Prime Suspect

He was a naturally scruffy and imperfect little soul. Black and grey hair matted and his shins often coated in spare gravy 'for later'. The dandruff fell from his skin like salt from a pot and yet he was the dearest of chaps.

His eating habits were as equally rapid as messy, but always preceded by an all-but terminal, physically evident fear that the food being prepared would not be for him.

On trips, he would set his more perfectly formed big brother off in howling sessions such that would make the rest of the family resort to headphones, conveying the message he was here, there, or anywhere for that matter.

This led me to wonder why dogs howl. 

Some brief research made the discovery that it was thought to be to announce their presence. A kind of, "We're over here, in case any of you can't find us", message. It keeps the pack safe and in numbers.

Anglers, and others no doubt, have often pondered the reason for fish to 'top', the written word on angling often referring to this as 'priming' (though I have no idea why), that is the tenancy for individual fish to come to the surface, roll over, causing the telltale concentric rings of outward moving ripples, and return to the depths.

Given that everything happens for a reason it seems a little puzzling at first glance. What is the evolutionary advantage in exposing one's self to risk of predation by such an action? 

Peak times for such activity are dawn and dusk but it can also go on throughout the day. Again, the question is, "Why?". 

It's not a feeding activity. Fish that are feeding at the surace have a quite different form of action, more aggressive and 'splashy', and why don't predatory fish do it? Pike, and perch? 

It's intensity can vary between species. Chub will crash at the surface at dusk, whereas roach are the gentlest exponents of the craft.

A subject I have pondered for a lifetime, on and off, has drawn me to one conclusion that it is the direct equivalent of dogs howling. A message by the unspeaking to avoid the unspeakable. 

"If you lost touch or are passing through, come and join us, we're safer together". 

It certainly seems to be promoted by stillness and light levels but should not be confused with the propensity of rudd to surface feed avidly at dusk, especially where food in the form of invertebrates has drifted into a certain part of a stillwater. Rudd are generally very  unsubtle toppers as are roachXbream hybrids!

Apart from the sight of large roach breaking surface I have to say the one that makes my inner soft spot glow is the sight and sound of stone loach "fripping" at dusk as they burst the surface of streams in a display of apparent delight in feeling sufficient confidence to slip the lair at dusk.

Whatever the purpose of the habitual routine, it is clearly one trait that has stood some non-predatory fish species the test of millions of years' existence. 

A Flood of Opportunities

The challenge of extracting fish from flooded rivers is one of the greatest. Not in that it's the most difficult but in the measure of the pleasure of success against the conditions

The temptation to say, "Against the Odds", was almost irresistible but that would have been lazy and not necessarily true

In these parts the challenge of catching decent 'Stone-fish*' in clear, low, slow flowing water is far greater than in floodwater. 

In floodwater the options are narrowed and the target wider. The former by way of the river dictating the terms of engagement whereas the latter is a result of the fish being pushed into area where they might tightly shoal. 

If I had to choose a single type of fishing to keep me amused this would be high on the list and yet fishing in such circumstances only seems to meet with the unquestioning acceptance a certain type of angler. Generally one of experience, one who has been there before and isn't, some might say 'naturally,' put off by the sight of a raging river. 

Matches, thankfully now back in fashion on rivers, are frequently cancelled under such conditions and, as canal match anglers we used to welcome such days that would boost the turn-out without necessarily boosting the chances of the extra cohort. It had to be appreciated though that there is a distinct risk in running matches in such circumstances that cannot be ignored.

As an individual however, not being tied to a peg, so to speak, opens up a world of safe opportunity with requisite care. 

In the previous life alluded to above I recall fishing high rivers rarely, even during spells as 'a river angler' this was the case. In fact I only recall three such occasions. One on the a featureless stretch of the middle Trent in a club match, one on the Nene just below Northampton, and a third also on the Nene somewhere further downstream in an Open match. These examples perfectly demonstrate the match against individual situations. 

Trent: River high, 4' from top of bank. Inexperienced, I felt fishing where an angler would usually be sat, with maggots (that's all we had) would be best as the main flow rushed past. No choice but to sit there and spend 5 hours praying for someone to end the match early. 

Nene: Pleasure session. The river, a recent new cutting of the main flow, was seriously enjoying itself while The Old Duffer and I sat in a side arm taking advantage of fish, including tench and carp, sheltering from the torrent in steady turbid depths. 

Nene: Open. I drew above a little slack back eddy with a eye that was relatively still. Circumspect feed with groundbait produced a couple of skimmers and some roach that made the day worthwhile with a 3lbs catch; while Ray Mumford fished a long pole into a far bank slack beyond the main flow to take 6lbs of roach on bread. 

The above indicate the vagaries of the relative circumstances. One can be lucky in a match, but the likelihood is (if it goes ahead) that only a few pegs will be genuinely fishable but, alone, the freedom to select a swim or a series of swims makes the deal altogether more potentially profitable. 

Having only fished high rivers in earnest for around 7 or 8 seasons the prospect now fills me with nothing but excitement. 

Such angling is precisely what it should be. Nothing is the same and one has to think on the hoof and adapt to the constraints of each opportunity presenting itself. Often a single swim can offer multiple possibilities - a slack bay, a crease, a steady glide, gaps between overhanging trees, rafts, sluggish water immediately downstream of features such as reedbeds, etc.

Methods are equally flexible although a static bait of bread, worm or meat is likely to be preferred and the scale of the quarry increased from that most prevalent in the normal level river. It certainly isn't a time to fiddle around with light rigs and small hooks as the fish willing to offer their assistance to the cause will likely be the mothers and fathers of those we caught last week. 

Sounding too good to be true I accept there are negative aspects. Firstly, if the flood is caused by an influx of water colder than the pre-existing river temperature, it will usually kill sport until the fish acclimatise and start to forage. This could take a week or more. If the incoming water is warmer however success can be immediate provided, on rising levels, the debris careering through can be avoided. Secondly, if the water is too coloured, it will be difficult to tempt a bite. 

Float fishing is usually a non-option unless float leger or pole feeder are employed as the quivertip becomes the primary source of entertainment when pursuing targets that are only limited by the bait in use, i.e., both bream species, hybrids, roach, chub, dace on bread; chub, barbel, eels, bream on meat and pretty much anything but mainly perch and chub on lobworms. One thing is fundamentally clear however and that is that tiny baits are pointless when the river is up. 

The use of a bait dropper becomes essential when the feeder is not the preference and what an under used, neglected, item this is. Fishing bread mash in a flood and in a feeder, or trying to introduce a few snippets of worm would be impossible were it not for these ingenious devices. So much so that one would be well advised to set-up a dedicated rod for its use; one that is not so soft as to make its deployment a matter of luck rather than skill.

Thinking things through further, pb's of Leam  perch and roach have come in high water conditions as well as Avon barbel, chub and silver bream, the latter of course being known to be at it's most gullible in coloured water. 

