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

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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

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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

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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

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

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

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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.

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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.

A Future in the Past

Decades ago The Old Duffer, now officially retired from the angle (unless I can tempt him from time to time), used to take me to all manner of mysterious venues. Most times legally, sometimes questionably so

A vast cauldron of bubbling tales sit as yet to be rediscovered in my mind but they would range from being peppered with buckshot by a shooter oblivious to our presence but nevertheless, one would assume, aware of the towpath; through my falling-in to various parts of the Great Ouse system three times in one week at the age of around 12 years and spilling the beans into the grass when knocking them off the camping stove, scraping them up and eating them; to crashing the car into the back of a van when I was supposed to be ‘off sick’ from school and advising the WPC when I was interviewed that I thought we were doing, “About 40mph” after being strictly informed I should only answer questions I knew the answer to otherwise, “Just say you don’t know”. It was a 30 zone

Never did a week go by without an event and of course those happenings, and often mishap-enings, were compounded on club bus trips to far flung glamorous and grim locations (in equal measure) under which circumstances the frequency of perfectly-baked recipes for amusement in half-baked situations would beggar belief in today’s hermetically-sealed world

The Boy Wonder and I are now able to take advantage of those experiences on a regular basis. This past Saturday for instance we decided to travel a little out of Feldon to a stretch of canal that I used the frequent on a weekly basis, initially for pleasure and then for matches and practice. Some excellent times were had back then but this blog has never been about self-promotion and it isn’t about to start now, so I’ll stick to the point

The venue was always good for some not-so-easy-to-catch roach in the 2 to 5 ounce bracket, perch around the same size and occasionally the odd skimmer would show-up. Most pegs could produce between one and three pounds of fish and four to five pounds would usually be enough to win a match, or, perhaps, around two pounds in an evening competition

One area though was rarely pegged for a number of reasons and it was this that we would sometimes head for when pleasure fishing. I do recall not having the best of ‘luck’ there myself as, being a relative novice at the time, bream fishing was a little beyond me as I was much happier snatching smaller fish from the two margins. The Old Duffer though was quite adept and appreciated the laying-on technique and feeding necessities for skimmers

When we tried to quietly roll-up at dawn on this revisit we were a tad early and so went for the easy option of the known parking arrangements and the best peg from years ago, which we would share. This rather than risk being unable to park at the target bridge and missing prime time

This was TBW’s first dawn trip of the season and it was something of a test. Anticipating a potentially good day with the water the ‘right’ colour of murky green, cloud cover and boundless optimism we piled the bread mash into the channel (my job) and worm feed down the near shelf (his job).

From first cast it was action all the way as quality roach, then the occasional hybrid and then bream to just under two pounds followed in processional order to the net. In fact we were taken aback when a two ounce fish had the temerity to get in the way!

Soon the boats started to get active and The Boy was overwhelmed with a need to find out what was lingering over the worm feed before it was too late. The answer was crayfish, and certainly there had been plenty causing false action down the middle earlier-on. Soon though he managed to connect with some stripeys but they weren’t huge with the biggest around the half-pound mark. Good canal points for him though to go with his best roach yet of 8ozs

Packing away, and on the way back to the car, thoughts and conversation turned to that school boy and ecologists favourite…poo. We somehow managed to avoid quite a number of bank deposits either side of our shared pitch in the semi-gloom. Quite some luck as it seems there was a dog poo bag shortage locally. As we walked back however the larger specimens had been sprayed bright orange which we figured was a way of embarrassing the dog owners that had placed the offending lumps the day before.

“They should spray the owners orange”, we exclaimed, almost in unison. Hopefully this tactic will have some effect but it's sad to say there are certain areas of canals which are easily accessible where it is nigh-on impossible to find sufficient gap to sit in but, on the bright side, the schoolboy humour would have been absent without the dollops.

Dogs bottoms aside we hung exactly fifteen pounds of mixed species and sizes under the scales after three hours fishing with TBW adding points for roach and perch to The Bloggers Challenge

Sunday was an odd one

We didn’t fancy getting-up early again, so, with The Lady Burton otherwise engaged for the morning, and the only other excitement packing boxes for the house move we sloped-off down ‘our bit’ of the Leam

Setting-up in the swim that produced a big perch for him last winter, Parps got on with the task of dropping lobs into the six foot deep hole under, unusually, an overhanging hazel. Meanwhile, as has become standard practise, I struggled to muster even the slightest hint of a bite elsewhere.

“I’ve got one!”, he called, just minutes after settling-in and a quite beautifully deeply-coloured perch just under the pound nestled in his landing net when I went to see.

What seemed like seconds later I heard some attempt to communicate another event and clambered up the bank again. As I reached field level he staggered out of the shade of tree and now wilting nettles, mouth hanging open and arms away from his body in a fixed shrug. Dazed.

“Wassup?”, I queried

“I just had a great big pike on and it’s bitten my hook off. It took the worm but why would it take a worm? Pike eat fish don’t they?”

“Well, yes, but they are predators and will take anything that moves and looks edible. It won’t have gone far he’s probably still in the same place. So you’ve a good chance of getting him again”

Back in went the worm but slightly too far from the fed area so he wound the wriggler back and just as it was about to be lifted from the water, sure enough, “Crash!”, the monster carnivore took it again and soon enough it was in the net.

