but to take four up to 5.2.11 was just plain silly. Add to this two roach and three perch, all around ten ounces each and the sixteen pound catch in one and three quarter hours summed-up a commercial-esque(!) session I could never have seen coming.

The second tench, or tenchlet at 1.6, carried festering growths in the roots of its fins and so I slipped it back and thus avoided infecting the keepnet. Photographs are now with the holding club and their experts are on the case to pursue it further. Deer stalkers donned and magnifying lens in hand as I write no doubt.

I think the wind is on the rise in a few days' time, so, having ironed-out a few wrinkles in the method, it's back to The Stillwater to try to tempt the untemptable but until then this alternative is too good to miss for December. Those bigger early-priming roach are there to be had too. The lake is the source of the roach p.b. on stillwaters at 2.1.8 of three decades ago, the best of a magnificent brace and a day when, just minutes later, The Old Duffer nabbed one for himself of 2.0.8 to confirm the venue pedigree.


This morning with, again, very little time to play with, it was back to attempt to tease out those bigger roach that had been active early, a fortunate by-product of this rig-testing industry. It had been a brief frost yesterday evening but, with temperatures due to soar up to 6degC before dawn with some cloud and rain in the early hours, the likelihood of tremulous tench yet ravenous roach became too tempting to ignore.

On arrival it was actually seven degrees but the breeze was biting and I'd forgotten my trousers, or at least my thermal over-trousers, and had to sit like some old(er) boy with a jumper over my thighs looking distinctly as though my carer had cleared-off in search of someone more spritely.

I fancied two options:
A maggot feeder at 30-35m and a flavoured maggot feeder at 60m, both with maggot hook baits.

The result:
4 bites to the flavour in 2.25 hours fishing, all hooked and landed. Zilch on the other. Now there's no doubt that Archie, MI & MP were right.

Encouraging one pound fish to the bank with a slightly over-gunned rod and careful use of the clutch has been interesting in that it has really enabled the identification of the fish by fight characteristics quite easily

So the week ended with a less numerous catch but a nice weight of eight pounds-odd comprising this lovely, yet thermally confused, tench of 5.9:

A probable roach X rudd hybrid of a gnats under a pound:

and two of these chunky footballers:

With an approaching ten days or so to tackle various venues, and the weather looking settled there's genuine optimism in the air, and the water I hope

Kids and Fishing (Chapter MCMXXVI), and Other Stuff...

There was an air of change.

In a period of a few increasingly short days waterside green had tended to straw and higher up some trees displayed shades of red.

Soon carpets would be suspended by that unfathomable phenomenon, surface film, perhaps as multi-coloured running contorting in the twists and turns of increased flow or caught as decaying rugs in a bay or against a fallen log.

The feeling of being fully alive as the chill takes to the air coincides with migration in birds and, largely throughout the animal world, hunger. This marks September to November as the time the coarse angler expects. Yes, autumn is peak feeding time for most coarse species.

Personally I had set the summer aside to add a few stillwater fish to the Blogger's Challenge scoreboard, in a season I usually avoid, thinking this would give me the best chance of whatever success I could muster but, with only one species to show for it and a handful of canal and river fish from May and the past few weeks, that tactic seems to have been somewhat high-risk. On the upside, there are two or three fish there that will take some beating locally but I am still too short in the stillwater department at a time of year when I will be inclined to fish canals if the rivers are too low and clear through to the season's end. I fear I may have to fit in some more stillwater sessions yet and rely on a more concentrated approach to the other two options later while stillwater fish remain likely to respond.

The Boy Wonder for his part has been unable to fish until the past three weeks but took his first ever ruffe amid great excitement after we discussed free-lining lob tails a fortnight back only to feel that nauseating sensation when he realised a guaranteed twenty points would be precisely zilch upon noting that the species is ineligible!

His high jinx continued to influence my own luck as I blanked that same ruffe day and also this weekend when he caught a two ounce chub in his first session touch-legering (a new method for every occasion this lad!). As we strolled back to the lay-by, inadvertently late for dinner, we pondered how many points this chublet might have been be worth and, assuming the chub record to be around ten pounds, figured ten points to every pound would be somewhere near so surmised one to two points. Tiny result though it was he was chuffed that night, as we filled in the table last thing before he went to sleep, to see that he no longer propped up the leaderboard and had at least five anglers behind him on the river chart.

 

A happy chap he was as I sat back with tipple in hand recalling his thoughts immediately after the points conversation.

"What would happen if you caught a new record chub? How many points would you get then?".

"Well, if you equalled it exactly you'd get one hundred as it would be one hundred percent of the record. So if you caught, let's say, to keep it easy, an eleven pounder how many points would that be worth?".

"Err, a hundred and ten".

"Yes, plus ten more for catching the biggest chub of the challenge...until someone caught a bigger record of course, then they'd get the extra ten".

"Okay, that's what I'll do then", he replied. Matter of fact.

I'm uncertain as to whether he meant the first record, the second or both, but it's gonna be fun finding-out!

We may need a bigger landing net.