As I write, a short shower rattles on the window at 6°C ensuring that the local rivers, Warks Avon and Leam, will maintain their high state going into the weekend. By then it will have been five days since the 4°C storm struck and it should be time, combined with further increasing air temperatures, receding flow and water levels, to glean a Stone-fish or two from a few likely havens. 

It remains to be seen, of course, but I'm up for it if you are?! 

*'Stone-fish' - a term derived from the writings of the late Peter Stone, who espoused the theory that it is usually possible to catch the bigger fish from a swim...and he was right. 

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

Two Weeks & Two Rivers

SHIFTS HAND OVER

The moon was brightening and I thought I could sense something breathing, but the sound was continually drowned-out by the sky, throbbing with the lumpy drone of a hundred distant combustion engines

Now the river, at its narrowest accelerated channel, glinted silver as sunlight struck it via the surface of that early evening moon; each turbulent surge outlined and shrinking as it subsided into darkness

Through the summer it is readily forgotten how thoroughly the cup of calm can be drained right down to the very last drop by the riverside at dusk. Everything settles to roost and a whole new everything soon stirs. 

Rooks and jackdaws, tonight over a thousand starling, and of course the pheasants' unpleasant cocophony as they crash-in to perches, often inappropriately selected and then deselected, are the regular proponents of the changing guard. 

No sooner have they handed over to the night-shift than the rustling and chewing of rodents; the last minute piscean displays of ebullience; then the cries, hoots and screeches of owls; moorhen scrambling into bushes or climbing rushes all comprise the, albeit brief, B-side of the day's soundtrack before a general silence descends. 

On two consecutive trips the local barn owl flew straight to me as if to check-out this new and mobile feature of the usually unchanged landscape. What a sight, as they floated without even the slightest sound on moth-like wings. Unsatisfied on both occasions each perched nearby to survey the scene but lost interest as efficiently as they gained it. Voles called (now when I say, "Voles called", I don't mean...well, anyway). 

The little grebe, a ubiquitous tiny river bird, seemingly ever present in the colder months, is easily missed or mistaken for a crashing chub or rolling roach, but with stealth they can be seen in between the reed stems diving for the last water boatmen of summer or perhaps winter  sticklebacks to sustain their Slender yet impossibly buoyant selves. 

The evening was frustrating in the extreme. It's not often I can say I've had 15 bites when chubbing with meat but conversely quite usual to say I've had just the one fish. This however was that day. The first three or four bites were sail-aways yet were struck into nothing. Slow to learn, I held back and allowed the next bite to develop more fully, managing to hook and land, via a crisis-let with a weedbed, an immaculate chub of 3lbs 13ozs

I was no better off afterwards, as the bites became increasingly short, sharp and stacatto, such that I began to consider the possibility of eels. HonGenSec suggested signal crayfish, which I suppose could have been trying to swim off with the bait and then quickly losing grip, neatly reflecting my own demeanour as I sloped away into the mist of the darkening field, largely defeated

----

RIGHTS HAND OVER

To be sat there again; feet in the rushy margins, backside on the bank; was like the reopening of the sweet shop hoping mint humbugs were back in stock. 

The Leam is, as they say, "A funny river"

The slightest miscue and she appears devoid of life. Her appetite generally on the reluctant side of anorexic except during those occasional times when her complexion suggests a flush of rude and ravenous health. 

This weekend was clearly the former, as she lay chilled in serpentine stillness. Visibility was two feet plus, far too clear for more than the odd fish per swim, with any panic palpable, but hope would be a companion.

In flight, fieldfare and the seeping Redwing, flushed from hawthorn and willow, scatter in random abandon at the first morning sight of man. Meadow pipit and skylark continue the winter spread as they filter throughout the land. 

Prostrate willows seemed more prevalent, and more dramatic, than three years prior. 

It had been that long. 

20 minutes of 10g feeder deployment and no bites to show for it, the river low and clear, I slip into the old banker swim. A change of approach to boot. 4 finger blobs of mash, scattered such that they would entice the quarry from its lair, drifted down in the negligible gentle flow to the edge of a previously significant feature, now depleted. There was something about it though, something imperceptible that made it attractive to both chub and roach in the past and so there was no reason to conclude that this would still be the case; perhaps the bed was scoured gravel?

First flick - poor. 

The second? Accurate and short of the spot imagined where the feed came to rest. Ideal.

As is the case with small rivers, one tends to seek-out micro-quivertips to indicate the tiniest of twitches, but when the fish is worth the effort it could put a curve in a 2oz tip without any trouble. This bite was to be no different; the customary tremble closely pursued by a wrap around and what felt like a proper combatant was engaged.

Now the wand isn't made for specimen fishing but it copes adequately with fish up to 3lbs and can subdue bigger fish in open water but this was the Leam, all rushy margins and snag-ridden runs. Initially the fish didn't show any desire for the vegetative route of escape but as it approached the net instinct clearly took hold and there it was being dragged to the surface and into the net before we had to offer it the option of releasing itself before digging it from the debris.

The opening fish of the new era then was chub of 2lbs 13ozs, and a very welcome start!

Usually under such circumstances I might give it one more cast or I might move on immediately. The former was favoured, given the re-acquaintance with the stretch, and in went a tasty fresh flake of Jonathan's best. This time the hook bait lodged in the leading edge of the feature and the heart fluttered like a cabbage white under the gaze of a wren but one gentle tweak and it flipped neatly out and sunk right next to the snag. Needless to say, when such luck abounds, it wasn't long before the tip was arching downstream again and another decent fish was hooked. At first it was a roach, then a chub of a pound or more but the head-shaking didn't seem right and, as it came into view, it was clearly a more than decent roach. Then it turned into chub again and dived into the dead rushes. The landing net turned excavator scooped the fish and all around it up, and at the scales it proved the first river pounder of the season at 1.1.8 and the world was good; for five minutes there was no COVID, no climate crisis and no war. Anywhere.

A chance call to the farmer had resulted in the syndicate getting access to this excellent stretch of the river where the features almost outnumber fish and offer so many options as to make one all boggly of mind.

As I tested another glide I was feeling that loss of engagement, that prelude to the trudge back to the tank, and through the distraction I became aware of a huge but somehow gentle swirl to my right next to the fallen log the bait rested beneath. Thinking initially, "Giant chub", I became conscious of a seal-like shape slipping underwater on the far side between the, now brown, rushes flat to the surface where up-periscoped an old, distinctly grey haired, Labrador head, or so it seemed, and this guy was not happy.

"Humpf", he exclaimed, inwardly, and all breath-y like, "What's going on here? That wasn't there yesterday!" 

His neck so unfathomably long and able to project so far out of the water as to be unreal, this was the biggest dog otter one could imagine, with rolls in his neck like a 60-year old Mike Tyson. He regarded me, for what seemed quite some time, as I too regarded him - with sheer disbelief - but then, he was gone, and the bubble of apparent fantasy burst.

