That Awkward Time

Even a steady breeze can convert the comfortable cold to an eye-watering blast. Someone should invent a hat with racehorse style blinkers. 

In the second angling life it has often been a struggle turning from autumn into no winter with any degree of success. It's easier on the canal, with the fish always so obliging and confidence always high, but lakes, apart from Rocky Res, and rivers, are another...kettle of fish, but there's more to like than hittable bites (I'm told)

The last 3 or 4 trips have been brief, often super-local and eye-opening

----

THURSDAY - R Leam - New stretch - Early:

Smattering of snow, hard frost, - 1°C.

River, clear with steady flow, iced shallow margins. 

Swim scalloped by overhanging trees opposite. 

15g cage feeder with liquidised bread and flake. 

Not so much as a tap. 

There was a big swirl 10m upstream. A bit splashy so probably not an otter and, in the moment, I plumped for a chub. 

Then, noticing movement downstream, I glanced to my right on a river narrower than Sir Jonathan Edwards could jump to see the most brazen of cormorants looking sheepishly at me out of the back corner of its yellow circled eye

"What the...?!"

----

SATURDAY a.m. - R Leam - WBAS 3rd field - early:

Biting West wind, just above freezing, no cloud. 

River clear, nice flow. 

15g Pole feeder + liquidised bread and flake. 

1st swim one that always looks good but hadn't yet produced anything of note.

Dropping the feeder off the edge of far bankside grass beds resulted in the usual clear water tentative bites from small fish. 

Second drop in, the, "peep, peep", of the king of fishers approaches. 

Thud! 

He lands on the pole not 1.5m from my bulging eyes, bobs his head 2 or 3 times and, to my amazement...starts fishing, looking, apparently, at my float! Desperate to pick up a camera, I twitched, causing the pole to jerk at the very moment he flung himself into the water and came out with a small fish only to departed upstream to render it senseless on a branch before swallowing it, head first. 

"The little bugger!", the exclamation. 

1 small dace came to hand. 

2nd swim, same area but one which has thrown-up decent roach in the right conditions previously. 

Similar outcome. This one a roach. 

----

SATURDAY p.m. - R Warks Avon, PH stretch - late:

Stiff westerly, 4°C, some sleet later. 

Clear river, good flow, tinge of colour. 

Bread mash to right + link leger & flake on a 2'+ tail. 15g cage feeder upstream to downstream edge of rush bed + crust on a 3" tail. 

Quiet start then a proper wrap-round bite on downstream rod. The fish was substantial and kept deep chugging upstream close in. A short burst took line from the clutch and then it reverted to chugging, this time downstream. Suddenly though it decided to take off toward mid-river and 'ping' off it came. Swinging the line to hand revealed the biggest scale I'd ever extracted from a foul-hooked fish, almost as large as a typical shot box. 

WhatsApp discussions concluded in a stalemate, chub or carp? One thing is certain, if it was a chub, it was biiiiiiig.

Two little grebe twittered to each other upon meeting downstream and paddled out together to quarter the bay opposite me. 

Next cast the upstream rod goes round and the bite is missed but a decent fish is hooked within 5 minutes. It felt like a chub but approaching the net it pulled out. 

3 or 4 further bites of varying ferocity ensued but no contact was made in a frantic 20 minute spell around dusk, typical of a clear river. 

----

As is typical of early and late sessions, rarely are they without incident, even when the fishing is less than remarkable. It's just great being out there but I did manage a nice chub to round the weekend off this evening

An Indication of Syndication

At the end of last term's Bloggers' Challenge a very prominent loose end was left wafting in the breeze

The end that was loose related to the next undertaking, the next challenge in fact. Whilst usually the alternate season away from the competition is welcome, when I came to look the letters had crumbled from the signpost

Disatisfied with the limitations of local known river fishing options my mind started to wander, followed closely by the F,F&F bus and then my poor old feet

As it happened I ended-up spending the close season seeking-out new venues, mainly rivers and, initially, mainly my (now beloved) River Leam

Somehow it was almost as though each landowner I approached had never had the idea before and, in what seemed like just a few bewildering days, rights were acquired to some lovely waters all of which have one thing in common - exclusive peace and quiet. One massive plus of a small Syndicate, admittedly with higher fees than your average Angling Club, is this factor. You know that it is hardly ever going to be a race for a swim. So, after extending the angling antennae, there were soon ten like-minded individuals on board and, if everyone fished the whole range of venues on a given day, on average we'd still only see one other angler and we'd know him anyway.

At least four of our number are Bloggers and thus "Warwickshire Bloggers Angling Syndicate" was born...WBAS

The latter was an idea three or four of us had previously floated briefly when the Saxon Mill stretch became available after Warwick club relinquished rights, but at the time we concluded it was a difficult venue, being generally too public

----

I must confess first thoughts were to try to gain access to as much of the Leam as possible as most of it is not fished and those areas that could be are slowly shrinking away. Godiva have lost half of their water and much of Leamington A A's is inaccessible.

Once it had dawned on me that I couldn't fund the whole venture myself I started to ask around and before we knew it there we were all sat round a table next to the weir at the Saxon Mill, with that unmistakable cologne of treated sewage that pervades the intimate areas of the Warwickshire Avon mistily perfuming us like an air freshener working in reverse. We ran through the venues and after some polite arm-wrestling with landowners I think it's fair to say we are all still pinching ourselves with what we have managed to achieve so quickly.