In between being jinxed by my now returned companion, I did managed to increase my own river perch from a few ounces to one pound three last week from 'our stretch' of the Leam on a free-lined lob and then increased that again to 1-12-0 just yesterday a mile or so upstream using a 'new' traditional method to me, that of laying-on with a whole lobworm on a 6 hook and a large shot nailed to the bottom. Traditionally of course this would be balanced against a crow or porcupine quill but, in the absence of those, I was employing a thirty year old Max Winters stick float (anyone remember him?)...which I then duly lost on a snag later. The bites were un-missable and totally contradict everything I thought I'd learnt match fishing with, for instance, squatts on 26 hooks and 0.055mm bottoms.



One, three.

 

One, twelve.

Prior to this I had my own one-pointer, a perfectly-formed micro-pike!, and a lovely river roach which couldn't quite tip the scales at a pound, try though it did as I weighed it.

Don't ask

 

The undoubted highlight of the past between posts period followed the sound of crashing below me on 'the day of the ruffe'. The river was bank to bank with rushes downstream of the hole I was dipping tail ends of lobs into without success and as the noise became closer I expected the resident family of swans with four maturing cygnets to appear in series as they reached the open water I surveyed so it was with no little surprise that when ripples started to emanate across the pool nothing appeared to follow them. Until, that was, I became conscious of what could only be described as an intermittent double-snorting or snorkelling effect. Whatever was making the disturbance was tight under the near bank, out of sight, beneath overhanging rushes, nettles and grasses but it didn't take me long with my standard process of elimination to discard whale and dolphin and get to otter as a conclusion.

Just as soon as I thought it relatively risk-free I ran on feet as light as I could make them and approached the ruffe hunter while telepathically praying he would turn round without speaking, which he thankfully did and I was able to give him the accepted 'silence' signal. We sat and waited as I pointed urgently downstream. Nothing. Then, slowly, an impression of sound. Then out came her head, oiled in arrowheads and pallid beneath the cutest of carnivorous chins. Sure enough a female otter in broad daylight. We watched her make her way under far bank hawthorns getting tiny glimpses here and there and all the time conscious of her blowing and then sucking in fresh air between each dive, occasionally punctuated by the crunching of snail of crayfish.

Otter bait

For me the otter remains the holy grail of native mammals and a sight I wouldn't have believed I'd experience locally in my lifetime until maybe five years ago, and now three in a year or so within a mile stretch.

Ripples of the passing otter

Sometimes life really can be so rewarding, it makes those sessions jinxed by The Boy Wonder all the more easily forgotten, until he reminds me of course...

...and when he's not fishing he makes a mean chef too!

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

The Penultimate Hurrah

The curtain is about to close on another river angling season and the Boy Wonder and I, like, we are certain, many others, still await our Rod Licences yet soon we will be obliged to buy more of these mythical permits. I do hope the price will be reduced by the savings made in not producing them last year

Although my own angling activity has been as regular, if not more so, than 'normal' the weather has been such this past month or so that sessions have largely been blank or producing just the odd fish, usually a chub of 2lbs it seems

I have been losing a lot too. Not fish, but items. I left a tub of lobworms in a lay-by, a bait dropper on the bank which I retrieved three weeks later (yesterday), and my bestest rubberised roach fishing landing net (which reappeared a fortnight later)

Since targeting those bigger then average fish I have been surprised how many are actually landed as compared to match fishing. I would say I have found I lose on average around one in ten fish but (I can't confirm it) I think in matches I would probably have lost around twice as many bigger fish. Smaller hooks, lighter lines, less powerful rods in tight situations, etc, etc., all contribute of course

My keenness to get on the riverbank has meant a high number of very short sessions of late, some of them less than two hours duration, but this has provided the opportunity to try a wide range of methods on various and varying lengths of river. Pole, float & link leger have all played a part and bread and lobworms have both produced some entertainment. Until yesterday however the level of that interest was limited to the odd fish or perhaps a few roach on the pole, and I mean few!

So what was different about Sunday March 8th 2015?

There had been various false dawns over the past three weeks or so when I had managed to convince myself that tomorrow would be the day when the fish (by which of course I mean the roach) would feed and adorn the occasional capture of the larger fish with intermittent sparkles of silver and ruby

The colour might have been right, the temperature maybe, or the flow levels, or perhaps even my own availability to fish but somehow until the day before today it just didn't happen

A few days ago though frosts were avoided by that perfect insulating blanket of cloud known in the FF&F household as 'night night cloud' (don't ask). Consequently day time temperatures rose too. Colour was falling out of the water such that I was concerned it might then be too clear but, most importantly, a strong wind got up, forcing that warm air into the subsequently increased surface area of water and suddenly there we had it. Perfect conditions. Not Saturday, no, but Sunday, yes, it all clicked...or maybe plopped...into place

Saturday I ventured forth twice with Parps besieged by his ongoing illness I was again undertaking the pursuit alone in the early morning (though his is still gloating over his first Angling Times Kingfisher Award from last week with 'that perch' so I was quite happy not to keep being reminded about that!). It wasn't by any means a bad morning losing what felt like a really good chub in the incredibly snaggy swim I'd previously taken my Leam p.b. from a season or two back and then taking one of two pounds from another peg before breakfast called, with another gentleman of the angle queued up to jump into my grave the moment I reeled in for the last time