Things do come in threes after all and this day was no different

 

Rediscovery of a Seasons End

So, as I was, saying...

The Discovery was retrieved from the insurance company's own repair workshop last week. Like new, it was. Immaculate, smelling like a car in a showroom and complete with all contents, maybe somewhat stupidly, left inside and, on a personal level, we are whole again...just in time to enjoy the end of the season 

The River Leam never ceases to engage me fully. Whether on the bank or dreaming of it, the little river is such a tease. 

There is a length of maybe three swims on our Syndicate stretch that have intrigued me for the 2 or 3 years we've had access to it. 

It seems perfect. Steady flow, smooth glide, nice depth at 3ft plus along its length and edged by undercut grass beds on the far steep bank (where it hadn't caved-in) been and lined with rushes nearside. 

I'd been drawn to it numerous times but, not until this winter, had it produced so much as a bite! 

A bit of a dabble at the downstream end, where the current disappears under a goat willow, in passing, one early autumn day 2020 actually brought one of those surprising bites where one is going through the motions, expecting nothing from the whole charade, and yet it spoils things by damned well working!

Not only did the tip twitch but it proved a decent roach. The very fish that should be there. 

Since that day there has not been a biteless visit to the glide and, although it remains seemingly impossible to ensnare more than two fish per swim, it is somewhat gratifying that they are showing from there now. 

My guess is that I've probably tried it at the wrong time previously and that it would seem logical for fish to move there in winter, with a bit more water on. 

A surprise chub of 2.14 was welcome on one occasion but with that, and one or two other fruitful swims, the roach potential of this little stretch, reachable within 5 miles of home while travelling has been constrained by Covid, has been evident. Odd fish have been small but a good proportion of them have been over 6ozs and up to a peak of 11ozs. Nothing to threaten the stretch PB of a pound and a few drams, nor indeed the river best at 1.4.6, but nice fish nevertheless and very enjoyable when options are few.

...and so it continued until the end of the season, punctuated by some nice dace to 7ozs.

A burst of (over?) confidence led to a closing day rush of blood.

It would be a three-pronged attack on river best chub (3.15), roach (1.4) and dace (8ozs) with liquidised bread in a tiny 10g feeder on the wand in various areas of the main flow and creases while in a deep slack the treat of a huge piece of crust would lay, irresistibly waving in the gentle swirl of the current.

A fellow Syndicate member, initially suspected as a poacher, was ensconced and awaiting the action when I arrived. A brief chat was followed by a couple of other snatches of conversation between bites which culminated a bizarrely in-depth conflab on rare circa 1980 records, from The Undertones via XTC to Blue Rondo a la Turk. Not the every day discussion for sure but great, and quite passionate, reminiscing as it turned-out.

Three proper bites and two roach of seven ounces and ten ounces immediately after were the limit for the last session of what has been a necessarily limted and therefore patchy season to say the least. Both were taken on the micro-feeder option with not so much as an aquatic sneeze in the direction of the crust labelled, "Big Chub".

The journey home, was not exactly one spent floating on the basis of the result but it was more than comforting to have the bus back, and all that it entails.

Roll-on June 16th!

A 'How to..' by Way of a Change and 'Why to..'. Perhaps by Way of a Whinge

Casters

A genuinely special, unique and almost magical bait

The shells of freshly run-off casters, glistening from a quick rinse, smelling meatily enticing and fading from bright orange to white, are surely one of the most enduring and selective of hook options available to the discerning angler 

Evocative of sparkling nets of quality roach and chub but, capsule for particle, a selective choice for any one wishing to sort the men from the boys, in fishy terms, for pretty much any species

It is with roach however that the bait is synonymous. Even those bionic individuals that have become accustomed to the 8mm pellet aimed at a barbel are unlikely to turn their perfect little noses up at a regular rain of them falling in front of their eyes

So, one might expect them to be a perfectly well understood bait when it comes to preparing, conserving and use

Sadly, however, perhaps with the increased hustle and bustle of everyday life; the onset of instant gratification in the angling world; the ownership of tackle shops by non-expert anglers or the advent of general laziness one cannot be certain but there is little doubt that the knowledge of, and ability to, produce the best casters is a dying art

Many of the angling books that today would be dismissed as 'old school' (because the young don't need to learn from the experience of others anymore) commit whole chapters to the bait, and not without good reason. The plastic-packaged, gaudily-coloured, marketing person's dream that is the tackle shop bait shelf in 2020 and those, in themselves, a sign of the potential for the phasing-out of anything in the slightest bit messy, awkward, time consuming or a loss-leader, demonstrates the problem consummately. The bait fridge has become an incidental rather than fundamental requirement of the trade with even the mainstay of the whole sport, the maggot, the blue bottle larva, being pushed to the periphery such that some shops sell nothing but pellets, boilies and their derivatives.

What a commercialised world angling has become, but those that populate that world will probably not be interested in reading this

Casters buck the trend and in many quarters it has been forgotten that they are living things; a halfway house between maggot and fly, between terrestrial and airborne life. A stage in a quite miraculous process and this is the key factor, in terms of usefulness to the angler, the caster is short-lived and literally has a limited shelf life of around one week. The one complicating factor being that as the caster gets darker it reaches a point, at the deep maroon stage, at which it will start to float and become useless

Shrink-wrapped or chemically preserved casters are non-starters. The only purpose these methods of so-called preservation serve is to make them useful for filling a nearby bin as the bait will be dead and therefore decomposing unless used fairly instantly after packaging

For casters to be appealing in the long-term they must be fresh and most of all alive. Feeding stale to rancid dead bait will only serve one purpose and that is to sicken the fish and put them off next time they encounter such a 'treat'

Lovely early autumn caster caught Rudd of 15ozs

So what is the protocol when nurturing the perfect bait?

Firstly, a good supply of the biggest, fresh bait you can lay your hands on, and if you can't find such a source then consider running your own off by purchasing a couple of pints of white maggots the week before you need them and riddling them regularly, a process that ideally means you are able to go home in your lunch break 

Given a suitable supply though there are a few simple rules to follow to arrest the metamorphosis from maggot to fly such that you can keep the bait both healthy and usable, i.e. sinking, over the days between purchase and use:

- As soon as you get them home, open them up, swirl them gently round to get air to every one and then tie the bag with a bit of air space in it of about 1/4 the volume of the casters. Repeat this 2 or 3 times per day and they will stay fresh

- An alternative is to trap a sandwich bag across under the lid of a bait box with a small air gap under it above the bait. This is quite a nice way of doing things, especially for a canal trip. 

- If you have time, it is worth picking through the bait to get rid of any dead maggots; small, rough, slightly curled chrysalis of other fly species and general alien debris

- Transport the bait in the same manner and, on arriving at the bank, give them another gasp of air and pour a couple of hands full into a tub, and no more. This limits the amount of bait exposed to the elements and starting to turn to a darker shade, creeping toward the floating stage of the life cycle. 