Part of the initially evolving idea was to gain control of the remaining North Oxford Canal and possibly also some of the more accessible combined Oxford and Grand Union Canals but it transpired this was probably my own dream and no one else's(!) so we quickly dropped that idea and concentrated on rivers and the search for a pool.

Sean Dowling (Off the Oche, Down the River) was full of suggestions and came-up with some crackers that came to fruition, with more that we didn't have the wherewithal to follow-up.

The landowners have all proved very amenable and open-minded, within their obvious business limitations, and each venue has it's own quirks that we have to work within, one of which, by way of example, limits river access to winter months...no problem, it's weeded-up in summer anyway!

What could be better? Exclusive access, no other anglers, way off the beaten track, peace and tranquility, unmanaged river banks, no litter, good fishing, new locations to grapple with, great variety. Nothing beats it.

Perfect.

So here we now sit with options as varied as the Warwickshire Stour, River Leam, Warwickshire Avon and a picturesque, comfortable, sheltered pool. The latter being the subject of a long-term project to create a tench and crucian fishery, and for which we are opening membership to ten others to share the challenge.

----

The Tinier Inhabitants of the Warks Stour

The one magical thing about these waters is their mystery. The majority have not been fished in anger for years, if at all, and the potential is thoroughly engaging.

We've set-up a WhatsApp group to share findings and shallow-off a potentially steep learning curve. This also helps to quickly and easily disseminate more strategic messages without time-consuming meetings. Something I think we all welcome even though the amount of messages inevitably becomes a touch unwieldy at times and WhatsApp Fatigue (and known disorder!) can kick-in.

For my part, my first visit to the Stour stretch was my first visit to the Stour, the only contact I'd had with it previously being running my finger over it in BAA Handbooks as a teenager,  enthralled by tales of deep holes and giant bream. Fish that I never felt capable of catching I should add, assuming they were snared either by accident or by smelly, bewhiskered men with ivy growing up their legs in the way people currently nurture tattoos. This at a time when my modus operandi was to stand in the water wearing a thick jumper and tie, fishing the roach pole, like the late Ray Mumford (who I once watched openly cheat in a match on the Great Ouse by the way, a moment that quickly changed my wardrobe. What a magisterial name for a river that is, the Great Ouse, capturing it's scale, history, latent power and piscatorial magnitude in but two small words, and yet, I look back at them on the page in a reflective, Miranda-type, way and think what strange words they are).

I've drifted.

The Stour was, is, everything the Leam should be, were it not for the extent of its clay geology. Similar in width; shallow then deeper; rushing then still; weeded then clear; shaded then sunlit; devoid then infested; untouched yet touchable and with wildlife abounding. I actually flushed a little owl from the bankside field margin midday while roving with rod, net and bumbag full of the usual. The first one I have seen away from one known nesting site for some years, since their decline in lowland Warwickshire.

Natural Beauty of the Warks Stour

Both Warks Avon stretches are a totally unknown quantity and when access commences to the Upper reaches on October the 1st, it being five minutes from Chez Nous, there's no doubt where I'll be.

As for the pool, well, there's work to do to meet our expectations. Currently it's overrun with small rudd, roach, perch and various hybrids so the long-term aim is to thin those out to give the preferred species growing potential and to remove the carp under double figures so that they become a treat rather than a certainty. It will take time but it has all the potential we need to create an estate lake without the mansion!

I'll keep updating on our adventures via this portal I'm sure but, in the meantime, I was driven to prose while basking in the glory of a deep pool on the new Leam stretch at the end of the hot weather:

Flowering Arrowhead on the Leam

Many a step from a road, from buildings, from fellow man; an oasis of water, giving life.

As I sit, the sun, awkward on the eye, floats imperceptibly higher like a lemon pip gently lifted by the bubbles of a fizzy drink.

The irritated churring of the great tit in a mixed family flock of animated baubles, complete with hangers-on of numerous fattening chiffchaff, breaks through the now strained-for rustling of leaves on a gradually rising breeze as if in a relay without rules.

Fulfilled without false entertainment, the rod tip still, I watch as the flow grips specks of duckweed in its movement and tweaks them, drifting like tiny skaters, spinning and careering in perfect natural chaos toward their own overpopulated metropolis awaiting them in deriliction of decay downstream.

Surely no finer experience is to be discovered than by the stream.

Sensing Memorable Moments

There are those times in life when events exceed any prior hope. That are planned to be good but conclude in the exceptional, beyond words.

'Problem is, I'm now committed to put into words an explanation!

The emotions of angling. Those occasional heart-stopping moments when you are so perfectly aligned with the instincts of the quarry that you KNOW the indication you're about to get will result in the target being hooked; the immediate regret at grabbing a handful of spicy nettles in extracting oneself from a risky lie or perhaps that inescapable sinking in the stomach at the knowledge of a certain blank.

There are sounds too that evoke such knowing responses in us as anglers. The heavy spatter of improbably large raindrops signalling the end of a shower; the crash of a leaping and falling carp; the piping of the two-tone flashing cobalt and fire Kingfisher tying-in the visual along with the lazy drift of scentless dawn mist, pouring from the surface and running like ephemeral semi-transparent white horses in one direction or another.

From that distinct sweet smell of roach slime to the truly repulsive stench of a bream-slimed keepnet in a hot and returned-to car. Both as much an assault on the olfactory system as the baking of bread or muck-spreading and by similar extremes.