Later that same day I did manage to drag the (not so) littl'un down to another stretch in search of a chub and, as per usual, he sneaked one chublet out while I watched a tip constantly do its job of quivering under the continuous attention of sprats. Another blank

Sunday though was but one sleep away. The temperature overnight was tantamount to illegal and the wind continued to blow. The water running through the valley was noticeably warmer to the touch and, revisiting the same swim as the previous morning, I had hoped to entice the big brother of the one that got away the day before

A third of a Warburton's toastie was mashed and potted the night before in readiness and a good percentage deposited behind a fallen branch at the head of a steady glide. Bites were immediate and positive. Fish topped with unusual abandon

I knew immediately this would be the annual event. That day when the out and out roach angler, not concerned with size, would fill his or her net. It is a rare event on the middle Leam that conditions conspire in this manner but this, at the eleventh hour, would be this season's example

I also knew that the next day I would suffer my annual regret that I no longer chase anything that swims for the sight of a net of quality roach, such as these were soon to prove to be, cannot be beaten

For now though the thrust is to pick-out the bigger fish and so I awaited the wrap-around of the rubber-lipped quarry only to find that constant alternating between crust on a 4" tail and flake on a 15" tail produced roach on the latter and, eventually, once suitably whittled, roach on the former

I was having to sit on my hands in expectation that at some point a proper pull round would occur and only twenty to thirty minutes in round it did indeed go. Smooth as silk, not at all savage and in the immediate aftermath a small chub could be seen rotating under the surface...or could it? Soon it was round an invisible snag in this snag-pit to end them all. Slack line was given in the time-honoured fashion and action resumed. The chub came to the surface and that involuntary intake of breath occurred to me, as very few things in life can cause, when chub became roach, a large, chunky, river p.b. challenging roach

A cracker indeed. 1-3-7 of rare small stream beauty that would not quite take the crown from one an ounce or so its superior two seasons ago

 

Perseverance ensued. Two more introductions of feed at 30 to 45 minute intervals but no more of his or her school mates succumbed

On the return trip with about two handfuls of mash left I introduced them to a very shallow glide and again had roach but this time the tip did whack round and a strongly fighting chub of 2-5-5 took great advantage of every stem of grass and thrust of flow before sliding into the safety of the deep blue net

A lovely mornings' reward, around 6 to 7lbs of fish. Surely double figures, and maybe the traditionally sought stone of roach, were on the cards to the suitably geared-up all-rounder, but that angler was not me,  nor was it last year.

Yes, I do miss that one thing, once a year


Five days to go...

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

----

 

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

Kids and Fishing. Part Two

"That tree is usually on the bank and next to it is a dished channel that all the fish will be in under these flood conditions".

...2 hours later...

"Shall we try somewhere else now?"

"Let's put everything we don't need in the car and just take a few bits down the field and we'll see if we can find any steady water to fish. That's where the fish'll be"

"Okay. Don't leave the pork pies in the car though!"

"Make sure you don't go over the waterproof bit of your boots in this marsh. When you're climbing the gate hotch along to end so that you can climb down on to dry land".

"The farmer's come down with a rope dad what would he need that for I wonder?"

"Hmm, not sure unless he's worried a sheep might've been washed in and he'll need to drag it out".

"This peg looks brilliant you can just imagine where the chub and perch will be like in Mr Crabtree, You know, when he has C's and P's on the water an' that. You can see the crease as well look!"

"You can, can't you? A great looking peg this. We'll definitely catch something here".

...1 hour later...

"I tell you what, let's go back to the car now. I don't think the water is still rising (it was) but I don't want to risk getting cut-off without waders".

"What would we do if it did get higher?"

"Just follow the higher ground with the sheep, see how they stay up there and they'll sleep up there too as normal. They never sleep low down. They might seem simple but they know where to sleep".

"That was quite an adventure today Parps!".

"Yeah I loved it. Even though we didn't catch anything, I'm not bothered about that. Don't you think the pastry makes pork pies? I love the pastry".

Next day, the canal, sense prevailed but no early start

It went like this...

"There see, a little imagination and the right way to tempt the fish and you've got a half pound perch to show for it and I haven't had a bite on bread. You'd win matches with that attitude, there used to be plenty of anglers who'd just sit there and wait rather than make things happen in matches".

"Did you used to fish in many matches when you were younger Dad?"

"Well not at your age, just one or two junior matches in the summer but when I was older, before you were born, it would be at least four matches a week in the summer. Open matches Saturday and Sunday with two or three evening matches in between"

"It must've taken a lot of time?"

"Yes, but that's what I wanted to do. It was more a case of how much it cost so you needed to put all your spare wages into it. Opens were £10 pools in those days with evening matches much less"

"So if there were ten people and they all paid ten pounds the winner got £100?"

"Well it's not quite that simple but yes thats the principle of it"

"When can I go in a match?"