TOWPATH MUDBATH

The Blogger's Challenge has reached a climatic impasse with the multifunctional weather restricting viable options for the time being

The rivers Avon and Leam have regularly visited local pastures and left behind remnants of their presence. The dropping temperatures have resulted in two Stillwater trips without so much as a sucked maggot. The canals have been reluctant to relinquish control of their inhabitants in the few areas not blighted by strong winds or heavily coloured water

Decisions on venues have been taxing with aerial mapping, weather forecasting and dawn/dusk app's taking a pasting prior to each trip

Yesterday and today, with winds of 20-odd mph and rain forecast, stretches of cut were selected which would not carry a great deal of suspended silt and that would be equally comfortable to fish

In terms of tactics, knowing that bites would be limited and experimentation therefore pointless, bread and lobworms would be my choices

Saturday, as I approached the likely area along the muddied towing path before first light, the turbidity looked healthily tinged for bread and equally suitable for worm. Justification possible

This area of the Grand Union was known to be populated by good bream and with a three pounder having eluded me all season another crack would not be time wasted given the lack of other options

A new bucket of lobworms had arrived this week offering fresh opportunity for predator fishing but previously little success had been found in this location, not that this was going to prevent trying

As usual of late, bites weren't instant but the 45 minute rule was again proven correct as a plodding lump was hooked after a hideously extravagant lift of the float signalled action approximately half an hour in but that was to be that

The worm line proved more entertaining as showers swept through and, thankfully, over the brolly I had taken the unusual trouble to pack and carry. A flurry of zander around the pound mark tore into the worm feed and bait but then that too went predictably quiet as daylight set fully in

Today it was to be the North Oxford Canal and I headed for the usual length for when the more attractive stretches are coloured by rain but, having fished there too many times over the last few waterlogged weeks and bored myself, it was time to turn right at the bridge and by way of variety. The breeze caught the surface in that unkempt 'too unsettled to ripple' manner the air has of creating false bow waves and depressions on the surface. Then, on the bend, rippling and a real chill

I toyed with a peg in the open opposite rushes but decided on a spot between a high hedge behind me and small willow and thorn bushes opposite. The far side looked shallow but there was a promising depth down the boat run and so it was this that I attacked, but then that will be no surprise.

Bread straight in front with mash spread over a five foot circle and chopped lobworm to my right toward the base of the near shelf

On this occasion bites were instant and it took some effort to drag my eyes away from the indicators to clock the various ravens, identifiable by their equally varied voices, flying back and forth over the raised landscape to the north of me. A good fight, not a bream, not a perch (on bread it wouldn't be), but the red fins were of course the give way. Another of those fish with an orange tinge to its flesh, this time on the chin. This one was going-on the for a pound and a perfect start to the day

From this moment for 30 further minutes both rods were very active and, as per a similar recent event, at one point I had a bite on the tip while landing a bream of 2.7.8. I netted the bream and then struck into and played a perch of 1.11.8 until it was beaten. I then hung it in the side against the quiver-tip with it pulling, weakened, against the rod along the near shelf while I unhooked the bream and then netted the perch and popped it too into the net

Common gulls occasionally swept down over the canal presumably sighting my struck-off pieces of bread but then turning sharply away upon realising that I was the source of these inadvertent offerings. The ever-present moorhens however were keen to steal them and delicately peck them to manageable pieces under the overhanging branches of the far bank

The fish kept coming for around three quarters of an hour with bites on whole lobs more closely spaced that the more intermittent yet very certain enquiries on bread flake and, with the smallest fish at eleven ounces the catch soon built-up although as many bites were missed on lobs due to the huge size of bait I was using, but, with a challenge canal perch of 2.11.0 already on the board, only a bigger one or a decent zander will trouble the virtual scorer

Again a couple of dogs were affeared of this hunkering shape by the water and one refused to come past me altogether. Yesterday a strange looking presumed spaniel-cross mutt with divergent eyes came right up and barked like a lunatic as I chatted to it. Prior to that a massively chunky golden retriever was equally on the back foot until it saw a friendly face under the hat and then was happy to approach on the way back. No bread was stolen this weekend though, oh no. When you're down to your last couple of slices...

So as the bites petered-out and with two dog walkers coming from the right I heard someone else passing from the left in extremely rustly clothing.

"Had much?", came the question.

I looked up to see a lure angler standing by my side right on the waters edge. Respect for other anglers came to mind but I kept my own counsel.

"A few bream", I replied, then "Oh, you're lure angling? I've had some decent perch on worm too if it's any help" (I could be polite at least).