- Covering the casters in water is another option that many prefer as it arrests their progress to a fly but again this should be done using smaller quantities, not the whole bag, as, if fishing for a good number of hours, they could have died and started to sour. 

- It is always wise the keep the spare casters in the manner described, in the shade and cool. This way they'll be useful for a couple more days if they don't all get used 

- If you start to suspect one or two are floating then immerse the whole lot in a deep tub and skim the floaters and any semi-bouyant ones off. These are of no use, especially if used in groundbait when they'll draw fish into the upper water levels as they float off.

- I recently discovered that black bags prevent what is known as 'bag burn' on the casters. This is a mark that looks like a burn from being scorched where the bait has been in contact with a clear polythene bag. It doesn't look good and seems to make the bait progress faster to a floating stage. 

- After the end of the session commences the same storage protocol of occasional gasps of air. Eventually however, about a week after being run-off they start to show signs of ageing, even though they may not have been on the bank or at a floating stage. The shells start to look less bright and go a dirty sort of shade. At this point they need be used immediately as this is the start of their deterioration and soon they will take on a certain aroma, suggestive of the early stages of decomposition. 

So the key aim is to have fresh, tasty casters at all times and when this is the only bait you are using, or it's in conjunction with hemp, the better the bait, the better the fishing and the more chance that, as you use them increasingly, the fish will get a proper taste for them. 

So that's the "How to.." bit out of the way. Apologies if I come across as preachy but I do love my casters! 

Onto the "Why to.." then...

'Everybody' fishes the feeder these days. I've been fishing the Severn and Warks Avon a lot this past year and a float angler is a rare sight indeed. There are certain stretches where the float is still favourite, such as Stratford Lido, but largely the scene is one of stiff rod tips in the air and wait for something to pull it round in a violent and unmissable arc. 

Well that's fine in itself of course, each to their own and all that, but it does strike me that many anglers have found a way of catching the odd decent fish when conditions by chance coincide with this approach, when, with a bit of advice or deeper thought, they could be doing so much better. 

A couple of weeks ago I was fishing the Severn in it's then incredibly low, clear and slow state. A time when ideally you'd apply crepuscular tactics and just fish first and last thing in the day, but living over a hour from the river, that's not a regular option in my world.

A 4lbs+ chub taken loose feeding a low and clear River Severn last week when very little action was evident

In my youth, rubbing shoulders with experienced river and canal anglers at their peak, was a source of valuable information, as little gems fell from their lips in everyday conversation that have been glued into the memory and reinforced by personal experience since. 

Hoofing a 3 or 4 ounce feeder full of groundbait into a shallow, clear river doesn't even register as an option in my head but, for many, this is probably what they've read and seen being done and so it's taken, literally, as read that this is the method; but angling has never been about one method or approach. As conditions vary, so too must the angler, and his or her tactics, targets and expectations. 

At the age of 15 or 16 I gleaned one of the most valuable nuggets of information I ever heard, from a member of the local 'National' team, as we used to say, by the name of Pete Jarvis. I don't recall how it came about but he said, "I thought I could get away with more groundbait today, as it (the river) was so coloured". 

It took a while, but over the years this short statement infiltrated the thinking and has influenced so much of what has proven correct on the day. I now have a simple adage that rarely fails; clear = loose feed; coloured = groundbait. On a river therefore, loose feed can be coupled with the straight lead and groundbait with a feeder; again as with anything, it's not 100% reliable but it's a fair guide.

Most things are not universally applicable. You might fish a block-end feeder and bronze maggots in coloured water, you might use bread mash on a clear river but, generally speaking, the principle is sound. 

A 3lbs 2oz chub taken this very evening on bread mash and flake from a rising and coloured River Leam. The best of two fish in a brief and rain-drenched session either side of dusk

So, when I see anglers doing as I described above, with heavy open-end feeders pounding into clear water like Howitzer shells, following a pattern that works by chance from time to time, it's baffling, but if the angler hasn't had the benefit of long experience, punctuated by snippets of golden information, where is the knowledge to come from? Surely life is too short to work it all out oneself!

Videos are largely product-driven and similarly limited to match fishing commercial fisheries. Top match anglers will always hold something critical back (otherwise how do they remain at the top?) and it is not since the days of genuine pioneering, ground-breaking anglers such as Kevin Ashurst and Ivan Marks that we have had their evolving ideas, failures and successes laid bare in the weeklies. Having been a long-standing match angler, albeit decades ago now, I know that there is more to angling and success in it than meets the eye, and most of it boils down to reading a swim and doing the thing(s) most likely to succeed on the day. The more often we can achieve this, surely the more enjoyment and satisfaction we can feel from having cracked the code on the day. 

Angling is very much divided between commercial, so called 'specialist', pleasure and carp anglers in 2020 and, while there is undoubtedly a massive catalogue of information out there, very little of it is genuinely what one might term 'watercraft'-related, in an era increasingly insistent on instant success. 

There used be a 1970's product, it might have been one of Green's, the Quick Jel makers', and the strap line was, "Just add an egg". Fast-forward to today, and the righteous indignation at having to add an egg would be palpable. 

Moaning, commentating or inviting a better future? 'Not certain but it's a fact, nonetheless. 

As the Great Man himself said, 

"I've got a grapefruit matter, it's a sour as s**t, 

I have no solutions, better get used to it". 

The Pre and Post Christmas Rush

PRE-CHRISTMAS

Sinking into the marsh, subsequent steps no deeper than before but each consistently sucked in by the peat-like soil, slowed the walk but did not diminish the enthusiasm as the river was to be at a high level and, with the summer weed now ripped-out and flushed through by a month's heavy rain, the opportunity to apply pole feeder tactics in slack water was irresistible

'Anything that swims' would be in order, as the first priority is to avoid a blank, but there would be that Peter Stone-style aim to pick-out a bigger fish, as always

Choosing a slack below a bridge where the main flow hurtled to the far bank, toward the overhang of hawthorns, the water appeared steady with barely any flow and, closer in, flowed against the main torrent but, there was an 'eye' to this back eddy, centrally, where the water stood still

The essential of offering an attraction of feed on the river bed in such circumstances is limited to a bait dropper or swimfeeder and, with the most recent rain at that time having been cold, this needed to be in limited quantity. The introduction of a single chopped lobworm plugged with a minimal but heavy mix, containing a sprinkling of worm extract, would be introduced and only for the first three lowerings of the rig, after which the ear would make decisions on the state of play

Bites would be expected to be early and consistent, if they came at all should there be any fish in the slack, and sure enough this came in the shape of a rare river gudgeon, and a surprise boost in Challenge points. The marker quivered and disappeared with a disproportionately positive vigour as compared to the size of this tiny mottled brown visitor, which weighed in at just 0.54 ounces on the mini-fish scales