So today was The Old Duffer’s first angling trip of 2018. A perfect day, after the seemingly interminable hot summer expired to reveal comfortable days of around twenty modern degrees and, with cloud cover but a negligible chance of rain.

Now in his day, as the long-term reader may recall, TOD was an accomplished match angler. First on rivers and then on canals. Recalling those days, a 3m whip was set-up with a thickish cane-tipped waggler and a few strung no.8’s, shirt button style.

The youngest generation present, represented by The Boy Wonder, would be deploying waggler tactics too but on a light specialist rod and antique centrepin.

I would be stalking carp and also laying a bed of bait down in another area for later.

It had been a while and TBW and I did wonder the extent to which TOD would remain capable of undertaking this, after all, highly technical task. A little help with plumbing seemed to bring the feel of things back to a degree. The thick tip of the float to aid reluctant eyes; a tub of maggots raised to hand level seemed sensible; a comfortable, very unmatchman-like, padded chair to support the occasionally creaking limbs and all was ready to go. I gave a trial cast to check the shotting and had a knock on a bare hook, so, happy with how things looked, I fed a few maggots and sat back to rig a couple of rods for myself.

The venue was a pool new to small syndicate formed during the close season and it seemed, after a few recce visits, largely a case of carp and hoards of smallish rudd and roach with a smattering of perch. I had never ardently tested the small fish potential as, these days, I find it tedious and would usually prefer to wait for a bite from something that has a chance of getting away but I hoped TOD might muster a few ‘bits’ to get him back in the swing of the pastime he has not forgotten and never ceases to mention whenever we meet, even though he might struggle with the names of the prey and had certainly very much considered partaking to be in the past.

I glanced away, looked back and, “Blimey, ‘you got one already?”, and so proceeded a steady run of fish in the two to three ounce bracket that would have been the stuff of wild dreams back in the days of draw bag and frame.

 

 

TBW was set-in and, on my first visit, had a handful of tiddlers too.

I checked out some bank clearance we had been doing and all was well so I return to the baited swim next to TOD to try to get through the rudd with double corn hookbait.

“How many you got now then?”.

“12”.

“TWELVE?! I’ve only been gone five minutes!”.

Pleased as bread punch for the old fella, and with a knowing smirk on the opposite side of my face, I got my head down to overtake him with a decent bream or carp. Or so I planned but I couldn’t settle partly out of wanting to ensure he was okay and enjoying it, the latter I assumed confirmed by the silence apart from the thrashing as he drew them to hand, the plop of fish into the net and gentle rasping of maggots hitting the water every minute or two, and partly as I wanted to see what big fish were showing elsewhere.

Riding a bike. Swimming. Tying a hook. All things you never forget how to do even though the body might try to hinder and then prevent it in older age.

Well it seems that the cast, feed, strike, unhook re-bait/cast, feed, strike, unhook, re-bait/cast...process is also an indelible process in the human mind. Okay, in full flow in his prime maybe he would have fed before casting to make the hook bait fall through the fed area but we can make allowances when we consider that the last match this octogenarian gent fished was probably fifteen years ago and recent practice had been thin to the point of non-existence for at least three years, if not longer.

TBW came along, struggling a bit in his swim, “How you doin’ Grandad?”

“Twenty-one...hold-on...twenty-two with this one”, as another roach swung to hand.

“Christ, we’re not bringing you again, are we Dad?!”

And so it continued.

 

Somewhat irritated by being pestered by the fish TOD was targeting I took off around the pool, travelling light to seek-out some visible carp to stalk, and there they were a number around the double figure mark and on returning to the first swim I found a bigger, long common of at least fifteen pounds mooching mid-pool and midwater. I flicked a bait to him and he drifted away, unhurried, and out of sight.

A pair of doubles were next, one of them circling, sensing the plop a metre or so to its right and approaching to a few millimetres before pulling its head way and in one sub-urgent movement projecting the body past, and out of sight.

 

 

I called across the lake to the old offender.

He’d got fifty when I left him.

“Eighty”.

Matter of fact, well it was a fact.

Numbers were not an issue. The name for the stripey fish may have been but numbers, oh no, no problem at all with those. Let’s face it, if you can count and weigh your fish and put the your bets on who needs words. No, numbers’ll do just fine.

“Eighty”, and I think to myself, “He must have about five pounds of fish. I’d never have believed that possible”.

The stalking continues and TBW calls across to ask me to check-out some yellow things on the surface that the rudd are pecking at. Leaves.

I find a catchable double in murky water and flick a floating crust to it. Like its predecessor it circles, inquisitively.

“Eighty”, I chuckle, “Crazy”.

I glance at the time and, as raise my eyes to the crust again ,a white mouth appears to engulf it and I strike.

“Ha!”

A split seconds’ realisation.

“SHIT!”

The rig flies back faster than it left the bank, the quarry sinks back into the old routine and a further bird’s nest is added to those in the trees now deserted by fledged and flown young, and their exhausted parents alike.

I return and meet TOD on the path back. “Oh! How many now then?”

“How many do you think?”

“Ninety”, I offer, certain.

“A hundred and one”.

He goes for a wander round the pools and we start to pack away - during which time he adds another thirteen.