Distracted by his presence I had not noted the first narrow-boat after day-break in stealth mode from the left but quickly removed both rods from the water.

His accomplice appeared, older and, seemingly somewhat better versed in angling etiquette, he stood back, albeit he was wearing red. Why is it that some lure anglers need no watercraft or subtle cladding and yet the rest of us can instinctively feel the fish drifting away if we make any kind of false move? I appreciate the technique requires a certain prominence to make it physically possible but really  

Off they wandered bemoaning the fact that my bites had dried-up and that they hadn't got up early enough. For my part I decided, "Time for breakfast" and exclaimed as such to yet another passer-by. Honestly I don't think anyone nearby could have slept Saturday night; there were two cyclists and a dog walker through with head-torches before it even got light, while I was unpacking the car in fact. Surely we anglers have the divine right to be there first. After all it's our job isn't it? What is going on out there?!

I slowly wiped the sloppy mud off everything in this quagmire of a length of bank and awaited the moment when no one was in sight to empty the net. The lure anglers came back past...nothing

"Do you tend to lose many lure's on snags in the canal?", I asked

"Not as many as we used to", came the reply

Make of that what you will

I shared the fact that The Boy Wonder had caught a pair of pants on two maggots last week, which summed-up our combined blanks, and off they went pushing more fish along in front of them

Many moons ago regular winter matches were run on the Leicester Line, or Arm, of the Grand Union in Northants and, early mornings, the water would often be quite clear. It was no coincidence that the anglers on the end pegs or those pegged where the towpath was shrouded in bushes, boats or rushes, would catch 'all' the fish. No, watercraft is not optional if one wishes to make the most of one's opportunities and maintain those of others

Anyway back to the subject. As I slopped around like a wallowing carp eventually the path cleared and I was able to lift the fish out to weight them one-by-one as I put them back. Five bronze bream, three perch and the roach. 9 fish for around fourteen pounds, six ounces and all caught before 8.30 a.m. when sunrise is at 07.30hrs. I couldn't recall my best catch from the NOXC but it wouldn't be far off this one way or the other

Then I had the idea of photographing one as it slipped out of my hand into the water...

It didn't go well

So as regards challenge points. I, for the fourth consecutive time, only managed to add the odd point for a three ounces larger bream than before. It really is getting difficult now and until the weather becomes more settled that will not change

I, somewhat sadly, took the trouble to estimate (if things went perfectly to mid-May) that I would still be some twenty points behind Russell Hilton who is in second place overall, but you never know, miracles have already happened to many in the competition this season and so there will be others yet I am sure

Mouse Update:
New babies for my birthday

Bubble and squeak

Bubble is black with two white circles and squeak is golden. Training will commence this week

Crave New World

Jack of all trades

Despite seemingly being reasonably able to turn my hand to most angling methods with varying degrees of success I am particularly poor at making good decisions in respect of likely venues

From the age of about twelve my angling was very much cast in a match angling context and, absolutely love it though I then did, it is no way to teach an angler how to understand seasons & conditions in relation to individual species

There were certain obvious situations to avoid. The weed choked summer river or drain for instance, a recently dredged canal or severe flood conditions spring to mind but these would even be obvious to the non-angler, although there can be merit even in some of those apparently uninviting circumstances of course

Selecting a stretch of river, canal or pond because of its seasonal bias to summer rudd or clear water winter pike would pass me by

For me it is more about the methods and techniques that might winkle a fish often somewhat against the odds. The tiny hook and finest of lines to avoid a blank for the team on an all-but fishless January canal; a hemp line contrary to popular belief on a North Oxford Canal evening match; a ludicrously light rig fished treble-depth and held tight for the slowest of slow drops seeking bonus roach on warm-water summer canals. This list goes on, but all of these scenarios were artificially induced by the constraint of having to fish the peg gifted by the mystery of the draw bag; a case of having to; win or lose, death or glory, the approach to the random peg was the sword by which the match angler did, or died

Top match anglers at the peak of their sport have an edge. It might be a complete method they have perfected or as little as a slight variation on a theme used by all. Some will occasionally succeed when the circumstances allow it. Others increase their own odds by being ahead of the game in as many key departments as possible but when the matchman or woman is on form, flying, high in confidence, he or she just knows what the next step is, what change to make. It is instinctive and rarely lets him or her down...until something changes to remove the advantage and they must change with it or be proven briefly to have been extremely lucky and not that good after all, and, I have crossed rods with those too of course