Adding challenge points at the time of year, and with such weather affecting all possible options, is largely an exercise in luck, most of it bad, but the great thing is that the flood, if it produces anything, often produces pleasant surprises, unseasonable species being one of them but also bigger fish than we might anticipate

Ones natural reaction approaching such a situation is to think that anything will do and therefore be happy with a little fish of any species simply to rescue the day from a blank but regularly this can be found to be a negative and pessimistic attitude. That's not to suggest that big fish will be caught from each and every slack. Indeed, some of them won't appear to hold any fish at all but on average it seems every other trip might throw up something a little more interesting. This past week, for instance, a chub of 4lbs+, an eel of over a pound and a string of pristine hand-sized roach have sprung from different swims on various days

For a few weeks the canals locally had been like milky tea, the lakes shocked into the dormancy of winter by the first cold weather and rivers in and out of the fields with varying degrees of turbidity, pace, level and temperature

The most recent rain, a brief but violent downpour on a Friday, of the increasingly prevalent 'climate change'-driven type, was warm, as the weather turned, and, although the river was rising, it was not now carrying much debris. Consequently the fish were more obliging. Simply more hungry, and, thankfully, a series of chublets and roach came to hand in the ensuing couple of hours accompanied by the incessant twittering and wheezing of starlings on the wires, and the occasional whistling of teal

----

POST-CHRISTMAS

Rocky Res would be the location as temperatures were expected to be steady and mild for a couple of weeks

Bleak Midwinter, and windswept at even the most enticing of times, this was not a place for the tentative, sensitive nor indeed the unprotected angler

Visits must be preceded by careful analysis of wind direction and speed plus the likelihood of rain, otherwise the most uncomfortable, nigh-on unbearable, sessions are bound to be endured

The first visit was to be the now standard winter stillwater roach approach of maggot feeder and closely positioned two inch heli-rigged hook-length, also loaded with maggot, usually double but part of a constant merry-go-round of hook-bait options in search of a 'killing' combination

HonGenSec beat me to it on the first trip, as usual (albeit biteless at that point), but, even though there were a few carpers and pikers ensconced, swims were going aplenty

Ultimately it became apparent that my negativity in hook size would come to haunt me, catching four fish and losing five due a surprising interest from tench in just 5degC water temps [no one tell Len Head!]. The best roach was 12ozs, for each of us

----

Next trip and HGS was well in front of me and had 5 or 6 roach to 1lb before I'd even turned-up.

The approach was to be different this time, and new. I recalled having a tube of 'sticky mag' in the bag and, combined with a slider rig, this was to be the challenge of the day fishing into 10' of water at around 20-25m. How this would take me back!

Never having used sticky mag it was a bit of a challenge to even get it to work, but it did, and very effectively too. It was easy to roll 20 gentles into a ball and fire them out with a standard catapult. It did require a bowl of water to swill the fingers in, as the stickiness was staggering. I had imagined it would be like a cornflour-type thickening agent but in use it seemed more like powdered toffee, or the like. So adhesive was it that the bait became rigid under its power

My recollection of the slider rig (it had been a while) wasn't the best and I did suffer with tangles, however subsequent seeking of advice from experts, a couple of errors with shotting and casting technique are now resolved. I think the hook bait was attached directly to the float for 50% of the session! Not good, but maybe you gotta make mistakes to learn sometimes (I keep telling myself!)

The upshot of the session was that HGS kept trotting along showing me roach of ever-increasing size, to over the pound mark, in fact, while I kept plugging away. It was during one of those chats that I actually had a bite and landed a very respectable perch of a pound thirteen. Later came the light-bulb moment that this might even have represented more unexpected challenge points

It did, sixty-odd of them!

Another 10oz roach followed but then the dark set-in early with heavy cloud and mist. HGS had by then quit for the heated car seat option but his catch of nine roach, all over ten ounces, for a total catch of around seven pounds, would do more to keep the home fires burning than any amount of hot food

----

Next day, the third visit, there could be no excuses. I knew where the bigger roach were, the rig, the slider episode was out of the system and I had doubled-up an eleven foot 1lb t.c. rod prior to the holiday and matched them to alarms and bobbins. The heli-rigs would be back in action!

Arriving just after sunrise, the light southerly would again be from behind the chosen spot, if it was free. Again there was total cloud cover (very much akin to the Dutch 'Total Football' but without the game itself being in anyway involved...unless a perch was caught, obviously) and no one else there, (a Saturday!), again, the water was around 5degC

Pilfering a few rocks from the bank, the rods were set-up perfectly (this time). Maggot at first, then a few flavours proved nothing until bites started to emanate. Inquiries at first then full-blown backdrops; never frantic but regular and generally hit-able

Firstly roach, in fact the first fish was over a pound and followed by a couple of twelve ouncers

1.1.5

Then the tincas moved in, inexplicably smaller than the average summer fish initially, at two and half pounds, but cracking fish to take in Christmas week

Not one, but two bailiffs, approached me at various times to see if anything was stirring and both were genuinely pleased that the answer was, "Yes", as the lack of bums on seats bivvy bed-chair thingies demonstrated that things could only have got better

Then a passing couple or two. It was a dead-end. They had to come back so it was easy to lose count, honest. Suspected as angling husbands and non-angling generally frozen partners suffering the event in the hope of ending-up somewhere warm later, maybe?

My final visitor however was actual angling royalty in the ever-upright form of 1960's England International Hubert Noar; now in his seventies; still match fishing on canals; still seeking bigger fish than the youngsters, albeit more so with perch than roach these days, it seems, and still drawing more than his fair share of what we used to call 'coin', I suspect

"Didn't expect to see you here!" he said, binoculars at the ready in case the regular passage migrant from Norfolk, a bearded tit, should emerge from the reeds

We reminisced

Old names, old techniques, preferences and, as always with anglers of this stature, a couple of nuggets; gems, if you like. Apparently back in the heyday of the middle Great Ouse, when anglers from Rugby Federation, it is fair to say, dominated, it seems Hubert used to come to Rocky Res to practice the unique long float technique into surface drift-affected deep water rather than driving for ninety minutes to the actual venue between matches. It paralleled my own experience, teaching myself to fish bread punch in readiness for a Grand Union Canal NFA National in North London by using the Leicester Arm of the same canal, it would be similarly clear, in the early mornings at the very least, and, sure enough, it worked in that manner too.