Back in his match fishing days he would have been very pleased with a catch of a hundred or more fish, in fact, often on the canal, a hundred would be the target to do reasonably well but there is one thing that sets a catch apart from the also rans and that is the distinctive thrashing sound of over five pounds of small fish being lifted from the water. Like a hundred taps being turned at once, and then off again within a couple of seconds. It’s a sound that an angler neither forgets nor tires of, and it says, “That’s a good net of fish“, to anyone in earshot at the same time as giving a boost to the captor, for it is at that point that he knows. He just, knows.

So, yes, we were treated to that sound and immediately I’d got seven pounds imprinted in my mind. TOD struggled to lift them out, and more so to get them into the weighing sling, but we got there collectively and the sparkling silver and gold of roach and rudd punctuated by the odd jet-striped emerald perch abounded.

“Ten pounds, twelve ounces”, we concluded at once.

Who’d have thought it possible?

 

 

I didn’t think it possible.

I still don’t think it possible, but it happened. Cast after cast, feed after feed, fish after fish.

It damned well happened

 

 

THE 2017-18 BLOGGER'S CHALLENGE CONCLUDES

At midnight on Monday the biennial Blogger's Challenge came to a close with the conclusion of the 2017/18 competition.

Challengers had generally been seeking as many species, to as great a percentage of the British Record as possible, across all three water types; river, stillwater, canal.

That's not to say everyone had the same plan. Far from it. The 16 competitors, as it happens, drawn from all over the southern half of England had their own ideas on what appealed to them.

Some sought everything, everywhere. Some just the rivers. Some everything except the venue type they didn't like and some simply wanted to catch the biggest of certain species; barbel or carp perhaps. Then there was the more complex tactic of attacking a certain type of water but also achieving preferred species sizes, or trying to; followed by contestants who entered their fish as a by-product of their everyday fishing without changing anything.

The rules were very much similar to 2015/16 but with added smaller species - gudgeon, ruffe, etc., and anglers had to post pictures of the fish before claiming the catch. The small fish however proved more difficult to track down for the more northerly of us than one might have anticipated.

The early months and through to Christmas proved very productive for most but the continuously unsettled winter and early spring weather made the latter half of the active year very hardwork. I can't recall a more difficult winter's fishing simply due to the fact that fish respond to steady weather and water temperatures but we barely experienced any such circumstances.

So the pre-race favourite at unbackable odds was James Denison, based in South London, and, as previously, his skill and venue knowledge proved decisive in the quality and regularity with which he was able to tempt big points scoring fish. If it wasn't a 6lb river chub it was a 25lb canal carp.

James proved a runaway winner of the river competition by quite a margin and this proved the difference in the end taking that and then the overall title by over 200 points.

Brian Roberts, unusually for him, being a pike nut, took the year rather seriously and really went for it with a variety of methods and species he wasn't used to. Travelling with James from time to time, he emerged in a very much worthy overall third place, but also won the Stillwater category and came second behind James on rivers. To my mind, the performance of the past year.

Other performances such as Mick Newey doing his level best to get 2nd in the river category behind James but getting pipped at the post by Brian, and Dave Williams seeking out and landing the biggest carp and barbel of the whole competition stand-out as other highlights.

The fish of the year though will surely be James' 10lb 4oz canal bream. I would not have believed such things existed, but it seems they do, or, at the very least, it does!

So there we are, no prizes, no competition this coming year and certainly less communication...the WhatsApp group a small bunch of us joined certainly took a battering, at times I feared my phone would melt!

Personally I look forward as positively to the year off between challenges as the competition itself, as it makes for a perfect contrast, and, along the way, seeds of ideas for maximising opportunities for 2019/20 will be sewn.

Well done all and thank you for a great challenge, and I very much look forward to a purely amateur locking of horns next time around.

[Final scoreboard takes a few seconds to.load]

Bloggers Challenge Run-in

Onset of April marks the start of the final month of the Bloggers Challenge 2017/18.

One or two anglers have been able to put some good points on the scales since the New Year but most of us have struggled. However, today is the turning point in the weather with temperatures set to rise over the next fortnight to fifteen centigrade in the day but more importantly five degrees plus overnight, enabling the stillwaters and canals to boost the possibilities of some late 'summer fish'

Brian had a tremendous burst of quality fish toward the end of the river season which cemented his place in third for the time being, a hundred points behind my dear old self, sat 200 behind runaway leader James.

Scorecard

So, in the knowledge that 100 points is just three cracking fish for Brian to overtake me, I've set myself the challenge within a challenge of adding as many points in the next four weeks as I can glean and really give it a go; almost as if it had only just commenced.

It can be a fizzling last few weeks of the competition and so the prospect of some excitement in it is not to be sniffed at.

Scouring the potential identified a few species that slipped through the gaping holes in the ramshackle landing net, some of which (say it quietly) should be quite easy to catch. Others not so.

This past weekend The Canon took me to a pond known to contain ide. Thinking of it as a day-ticket fishery it still appeared to be one as I arrived, if a little full to overflowing across the path in places. On closer inspection however it was clear that under that increased water level sat platforms seemingly inches apart; a sure sign that this was a commercial fishery.

I immediately felt quite queasy but found putting my fingers in my ears and repeating, "La la la la", helped, as I stemmed the flow of blood, quite neatly actually, with sticks of pop-up foam in each nostril.

Now I had never seen an ide and had to Google it so that I could recognise one and apparently it's just a naturally coloured orfe. If a zander is a 'pike-perch' (it isn't) then an ide is a chub-roach.