There in its mouth was the first shiny hook it had acquired which gave us the distinct pleasure of removing both and returning him, all one pound eight ounces of him, and TBW’s first ever pikelet, unharmed to the stream

Who says Crabtree is fiction? Not in our house it ain’t
 

The Angling-based Past v. The Angling-based Future, a Contextual Analysis...or skimmers, sticklebacks, stonechats and shrews

Sounds a bit rude really doesn't it?, but I thought it was about time I put some context to the plan

Between 1975 and 1996 I recorded as accurately as I could every single fish I caught. If I were to bother to add them up (which I will not...there's sad and there's terminal!) I could also tell you, a touch more approximately, how many of each species in that period. I appreciate I may have lost count from time to time but on the odd occasion, when I knew I may have done so, I would count them back at the end and invariably I had undercounted so I can say without fear of guilt that the recorded figures are, if anything, slightly below the true numbers

To give an example, if I check back, in 1990/91 season (bearing in mind they were proper seasons back then) the book says 4900 fish were caught at an average of 51.58 per trip for a total catch of 350.2.12 and a trip average of 3.11.0. I could tell you more but you may well begin to wonder if you might catch OCD from the words. I could tell you what the average weight of each fish was, in fact that would not be difficult at all, however what might appear quite surprising I am sure is that the average weight of each catch and each fish may seem extremely low and yet the number of fish caught on average seems quite high



It's all in this box. Originally in special books, then an A5 sheet per trip

 The reason for this is that from the age of about 12 I fished in matches and saw non-match sessions as practice for them. Consequently I hardly ever fished for big fish for a whole session even if they were clearly in front of me as I would almost always be looking to get some fish in the net by whatever (legal) means before I tried to catch the bigger ones at the very least in case they didn't feed and I was left blank, a disaster in a team match for instance

I recall, looking back, that in the early days we used to concentrate on certain rivers and later on canals often travelling with the Old Duffer's mates until he got a car of his own. Extended spells going to the Great Ouse, Trent, Warks Avon, Thames, Grand Union and North Oxford Canals are still quite vividly remembered combined with occasional trips to all sorts of other venues as widely drawn as the River Wye and Coombe Abbey lake. Eventually however I settled for a long period on the Grand Union between Crick and Leighton Buzzard followed by another period on West Midlands canals including the Staffs/Worcs, B'ham/Worcs, Shropshire Union, Stratford Canal and, again, the Grand Union, this time west of Warwick. During both of these latter spells of canal fishing the North Oxford featured most winters and, often, early season evenings too. Consequently I navigate by fishing venues rather than pubs and rarely need a voice to say 'take second exit' unless a new road has been built

Some Warks bloggers may recognise this venue from a Xmas 1983 photo of a photo?

From an earlier age than the above I had been birdwatching and avidly listing every species seen, even on the shortest of trips which could possibly fall into this bracket, and including any other species I might have been capable of having a stab at identifying such as the occasional butterfly or mammal (The Dog has always been particularly adept at attracting the latter since he appeared on the scene some 16 years ago. I fear it is due to his reticence to wash)

I had undertaken studies of a short length of the River Avon, east of Rugby, and another of Stanford Reservoir when at school and so the recording doctrine set-in early. When none of the above opportunities  presented themselves then the option of a jam-jar and net seeking-out bullheads and loaches under the stones of shallow brooks would always offer another option or, perhaps, tracking wasps back to their nests and then trying to convince The Old Duffer that we (he) really ought to go and dig it out under cover of darkness and then put the grubs to good use on the Trent ('never did happen). For the past ten years I have been involved in other forms of recording at a more structured and public level with bats, amphibians and reptiles and which I suppose have filled some of the gap while I have been away from fishing, birdwatching and generally being out there entirely for the pleasure of it

Fifteen years or so after quitting fishing part-way through a winter league series, when the urge not to go overwhelmed me, it has been like a new sport altogether to come back into it without the wish or will to enter matches and the prospect initially to concentrate effort toward bigger fish to see what can be caught from those same locations, from which I once averaged a much higher number of tiny fish, is quite a challenge. The cost of travel and available time keep me within certain limits now and to concentrate in the north-eastern end of Feldon seems quite appropriate and contained, although I am certain I will stray from time to time when a seemingly valid reason or whim presents itself

A typical catch of old. A team of footballers from the R Thames, 1983

What I do not yet know is where seeking-out bigger fish at the cost of tiddlers will end-up. I can't be sure but what I do know is that the quest to come-up with new or more refined methods, a mindset that constantly accompanied my approach between '75 and '96, hasn't gone away and already this has paid-off with some bigger canal fish in just three concerted visits. Everything can be improved somehow to suit a situation and for now that is keeping me suitably amused and excited. A heightened awareness of the natural world around me also adds fascination but, frankly, at this moment, the bite takes precedence! This new world will evolve into something more, or different, from there if it wants to I am sure.

Soon I think I will add at the side of my posts, if I can figure out how to do it(!), a list of my P.B's from the past world I describe above and perhaps another of the evolving New World list to compare it with. It (the old list) won't initially at least make for exciting reading for the onlooker but it will focus my mind and hopefully will get more interesting as we progress