Suddenly - resounding bleeps on both rods at once

I struck into what was clearly a better tench on the left-hand rod combined with a solid drop-back on the right-hand rod leaving the alarm bleeping constantly. Hubert was desperate to help-out so I let him pick up the r.h. rod and he held it until I had netted the tench and soon it was joined by a good roach in the same landing net

A quick weigh put the tench at 3lbs 8ozs and the previously unmolested form of the freshly minted roach at a cracking 1.5.3, and (just) more unexpected Challenge points

Best tench of the day

"I expect you'll be doing a film about this place next then?!", he enquired. Very much matter of fact

"No, I think there are plenty of people who know more about this place then I do Hubert", came the reply. His response was indeed flattering, yes, but, I have to say, very much wide of the mark

According to my build-up of notes (no keepnets allowed) the catch comprised 5 roach and 4 tench for a total of exactly sixteen pounds with the smallest fish again eleven ounces.

Quality fishing at one of the best stillwaters in the area

Best roach of the day

----

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all, let's hope the fishing is on the up at last!

Lights, Camera, Action or The Written Word?

The recent foray into film with fellow blogger Eric Weight of Artificial Lite represents quite a departure from the usual F, F&F fare. It has caused less time to be available for writing, and certainly less to say, as the focus has sharpened elsewhere. Combine that with the Blogger's Challenge running this season and opportunities for the wide angle of variety found so absorbing in angling is hugely diminished.

The release to date of three films, all accessible across the tabs at the top here (popcorn extra) has put our combined little worlds into a whole new orbit, it seems. What started as a kernel of an idea during a chance encounter on the banks of Rocky Res one sunny morning, zoomed into an idea to keep the pair of us amused and then, a little while after initially putting Big Canal Roach on YouTube, it must have had some kind of boost somewhere as views rocketed and, before we could gather our thoughts, our little film, made initially to challenge our own aspirations, hit 1000, then 5000, then 10,000 and, now, closing-in on 25,000 views.

It's a job to know what to make of this. Many of the comments have cited calming, nostalgic, easy viewing as a heart-warming feature. Others like, what we like to think of, as the original, perhaps even unique, type and  flow of information. Certainly though, the fact is that many videos, while claiming to be of the 'how to..' type actually pass surprisingly little useful information on and often concentrate on the product and/or the 'wow, look at this/me' factor.

All this is fine of course, in its place, but it wasn't for us.

A fine mid-afternoon 6lbs 8oz river bream after the height of the Warks Avon floods. Anything is possible under such conditions. 

Firstly, one of the driving forces was that it doesn't matter who markets the rod you use, it need neither influence the achievement nor the pleasure of the pursuit. The kit we show in use is above budget/entry level but not in the expensive bracket, it's lower mid-range 'specialist' kit on average, or quite old, and perfectly adequate either way. The only extravagance was the centre-pin, which was a 50th birthday gift, and the only other thing we might habitually spend that bit more on would be line, as poor quality in this critical link is not to be entertained, but even in this department we see no need to advertise the fact, all quality tackle firms offer good enough lines, and, even for the beginner, tackle dealers will be quick to point out stock to meet the need.

Nothing is fixed, and anglers, above all others perhaps, will have their own preferences on tackle choice. We could easily have had the chance to catch more fish for the camera had we fished with match tackle, we would have lost more chub in some of the types of snaggy swim we were concentrating on in the knowledge that fish were likely to be present, but that would be misleading the viewer into believing this could be a sensible approach when it certainly would not be. "Hit and hold" is essential in such circumstances, both in terms of levels of success in landed fish and also fish welfare. We don't want to leave any fish tethered to roots, etc., due to inadequate or under-gunned tackle

Secondly, the making of any video had to be a pleasure in itself and this is where the 'bang, crash, wallop' manufacturer-type approach certainly didn't fit the bill. It had to try to stand alone even in the absence of any angling interest. Ideally though it would be a case of combining both aspects in a mature manner and one that would sit neatly in the 'roaring fire and nip of single malt' category, maybe even stretching to a puff on the old pipe.

Conversely, while one might always aspire to something of the quality of that benchmark in angling films know simply these days as "Passion", we preferred to avoid the retro-vintage tackle/eccentric country boys approach.

As Eric put it when we discussed the lack of a proper net bag one day, "It's just a bloke going fishing. I don't care if you've got a bin liner with your net in. That's the point". This is the ethos that encapsulates all of the above.

It's just a bloke going fishing.

So, Big Canal Roach having been released, we set about truncating the process as that took far too long, we felt. Not least in editing time, 90% of this for Eric.

Then, suddenly, dilemmas. Lots of them. The reception for the first effort - would it become a milestone round our necks? How would we move forward? Should we just stop there? What could we do that we know enough about to, a/. Be convincing, and, b/. At the very least match it in all other respects?

To give it a parallel in popular culture, imagine The Jam, or the like. Cracking, intense, true, passionate, heartfelt, real debut album, "In The City", when they really meant it, with no record deals in place as songs were written; then confronted with the need for follow-up albums after they've put everything into the first but there's nothing comparable left to share. The eye comes off the ball, so things get more far-fetched, more experimental and less real. In their case there's a contract and a deadline, it's now a living and everything depends on it, cue "This is the Modern World".

Thankfully in our case the only pressure we felt was a combination of our own desire and regular requests for more from commentators.

We put everything into the roach offering without holding anything back for the future. We did have a loose list of half a dozen ideas we might have considered a series but we never sat down and planned them in that manner. It was far more of a, "Let's try it with this one and see how it goes" approach.

The idea of a shorter, "What about this neglected misunderstood fish", silver bream option, though it always going to be of lesser interest, broke the potential for our heads to slip into a metaphorical noose 'early doors' by purposely deviating from the initial philosophy somewhat. For a start, it wasn't winter and it included more asides, especially with the rudd incident knitted in there, albeit unintentional, but that's fishing isn't it? Things happen and, more regularly than not, it's not what you might previously have planned or wished for.

The third offering was enhanced by two factors, mainly Eric's imagination, particularly in respect of the nostalgic element, and the first use of underwater footage. The latter, being my department, I have more to talk about and what a fascinating period that was. Thankfully in this respect at least, unlike the current one, it was generally a dry winter thus enabling a good deal of experimentation to be undertaken with the benefit of clear water. Angle of camera when settled, location, depth of field, scale, flow, ,varying waters were all to be resolved and dealt with. I estimate it took 20-30 hours of film to produce the few seconds of footage, twenty of those until we even saw a chub! Gudgeon, minnows, roach, dace, even a tench and then perch were all 'caught' prior to a chub sucking a piece of flake up in the murk and, even to this day, not a single view of the actual hook bait!

The main benefit of the sub-aquatic camera was the lens into a different poorly understood world. The difference in natural food levels between the Avon and the Leam for instance was an eye opener, the Avon having been polluted in recent years, and the step-up from those in winter to a shallow reservoir in spring was beyond belief where the array of life was falling over itself, so densely was it populated.

The camera we used wasn't expensive, I think £60-ish, but it saved straight to a micro SD and could film for a few hours, laying down the data in short segments which made for easy reviewing and labeling.

All of the above was very simple, which it needed to be in my case, and added a new dimension to the angling as well as the real purpose. No longer did I personally expect the fish to line-up, regimentally, as a tidy shoal awaiting their breakfast for instance, and a more chaotic scene is now imaginable as various dabblings are made.