A bit more research suggested the most likely method, keeping it simple, would be float fishing on the drop with regular maggot feed. I knew it could rain all morning and so rod and line was preferred to the pole.

The Canon left me to it and wandered off to find a suitable bread punch swim peg (commercial after all) less affected by the high water having advised the water was 18"-2' up on normal...and it was coloured. Well, I knew such fisheries were often coloured due simply to the action of their inhabitants and, looking at it, I felt if it had been a river I would be rubbing my hands. I set sail therefore with some self-promoted confidence.

At this point there was no one else there but, slowly, a trickle of vans bounced and splashed through the water-filled potholes just behind me and as the first one passed, a bite, a strike and the devil incarnate was hooked...a commercial carp.

Clearly there would be some risks taken here; I was after ide in a venue the population of which was generally unknown to me so I set up with a 16 hook to a 3.5lbs fluorocarbon hooklength and 4.4lbs reel line. A 4BB insert waggler with 3no.8's down the line would act as the middleman. This set-up would give me some chance of landing Satan should he bite without too much affecting the ide prospects, or so I thought.

So this carp is hooked but the hook pulls out soon thereafter. Minutes later the same event precisely. Then I hook one that doesn't seem to be in danger of coming-off and my light match rod suddenly seemed incredibly under-gunned making the fight long and, toward the end arm-achingly long-winded. Upon inspection of this 6lbs 8oz common carp the reason for the lost fish became evident. No lips. Let's call him "Marchello".

At this point a little flurry of estates and vans pass and pull-up 100 yards to my left, the occupants of which then disembark and proceed to shout to each other about the conditions.

"He's catching down there", floats down wind into the shell-like. Well, why wouldn't you? It's coloured and clearly stuffed with fish.

Soon after, a 7.4 version was dragged to the net like an unwieldy channel swimmer...with horns. This one, hooked on the outside of the orifice formerly known as a mouth, was never slipping the hook.

The maggots continued to be drizzled in. 10 at a time and constant, rather like scaled-up squatt fishing. In fact it took me back about 30 years.

So, here I am on my lightweight chair, under the gamp with my trusty centrepin offering encouragement to the blinkered pole fishing masses who decide to stay, unlike previous visitors who turned straight round and headed for breakfast.

I think there's five in this mass and they're having a 'match' albeit they seem to choose their pegs but I simply may have missed the drawer for numbers. They shout at each other while moving their gear.

"He's got another" accompanied the second fish as a water vole, yes a water vole, swam between banks. Apart from the ide the highlight of the morning.

On the drop - a smaller fish. It could be a roach, rudd, hybrid...or...the target. On the retieve it became roach or ide alternately two or three times before I swung it to hand and my first ide was banked at 8ozs. Unfortunately, in the rain and excitement, I forgot to photograph it and then dropped it back in anyway but thankfully the Challenge guys agreed the six points could count.

"You had a bite yet?"

"No mate"

"You on pellet?"

I hook and lose, after a long battle, a third sack of evil.

"You got one?"

"Yeah"

...."You lost it?"

"Yeah it's come off"

At which point the rest of the competitors shout and laugh at him. Inwardly I'm thinking, "Really?!.

The Grumpy Old Man in me is tempted to comment that, in my day, open matches started at thirty anglers and went up to 200 plus. On the odd occasion something went wrong and only a handful turned-up we'd go pleasure fishing. This wasn't a match, it was at best a knock-up and at worst a practice session. Let's face it, you'd only get Matchman of the Year points if there were a minimum of 60 competitors.

It gets harder now. I try chopped worm and hook a fourth of these dark satanic ills that again pulls-out.

The float rig gets an even more risky 18 hook in the hope of a further ide but the only other bite comes from a bream of 3.1

So I've had seventeen pounds odd of fish and lost (taking an average carp size as six pounds) 24lbs = circa 41lbs of fish due to the light tackle. The two matchmen in my 'section' are blanking.

I pack the stuff in the car and visit the Canon, who slips in that he has started catching bream...on bread punch. No pellets here either? How odd.

Approach the venue; assess the situation; fish to the conditions. It's not, as they say, rocket science, but then it's the match angler's job to know that, not mine.


With apologies to the memory of William Blake

A Reflective Surface

The fields rolling and falling though marsh to the rush-lined margins, bleached and wrung-out by winter.

A consuming stillness save for the calling raven, finches and thrushes. Artificial yet real, but isn't it all?

Three moorhen career through the pasture's edge headlong as if to fall in a chestward heap, legs in cartoon motion to the rear. How many are they, these ever-present canal rails? Thankfully more than sufficient to gladden the heart on all-but every gongoozling excursion, without doubt.

Here a major chunk of F, F & F history would be recalled. Negotiation, advertisement, commitment, engagement and satisfaction in the pursuit.

This was a stretch of the most picturesque Midlands canal snaking, as it still does, from dark tunnel to complex locks; through ancient parkland with its mature oaks and chestnuts; cutting through sheep pasture like a chisel to linocut. The result the same. A work of human art.

A change had come. Rush beds extended, reedmace beds established. A wide, now narrowed, bend and whereas, in decades past, the plate glass surface would be punctuated by the innumerable concentric rings of myriad small roach. Now- nothing.

Here, one imagined barn owl and drifting hen harrier slipping over rough grassland untouched by beast or harrow from decent to recent times.

There, a badger sett high and deep in the clay bank.

Then otter-marked brick paving. "Private, trespassers will be persecuted", it said to anything capable of interpreting it.