Having spent the recent few years pursuing fish larger than the match angler would consistently target on similar venues, I hesitate to use the phrase 'specimen fish' as that would simply not be completely accurate, it is undoubtedly apparent that the level of pure angling skill generally purveyed in match angling far exceeds that of other branches of the sport. The ability of some anglers to extract decent catches in superficially the most unlikely of swims is quite beyond belief. Indeed I personally have lost count of the times that great, or, at least, exceedingly good, anglers have achieved this kind of incredible feat before my very eyes. Of course it isn't possible to catch what isn't in front of you but that really is not the point

In big fish circles it is more a case of utilising that same unshifting self-confidence and applying it to a method, bait or water that the angler believes in. Top specimen hunters think nothing of casting what they consider to be the killing bait and rig to the spot they know will produce that fish of a lifetime and then waiting an inordinate amount of time for it to happen. Contrast this with top class squatt fishing at its peak when 200 canal anglers sought 3lbs plus of small roach to gain superiority. A method that required a recast if the float had settled. In an attempt at real time as you scroll down, it went like this:

Feed, 

Cast, 

Mend line, 

Refill catty pouch by touch,

Strike,

Plop fish in net,

Rebait, 

Feed, 

Cast,

Mend, 

Refill pouch,

Strike,

Plop...

And so on, minute after minute, hour after hour for four or five hours. Sometimes 'feed' and 'rebait' could be interchanged. A hundred plus fish to far bank waggler tactics would be ideal, and later on to the pole of course

The key was to get the inter-feed timing such that the last fed squatts were hitting bottom as the next feed hit the surface, a constant stream in fact. Well, that was the simple part of the theory anyway

Now though it is the variety of methods, rods, reels, poles, species, conditions, etc., that this particular angler is getting to grips with and, while many years competing with and against the aforementioned cannot fail to rub a little all-round craft into the piscatorial pores I cannot change the fact that I do tend to target the right thing at the wrong time. What I mean by this is that I might wake-up with the heady excitement of a river roach session buzzing around my skull to then forget that same river is gin clear, perhaps barely moving and that I ought really seek-out a pike in the morning (not the afternoon), and so forth

Certain favourable conditions are being grasped however. The turbid, high but falling river water in rising temperatures post-flood takes no thought as it is an instant draw, but, largely due to the fact that it triggers ticking that 'difficult challenge' box in my angling mind, even though I must surely soon realise that it is in fact one of the easiest times to catch fish of many species, it just doesn't look as though it should be! Frosty banks are a great time for canal roach, this also has not passed me by

I can only put it down to the fact that I do not yet know enough of the information floating around this complex world I now reside in. Certainly I read a lot from certain sources; books in preference to magazines and blogs in preference to manufacturer's websites; but even though I know for instance that tench are spring feeders in cloudy conditions perhaps best caught at dawn rather than at night but certainly appearing to feed in bursts, I do find it very hard to apply it when my mind says, 'I do fancy some bream today'.

As with the many new things that we have to get to grips with in life it tends to become more clear eventually if one immerses oneself long enough in its essence and, as a bird is not fully fledged as soon as it hatches, so must I retain the patience to let it all osmose into the blood and ultimately become second nature, perhaps the original Mr Crabtree could help me out here?

----

So, with angling time out of the question due to dodgy weather forecast and Christmas shopping to undertake this past weekend, we set about trying-out Parps' spotting scope with a vengeance and off to Pitsford Water we headed

The causeway was iced as we set-up viewing towards the nature reserve to set the ball rolling and the breeze did little to keep the shivers at bay. The flask helped however and we were well down the coffee in no time as we picked through the more common wildfowl and checked them in the book to give him some confidence in the i.d's

Teal, mallard, wigeon, then cormorant and onto great crested grebe, etc., plus that ever-pleasurable winter diving bird the male goldeneye. A host of wintering mute swan were dotted around the periphery of the vast acreage of water but one looked somewhat too busy to the naked eye in the distance and this was where the 'scope really came into it's own as first finding and then focus revealed a great while egret with its impossibly snake-like neck and huge yellow bill stalking the margins up to its knees in icy water. Only my second ever and the littl'uns first of course

We added coot and moorhen, black-headed and common gull, grey heron and lapwing before we felt the urge to check-out the opposite side where the visitors feed the birds. Saints fan and his partner were somewhat intimidated by approaching ye olde farmyard goose but as soon as it became realised that it would not come closer than about two feet they too found their feet and scattered bread crumbs to all and sundry. Gulls seemingly the most adventurously opportunistic foragers in the circumstances plucking feed from the air

A couple who decided to feed them from the car however got a touch more than they had bargained for when a group, of mainly mallard, set siege to the vehicle and were trying to get into the passenger seat to get first shout