So what of the future of video for Artificial Flight?

There are a few ideas floating around and one we are about to embark on sparked by the recent seemingly interminable rain and flooding, an exciting prospect, for me at least, and one I'm immensely looking forward to starting imminently. Quite what it will bring that's different and progressive in our film making remains to be seen, but I'm sure we'll come up with something however basic it may be.

After all...it's just a bloke going fishing!

Tesco's finest. The River Wye.

It may come as a surprise, or maybe as much as a shock, to see the headline here, but fear not, this ain't no advert...

The self-styled Stillwater Barbel Group annual August Wye trip was into its last day. The main group had been there since the beginning of the week when I joined them late on Wednesday, having had to work the morning due to a pressing deadline.

The river was falling from a small rise and rain was predicted on the middle of three days. The Wye, being a spate river, runs low and clear with more difficult fishing between the rising, colouring and falling of the water after rain upstream of wherever it is one might be having a dabble.

Arriving at the first day venue to find little caught, and the storm that sent Mr Tidy scuttling home early, as well as causing me not to be too concerned about having to work, to have been another inexplicable figment of a weather forecasters' imagination, was both a relief and a worry, of sorts.

Arriving, just as the afternoon feast was about to be prepared, the, by then, well-practiced routine unfolded. Given the kind use and, as it happened, unnecessary shelter, of a nearby salmon hut, life could have been made simpler but, unhindered by such luxury, an Alice in Wonderland-type scene, both physically and metaphorically, manifested before the eyes of, this, the observer.

Table, chairs, 3 gas rings, plates, cups, cutlery; steaks of both beef and gammon, par-boiled potatoes (were there carp here?), sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes and a huge bag of pre-chopped onions. Not to mention the remnants of Mr Tidy's annually hand-made, and exquisite, pork pie.

Thankfully The Lady Burton had donated a loaf of her best homemade granary bread; Bluebell had donated 6 of her richest garden-bug based eggs and a four-tin pack of baked beans completed the contribution of the FF&F delegation.

That feast concluded without excitement but the following day it was far more daring.

Halfway through cooking Ms Y Walker happened upon us, complete with pooch.

"You're a bit early", was the perhaps obvious quip.

 Lacking bankside kitchen worktop space it soon became apparent to the observer (me) that getting all this food ready was not as simple as first appeared. Even with three rings ("give it three rings!") the food was necessarily cooked in relays, so where do you put it all during the process? The only real option was on the ground or on bags, tubs of bait, etc.

Cue the farce.

Three of us became aware of an equivalent contingent of fox red yellow labradors approaching, having formed a kind of advance party split from their so-called handlers.

HonGenSec and I immediately saw the potential here but Des, Les...Wes was oblivious, stooping as he was with his back to them, dispensing veg onto his plate full of tasty meats.

On the ground.

"Mind your plate Wes"

"Wes move your plate"

"WES, THE DOGS ARE COMING"

Quick as any man approaching his four score years and ten could react, the plate was scooped-up before the salivating pack could pounce. Frankly they didn't appear to have been wanting in nourishment, such was the message from their suitcase bodies, but they circled the area licking up spilt morsels like a pod of dolphins rounding up bait fish.

----

There had been a shortage of bags suitable for hemp at Chez Flannel prior to the trip and so lateral thinking decreed a recently emptied resealable museli bag a suitable, and suitably capacious, alternative.

I imagined a row of pre-loved museli bags lined up in the freezer holding 2 pints each of perfectly individually polished seeds.

It was a good bag. Much tougher than your average supermarket sandwich bag and more robustly sealable. As most anglers are aware, keeping hemp fresh for two days without sealing and refrigerating as long as one can is all but impossible, unless you happen to be roach fishing in Iceland (a potential Toyah album title perhaps?).

On the last day of the trip, a day bequeathed as an extra by Mission Control, HonGenSec and I, then deserted by the Mountain Goat and Des, Les...Wes, left the Assassin's B&B after the usual hearty breakfast and, expecting a colouring, rising river, arrived at the Wye to find the water unchanged. We selected swims but at that moment I had that irresistible urge that makes one wish you'd stayed closer to home fifteen minutes longer.

I soon found myself behind the salmon hut wondering what manner of bitey bugs might be disturbed by my rummagings.

This being a posh place I couldn't bear to leave anything behind and so I emerged from the undergrowth clutching toilet roll in one hand and the formerly empty hemp bag, now leaden, in my left. 'Tesco's finest', displaid to the couple who walked by at that very second (why, oh Wye?).

"'Morning", I announced figuring an air of confidence, rather that the air filled with buzzing flies, might help distract their thoughts.

It didn't, Mrs Couple averting her gaze rather too abruptly to have that urgent need to inspect something far off that didn't exist, and no doubt battling the suddenly growing queasiness in the oesophagus.

After 12 noon or so the river did start to rise and it rose at the measured rate of 1"/20 minutes until sunset, when the tide turned. The colour intensified and, by mid afternoon, the power of the Wye became evident.

First weed and twigs, perhaps the odd dislodged log; then branches and, ultimately, two whole trees, one still in leaf, were swept south on the torrent. By this time we had both decamped and taken up new safe positions where the bankside topography would enable a gradual creep higher as the levels rose.

The increasingly rushing river ripped through from a third of the way across to the far bank, but the nearside third was steady with the eye of the building eddy easily reachable and indeed holdable with a 60g feeder and my secret concoction.

Bites were immediate, consistent, declining and finally regular, as dusk closed upon an excellent three and a half days.

This time we caught the weather and conditions right. Each time the F, F&F bus goes to Wye it seems to improve. Privately (so don't share this) I'd like to think we get better at working the river out, but in reality I'm certain it's more a case of catching the river right than any kind of improving skill.

As I stood up to gather the widespread kit, a feeling of dampness overcame me in a department not without incident this same day. A massive orange slug had fallen down the back of the chair and I had been sat on it for forty minutes or more. The slimy undesirable, indescribable gungy mess has soaked through to the skin. Beautiful.

As I trudged, dragging my reluctant self, back to the car and ultimately home, I was reminded of those events earlier in the day; the bag of Tesco's finest leaning against the rear wheel to be picked up, packed away and, later, properly disposed of.

Next August I hope to be back again for what has become an annual and quite irresistible pilgrimage.

SEASON FINALE & SYNDICATE OPENINGS

A BACK END CHALLENGE

Daylight gone, gales dropping, beta light wagging gently in the post-peak flow, as it had through the previous hour. The few items in use were pushed back into various pockets and whipped up and over the hood such that it nestled comfortably under the right arm. Rod and net in right hand and chair in left, the vacant walk back across the meadow progressed, the sheep now invisible, as progress was made the glow of the rod tip bobbed like the lure of a deep ocean angler fish illuminating the way.