Today so different.

In years gone, sixty brethren would gather in the dawn-time mist. A fleece and nylon clump of pink-eyed expectation and laughter. "That's a posh shirt you're wearing there George. Are you trying to raise the standard of match angling attire?"

Of those a handful would remain to be showered as they coveted; the clump dissolved to all corners; glitter cast on the worthy.

Perhaps a shoal of bream, a 'juicy' tench or carp, a hard-won net of sparkling roach would attain the jewels, and otherwise perhaps just a handful of tiddlers as winter set in.

The crinkle-cut towpath edge, a straightened pastry cutter, still beats out those reminders with a numerical rhythm.

Twenty-three, the first; through thirties, a favourite 52 and up to 74, a narrower tiddler-filled straight.

Today though it was the teens and in pursuit of that toothiest of adversaries, pike. They had always been here. A slowly raking, shallow near shelf overhung by branches but the turbidity would prove to work against us and only the nuthatch, dunnock and siskin would keep us from sliding into tedium.

The historic stone wall, consumed by ivy yet still partly intact beside the massive oak and, more distant, fresh lamb; twins and triplets in red and blue. How closely the ewes knit their lanolin-infiltrated wool to the reins of their excitable young.

March violets quietly bloom, a modesty instilled by evolution, on woodbanks and in the lee of hawthorn hedges. Hints of green among the marginal rushes and young rabbits, all dewy-eyed twinkles and bobbing white tails, conscious of the soaring threat of these cloudy skies.

Spring, and the sweet shop is again open.

This Autumn Mourning

Mourning the passing of summer. Celebrating the coming of autumn. I sit in my small corner.

Anticipating movement.

Four days ago the sharp chill of early morning signalled that change. Bang on time. The afternoon sun still has the capacity for uncomfortable heat in its glare but this will diminish unless an Indian summer is to provide a thermal boost.

Rivers again run clear and are unapproachable in daylight hours. The canals awash with ignorant fools.

The option therefore? To enjoy some late tench fishing in the hope that something unexpected might trip over the bait too.

----

So we have settled into our oft peaceful, always still corner of the Res for the dusk period on an all-but daily basis.

Large comings-together of hirundines are now evident in favoured locations and soon they will be gone, swifts long-since departed, with the current massing of gnats to be replaced by their northern cousins capable of survival on arboreal fruits.

Tiny furry mammals, at their most numerous and industrious at this time, forage and squeal underfoot - and sometimes over it. The company of bank and field voles, water and other shrews, stoat and rat has been enjoyed in recent weeks.

The decreasing temperature and increased humidity would initially suggest an associated drop-off in fish activity but the water remains warm to the touch and, like the sea, this will be maintained while the air gets colder. Cloudy nights will assist. The fish 'know' that the time for feasting is upon them and until the winter sets-in they will be at their most vulnerable to the angler.

----

For now then the corner has been both comfortable and comforting. It's a snug little spot and for the last hour of each visit has produced precisely three tench to bread over a bed of hemp together with a smattering of roach up to just under the satisfying pound.

The hoped for unanticipated capture to take symmetry to asymmetry went awol through the steady string of lifts, occasional sailaways, dithers and crayfish interruptions but tench are never to be ignored, so obliging are they in the biting and fighting stakes, morning and, in these cases, dusk.

The green Goddesses and Gods were in the two to three and a half pounds bracket on the first two of three trips but, for no fathomable reason, the third brief session proved the best float caught FF&F tench catch ever with fish of 4.1, 4.4 and a hard fighting 5.3 last cast. All fish were taken on bread flake in seven feet of water late in the evening.

----

Daniel Everitt has been tantamount to camped here for the past few weeks but, coincidentally, has now vacated in search of flowing water fish with the changing seasons.

Sunday evening, the fourth session and ninth and tenth hours of effort, took place under heavy skies and through light drizzle.

Inundated with passing visitors, as though they knew something I didn't, the lake was otherwise quiet in an angling sense.

Admiral Fudge and Ollie the greyhound; Committee Keith with Buddie the terrier and then Joe the bailiff. During which time (first cast) a roach of one pound eight ounces was a surprise capture followed by two sub-pound fish but it wasn't until just after Joe returned with bailiff no.2 Pete (I can be a handful), and we'd exchanged pleasantries and tales of woe, that it happened.

By way of a change I slid the BB tell-tale shot up to pop a piece of crust up 5" just above a thin layer of Canadian pondweed fragments littering the bed.

Minutes later the float dipped and lifted and the strike met with decent resistance. The fish moved off right and then treated me to a juddering sensation reminiscent of an eel but less insistent. I immediately allowed myself to dream. Then the rotund side-plate shape confirmed it.

"I've got a crucian guys"

Back came Pete and Joe in a hurry.

The fish had ideas of escape however and took a while to subdue even on the specimen float rod but at the second attempt a geriatric crucian skimmed over the rim to be consumed by mesh.

An old fish.

Battle scarred, with split dorsal and otter-ravaged caudal, this beaten character (in both senses) was to shatter the p.b. set in the height of summer by a 1.2.6 fish.

Pete estimated "Two and a half". I didn't venture a guess but hoped it might just exceed that. Joe fell silent. In fact both did when it came to the maths.

The roach had gone 38 ounces with the net but this magnificently ancient individual would, with 14ozs to deduct from 56, reset the bar at 2lbs 10ozs.