A whisper of a diver at the dam end of the res. from another passing father and son however sent us scuttling in that direction before we had to head off to the shops and a quick search of the water found it fairly settled close to a bright orange buoy mark 'D'. Just too far to photograph successfully but close enough to view and confirm the species as great northern on account of its more massive bill, short and uber-chunky neck and hints of chequerboard on its back. Not a first for myself but a welcome rarity nevertheless and certainly the boy wonder's debut Arctic Loon - a somewhat appropriate alternative name in his case

Difficult to see but it's halfway between the buoy and the right-hand edge of this poor long-distance photograph.
 'D' for Diver, could it have been anywhere else?!

Here we also added little grebe and shoveler to the list together with a few common passerines and went off home happy as the sunlight burst through and cast a glow on a robin and mistle thrush over bare rusty Northamptonshire soil where we had parked

 

Winter. Delivered and Sealed with Wax

These breathtakingly sharp mornings really make you realise you’re alive at this time of year and, as the weather seriously ‘deteriorates’ around New Year, some spectacular feathered visitors enter the garden where it adjoins a marshy field, the source of much of the water that passes along the brooks splitting it  into three as it happens

The regular frosts set The Lady Burton reminiscing on the vagrants accommodated in the few years we’ve lived here and while doing so The Dog also expressed the wish to go to Warwickshire Wildlife Trust HQ at Brandon Marsh east of Coventry to photograph the waxwings he said had been seen there regularly in preceding days

On searching the Birdguides website feature Bird News Extra it became apparent that this small winter visitor to Britain was enjoying another ‘explosion’ year to these isles, an event which usually occurs, it seems, when the berry crops in their native Scandinavia are poor. There were a number of records of small flocks of birds, perhaps not as many as two years ago, but a good number nevertheless, in Warwickshire but also Northamptonshire and Leicestershire both of which are close-by

Now, as with angling, if you are not a twitcher chasing rarities, or swims guaranteed to be full of fish, it is simply a case of being in the right place at the right time and those right places are suitable berry trees, usually rowans and the like, which the slightly larger wintering thrush  species have not got to first. And the most likely location for such tree species? Modern housing estates and supermarket car parks!

This little research also showed there to have been a small number very close to where I work (if you can call it work, emergency services, oil rigs, farming...now that’s work). Next morning a slight detour took me past ‘the tree’ and lo and behold there they still were, 12 of them dangling at all angles from branches like massive tits, so to speak, to get the very last berries from the groaning sapling within feet of the nine o’clock traffic...and the only day I hadn’t taken my camera with me for about two weeks...there’s organisation for you, I’ll be forgetting my bait next! My colleague managed a ‘Wow’ but inside I was bubbling over, I’d seen one in profile two years ago near Lutterworth but this was the first time a proper view had been obtained in all-but 50 years. The Old Duffer was immediately informed, or at least his ansafone was, but whether he made it out there before they departed is yet to be discovered

When we arrived at the office to spread said excitement Becca couldn’t resist the attraction and returned armed with some good photographs considering she was using a compact camera and, later that same day, they were gone - the tree completely stripped bare 

Waxwings are extremely colourful birds if you are fortunate enough to get the sun on them, we didn’t, with little yellow and red blobs of colour looking like parts of the wings have been dipped in bright sealing wax (for those under thirty - think brush bristles dipped in custard and letter-box paint) and their pronounced crests set them apart from other birds. They loiter in high trees near their feeding locations which then, most notably, seem to be attacked in the afternoon as they proceed to strip berries in gorging sprees between fleeing back to the vantage point and they will often stay in one location until there is no food left at all. Hardly optimal foraging strategy for these birds slightly smaller than a starling but a strategy nevertheless and if one has flown hundreds of miles across the North Sea to find food maybe it is too risky to leave any for the thrushes

That was the engaging event of the week and totally eclipsed this morning’s tour of canal bridges looking for an ice-free peg, needless to the say the warmth of the house was soon returned to and a normal working day resumed...well, ‘normal’ except that it involved a long discussion about the state of the earth, man’s destruction of it and the of principles Gaia; now don’t get me started on that again!

UPDATED 08 12 12 with some our own (that's The Dog and I) waxwing pics taken on Myton Road, Warwick during a semi-twitch, i.e. we had to go to Homebase so why not?!

References:

Gaia, A New Look at Life on Earth. James Lovelock, OPB, 1982 (& subsequent publications)

Birdguides    http://www.birdguides.com/home/default.asp

The Birds of Northern Europe, Birdguides App