The perennial challenge had peaked in recent weeks at around three and a half pounds. That 4lb Leam chub still eluding capture. That fish does exist however, of that we can be certain. A recent acquaintance has had two or three around 3.13 and the closest we got this past season was but a minnow short of the bullseye.

Coupled with this though, fuelled by extensive research and inquiries, was an as yet unwritten target of increasing the river roach P.B. At the time this particular line of enquiry was gestating, memory (never a good source of accurate information) announced that the river best was a 1.4.6 fish from Leamington A A stretch, perhaps a handful of years ago. However, in a rare moment of I.T. enlightenment, a list of best roach appeared out of nowhere; this included, not one but two, fish of 1.8 - one from the Trent and one from the Warks Avon - in the mid-1980's.

The plan was simple, concentrate on local rivers most likely to produce the biggest roach and, when time allowed, start to suss-out and understand the River Severn as the only river within about an hour of Chez Nous known to contain more than the odd individual over two pounds (being, of course, the ultimate target).

The challenge bar had been raised and with plans afoot to break this barrier, a twelve ounce Warwickshire Avon fish being the best to date, the tension became palpable.

In attempting to narrow viable options, a list of potential rivers and venues was drawn-up based on distance combined with their potential to issue forth 2lb fish, this on the basis that fish of that size would be newsworthy and traceable via published reports. Limited areas of Warwickshire Avon & Leam, the Severn. Nothing else.

In these parts of Blighty the prospect a 'river 2' is comparable with an ageing plum tree most unlikely ever to bear fruit. More than the fish of a lifetime in truth, the phrase implying the possibility in every anglers lifetime. Not so.

So, should these fail, I promised myself a trip south as the sunset on a scratchy season to tackle a chalkstream or two, guided by local wisdom.

The first session on the Blogger's Syndicate stretch of upper middle Warwickshire Avon was tough, fishing the deepest hole, but as the light faded into a frosty grave, a 12ozer found irresistability in the face of a grain of corn, but, despite lingering in the spreading sparkles brought to life by moonbeams, no more.

Christmas, and a Birmingham Anglers Association (BAA) 'book' (nowadays disappointingly a card and a mind-blowing venues map book) arrived. Come January 1st it would be possible to begin sampling the delights of big River Severn roach.

Pouring over various forums, some good, some plain irritating, a pattern started to emerge. Firstly that Severn fish hadn't been really been written about for a handful of years, secondly reports suggested they tended to be caught mid-river in summer on pellets and, finally, that a noteworthy portion of those river locations reputedly held good shoals in winter.

On the basis of this loose information HonGenSec & I hatched a plot to start targeting the river over a couple of long weekends, January to March. He for barbel and chub, parallel with this roach commitment.

Overall we spent four full days together on the river plus a couple of hours when we met before dusk at the tail of my compadres fifth day.

A tactic was hatched to start on the float where possible after bait dropping and loose feeding caster with a touch of overcooked hemp, such as to not preoccupy any fish. Various tweaks to this approach were applied until settling into a routine of 2 hours float fishing, followed by a 30g feeder just below the upstream and of the 'trot' and a light straight lead halfway down on the same trotting line.

Three things became apparent in this process - the fishing was generally poor, many anglers were blanking; it worked for barbel and chub but there wasn't a roach to be seen!

4lbs 10oz Severn Chubster. Little point hiding the mug now its all over YouTube!

Best Barbus went 8lbs 2ozs and took some taming on a 16 fine wire roach hook

In desperation 38 angling hours into the Severn campaign a local tackle dealer offered the following nugget, "The cormorants have herded all the roach into towns and the only place you can catch them is under bridges". That didn't fit the criteria at all and at that point the back-up plan came to the fore.

Thus far, approximately 50 hours in total and one 12oz Warks Avon roach to show for them, and with the end of the river season zooming-in, it was time to take-up the very kind offer of James Denison's generosity to pursue what would, with any luck, be first-ever chalkstream fish.

An monotonous trip down a Monday morning motorway lead to the meeting point in an urban setting. Rolling through it though was a stream that defied its surroundings and survived as a viable ecosystem despite the pressure of civilisation pushing, squeezing and towering over it like a mid-pounce leopard, the spots of which would never be lost but only grow yet larger.

First area, a mill pool, produced it and it alone. A three ounce roach of such immensely striking colours and contrasts that it could easily have been a different species compared to its pallid Midlands brethren.

The life in this challenged stream had to be sen to be believed. Even the laundry had water lice living in it

Moving on, scaling walls, running the gamut of traffic, joggers, people with the perennial question preceding the movement of their lips, dogs (and of course their proceeds), other anglers and life itself we tested-out another area where the machinations of society displayed in all their dubious splendour.

Notably, all swims were nothing like anything experienced anywhere before. Rapids, slacks, back-eddies, features largely comprising the trappings of human occupation rather than the natural, comprised the watercraft exercise of the day. In a nutshell the bottom was visible in 2 to 3 feet of water and it was a case of flicking a float into the darkest, most mysterious areas of water, and finding the fish by trial and (plenty of) error.

Once an out and out river angler, the rust had grown so think in the joints that the supply of skill testing swims took all day to (not quite) get used to, but occasionally a trot would be about right and the resultant roach - big, bold, beautiful - were suggestive that penetrating oil had made the difference.

The bite was never-ending and the response to steady, gentle feed rewarding.

The best, of four around the pound mark, went one pound three ounces and in between came a couple of lovely dace; the best at 0.8.13 being the best of this current lifetime. Reincarnation? Don't rule it out!

The last legal river fishing day was washed away in the remnants of another transatlantic storm and so one pound three ounces will have to suffice for now.

Plenty of time to improve things next season. 

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WARWICKSHIRE BLOGGERS' ANGLING SYNDICATE

The first season of WBAS has been and gone so quickly.

I think it would be fair to say it's been a resounding success with some cracking venues trialled and plans hatched for the future.

One thing we do realise is that the will to obtain access to exclusive waters means we must increase our number from ten to fifteen members to cover the cost but also retain the high likelihood of a solitary day on the bank without having to grapple with others for swims. Even then, if we all chose to fish at the same time, we would have a third of a mile of bank space each!

Currently we have access to three small Warwickshire rivers, a prime stretch of Warks Avon and a pool just over the border in Leicestershire that we are developing from carp and small fish to, we hope, quality tench and pure crucians.

So, if you consider yourself like-minded; are attracted by solitude and good fishing for quality fish (in environments as natural as one can still find in the area) please do comment on this post providing an email address, and we'll remove that message from public display before responding with further information (please note that prospective members will need to be proposed by current members or contacted for a conversation by telephone).

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NEXT UP:

A bream and tench campaign on stillwaters when time allows and big canal fish when it doesn't.

Otherwise it'll be the next Blogger's Challenge starting June 16th under new points scoring rules...how very traditional we are!