Photographs were kindly taken and the boys said their goodbyes.

Danny was able to confirm via the ether that this fish was caught twice in 2016 at exactly the same weight give or take the loss of the top of its tail in the meantime. I declined giving it a name but if I did 'Grand Cru' would seem appropriate

Darkness fell a good fifty minutes earlier than normal due to the weight of cloud cover somewhat bizarrely requiring an isotope to complete the session, but, with no more action, the car beckoned and we, that is myself and the memory, hit the road...floating on air.

----

It is now the two day 'anniversary' of the capture and it barely slips my mind at any time. Compared to a specimen roach it is admittedly not quite there but otherwise perhaps the most satisfying of captures. In this Bloggers' Challenge year personal bests have fallen regularly with the commitment to try to load as many points on the board from all available sources within a range of about 30 minutes travel. There have been the river bream, barbel, carp, etc., but the smaller species never cease to give me greatest pleasure. Somehow they just seem that little bit more difficult to catch. If I were to list species in order of personal significance it would go something like - roach, silver bream, crucian carp, rudd, tench, chub, perch, etc., but this is splitting hairs really as any species is good to catch if it proves to be a challenge.

A Variety of Similarities.

A twittering, a chattering, a sip.

Leaning back under mature salix - gazing into the canopy - the innumerable gathering throng.

Blue, great and long-tailed they are. A post breeding flock of families slowly forage as a group yet frantically feed individually as they wend the willow-lined watercourse.

Hopeful I search. The occasional slurp of an ancient carp barely noticeable in distant fringing lillies.

Aurally straining. Yes, there is one there, and so is another

The most incomprehensibly evolved of passerines, the treecreeper, probing every crevice and fissure of the arboreal armour. A louse here, a moth there. A delicate call and the loose organic cloud rolling through the treetops is gone, but remains intact.

----

The forecast indicated cloud. The sky indicated continuous sun.

The latter prevailed.

The Gormless Old Duffer, shirtless, was not a pretty sight. Thankfully we had the lake to ourselves. I wished it had been to himself.

Carp, of no great size, cruised in teenage gangs in the shallows, terrorising anything resembling food like orca eyeing-up seals.

No matter, we knew the big fish would feed first and then, when the heat became too much, the action would subside. This was certain. Past experience would prove it.

Four balls of ground-ait and feed went in. The Gormless Old Duffer on the feeder with an alarm. Myself on the slider.

An hour or more passed.

The alarm was silent (we checked it was switched-on). The float, well, floated. Clearly I'd bought one without any bobs in it.

Then out of the blue the alarm went, the arm dropped...and...no contact.

The slider slid and a fighting roach of half a pound was grounded and returned.

Fish topped with playful abandon.

An idea. The lake was deep and the fish might have been in higher water layers.

The canal rig shot were redistributed and the float pushed-up to 7 or 8 feet.

Bites on the drop on corn, every cast but after five 2 to 5 ounce roach - instant boredom. This wasn't the game we came to play.

Chess please, not draughts.

Back to the slider and the float immediately lifted, then disappeared beyond the visible depth and a good one was on. No fight though. It must've been a stick. But no, a large signal crayfish burst through the surface to its legally required destiny.

At first a carpet had been laid-out and a few ingredients were threaded onto the hook in desperation. Instantly the float behaved unusually and a nodding donkey was hooked. Never a battle to write home about but a fish that lights the F,F&F candle whenever it exceeds three pounds.

This slime-coated stinker hit the bar at four pounds six ounces and the day was made.

----

This had been part of an inadvertent trend. Though it had not been realised at the time and being, or trying to be, a modest sort made it all the more surprising.

A sort of introspective retrospective I suppose.

Bronze bream.

They had been prioritised on lake and river for quite a number of trips and, without quite realising it, I'd been involved in a campaign.

Of course any decent summer species is welcome when the water is low and clear and the prospect of anything other than carp on a lake seems increasingly unlikely.

I'd found a shoal on the river but in three trips only managed two fish within half an early hour of each other; catching them before they hit the morning snooze button.

The second was a river p.b. at 4.10 (I've dropped bothering with the silly drams now except for smaller species!) and a dark old bottom feeder he was too.

Lake fish peaked at 4.8 among a raft of other four pounders. A weight that suddenly feels the norm.

----

So with the species ticked in both lake and river categories today the trusty bus headed for the river with carp in mind on one rod and dace on the other.

Rest assured, like any other person, when a target is set there is the disproportionate likelihood for all to fail.

Maggots sprayed 3/4 across and boilies (yes, you heard right, boilies!) along nearside marginal lilies and streamer weed. A perfect swim. 7 feet deep between weed-beds and just enough room to trot through.

Thirty or so roach, dace and chublets later, the 'donk, donk, treadwater, donk' of a meaty adversary. So clear was the water that the fish came into view quickly. First thought was, tentatively, chub but on closer viewing the unmistakable outline of yet another bream was discerned. About three pounds was the initial assessment but in a decent flow and with a sixteen to two pound fluorocarbon between it and the net odds were very much against.

Nodding interspersed by cautious retrieval made for very little headway. This gave ample time for two things.

• Worry, and,
• Regular review of the predicted weight.

Step by step; nod by nod; draw by draw the weight increased to around five pounds by the time the fish, now with line wrapped around it's anal fins for interests sake, was scooped-up.

Into the meadow and nestled in the deep uncut grass this was no five pounder.

"That's six, surely", I muttered to the passing butter and damselflies.

Six pounds?

Nope. Way out.

Seven, six.

A river and overall p.b. by a clear 2.12

----

Of  course nothing could top this, even removing the pike that constantly marauded the keepnet was well adrift in the enormity stakes.

Yes, that would do. That would do nicely.

Thank you world.

Searching those Stillwaters

The pursuit of 'summer fish' on stillwaters does not come naturally. In fact, apart perhaps from roach and tench, the pursuit of any fish on stillwaters does not come naturally.

The otherwise dormant inner matchman wants to burst out, grab the catapult, and feed, feed, feed.

Today it actually happened.

I had been warned. There was no excuse.

But first were the times, or the day at least, when it was a worthy approach.

----

In pursuit of 'those fish' the favoured method has been to fish whatever bait was the selection on the day over a bed of hemp.

This had brought forth a burst of p.b's set against the context of a canal angling background and the need for bloggers challenge points this season.

Almost all of this fishing had been with a static bait; employing feeders, alarms, rod pod, the works and prior to small fish becoming active in May. Yes, maggots have been off the agenda for a couple of weeks now.

----

It started with (a kiss) decent roach, rudd, tench and perch. Nothing outstanding but quality fish and solid points.

Tench over 6lbs, perch over two and roach close-on a pound and a half. The latter two could be followed-up on in autumn and winter but, unlike the 2015/16 challenge, those species that become tricky in winter needed to be dealt with now.

Leamington A A control a few stillwaters from which the majority of those fish might be taken.
Carp, certainly.
Rudd, within limits of size, yes.
Silver bream? Probably not.
Common or bronze bream, yes, and to, potentially at least, a good size.

The lakes also offer interesting wildlife. Birds, invertebrates...only today there were five marbled whites to be seen and small skippers at two different venues plus a good variety of dragon and damselflies

----

The past two weeks and half a dozen sessions on a variety of those venues have been fruitful and while these are not commercial fisheries they are well stocked and hold some nice specimens very much of the nature this particular angler likes to target - the bigger fish in the swim, regularly and by design.

Of course the list of p.b's remains paltry, being very much canal & stream orientated until now, but the opportunities, with ever-growing knowledge, are vast and consequently it is inevitable that with an inquiring mind and experience to call on those records are going to fall regularly until the target, maybe, becomes ever bigger specimens.

----

In this short fortnights' spell the bronze bream best has risen to 3.13, then 4.1 and, today, to 4.6.

King carp to 9.6, 12.12 and...

Most pleasing however was to catch a net of crucians topped by two over a pound and landing three or four p.b's in the one session which now stands at 1.2.6. I had not fished for this magically beautiful and powerful little fish since early in the 1980's and then in a local overstocked shallow farm pond where the stunted fish rarely exceeded eight ounces. Regular feeding worked with these excitable fellas.

----

One thing is certain. These are not newsworthy catches but the most important thing in angling is enjoyment and the pleasure is immeasurable when, firstly, the careful plan works and then it feels as though one has succeeded (even if in reality it was pure fluke or coincidence, but who are we to know that).

That is until today.

I planned to go to try to catch a decent rudd and, driving toward that crock of gold, developed an urge to go elsewhere, and followed it.

Bream became the momentary magnet.

It seemed incredible. After an ounce roach first cast I had a visitor, returning to angling from a decade break, seeking advice (from me, on a lake, I ask you!). As we talked, a 2lb bream came to the net and, as he got just four pegs away, another of 4.6, quickly followed, just as he disappeared out of sight, by a tearaway fish.

Now initially it didn't give much away, holding it's fins close to it's chest. Once it knew the game was on however I feared for my 16 hook and 3.5lb fluoro link.

The clutch shrieked...and shrieked...and shrieked.

The rod bent to that familiar complete curve

1 peg away, 2 pegs away, and into the third.

This fish was going to be lost. No doubt.

The hand-me-down, and excellent, 13' power match rod, the biggest fish it had previously landed being a tench of 4.7, expressed itself in a manner I could only have dreamt of, but the fish would be victorious.

Pump by pump, it started to come back my way. Over and over again it tore off and slowly, but somewhat increasingly surely, it was drawn back. I would come off the though.

It went round my second rod but I untangled it. There was no way this fish would be landed.

It tore right, then left again. Brushed the underwater roots to my left and shot forwards into the fed swim.

It would break the line. The hook would come off. A knot would give. Something.

I had it's head out. A mirror. Another surge. The clutch squealing again.

Again it surfaced but I couldn't quite net it and once more it drove maniacally, vertically, down into the deep water. For sure this fish would not be beaten on inadequate tackle.

Up and up it came, onto its side, gulping air.

Scooped!

Hahaaaaar!!!

No one else was there. It was ok to scream madly.


Exhausted from a good ten minute engagement, we regarded each other. The fish and I knew.

Thirteen  pounds seven ounces this beauty went.

Oh!...and a personal best too of course.

----

Henceforth he catapult became attached to my right hand. Feed, feed, feed.

I knew not why.

At this point I noted the jangling song of the corn bunting. Now a rare farm bird and a joy to hear after such a long period of famine extending to over a decade but today the other wildlife seemed not to be there, such was the thrall of the angle

35 to 40 roach and perch later, and not one over three ounces, this would be enough.

A few more challenge points; the head cleared for Monday and a thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyable weekend.