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!

Early Shot

Challenges remain unsated

A chilling sun illuminates early evening beneath cloud and over land, casting an eye-watering terminal October brightness over the angling day

Soon the sky would be orange, red, purple and unique. A photograph of a scene every day of a lifetime, would be ever-changed, and from minute to minute

The little river. Perfect in every way, wound like a rattlesnake on the move, it's curves carved like inundated lino cuts into the Feldon clays and gravels

Its flow was urgent, its depths compounded and, with a fish-confiding turbidity, the irresistible combination exacerbated the attraction ten-fold

An urge deep within. 

An urge to seek, to confound and trick. 

An urge that would, within minutes, result in a bait descending those depths so gently, so disarmingly, as to tempt the terminally torpid

Silty and shielding, sinuous and yielding. The emotion driven by an autumn flood irresistible. Here was the fisherman. A challenge unsated. 

This barely perceptible river had been an historic champion but could it again, in whatever form, diminished by time and the disregard of humankind? Could she again nurture chub and roach of unimaginable magnificence in her watery womb? 

Those seemingly surreal targets had hung heavy on the angler like a lead-laden yoke. Through innumerable seasons he'd yearned and toiled on its oft-times treacherous or impenetrable flanks

Could a chub of four pounds, or an impossible roach of two, be lying undisturbed below. Could they? 

He was to find out as his quest absorbed the strident confidence of this streamy, if not dreamy, provider and adversary, Warwickshire's lesser-loved River Leam. 

Crouched, eyes fixated; a first sudden rap resonated with the senses. Sight and touch stimulated. A hair-trigger poised. The snatching turned to tug, to pull, to strike, to hook, and was on. 

A slovenly autumn fish, subdued by the progressively chilling substrate through which it slid, offered little beyond the token in reluctantly accepting the duel. Not the bullseye but a surprisingly voluminous occupier of a high-scoring inner ring nevertheless

Thirteen ounces adrift wasn't a shameful starting shot and hope took root

----

Soon, a gentler solution. Finer, lighter, smaller and tighter. Flow subsiding, shade tending to green. The stream was just that. No longer the receding flood

Field maple, subsumed and released, left tattered by the subsiding flood formed a potentially darkened lair. The streaks and whirls of the flow, tickled and teased its leaves from below, while careering past a deeper slack

A gentle flick of that the most irresistible of small river lures - daintily presented, like a petit four drifting, he hoped, to inevitable consumption - barely broke the surface and faded into the fishiness to accept its fate. A fate that proved instant. A fate that proved that perhaps there was hope of the least likely target being present

A chub-like fight, passionate and self-respecting, outshone its predecessor such as to be confounding

At the rim, chub turned to roach. A gasp in shock but there she lie, sparkling and true, one pound of solid previously unsullied perfection

Signs of potential

Would this be the season to be jolly? 

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". 

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!

The Evolving Situation

The Bloggers' Syndicate stretch of the Upper Warwickshire Avon has transmogrified into a perfect meandering stream over the past month

No longer the sluggish, eutrophic, apparently lifeless ditch. A bank-high torrent has flushed activity into it like steady rain to a recently drilled field. Suddenly the scum-clad becomes the pristine and, to the piscean stomach, comes hunger.

The tinge of colour suggestive of feeding fish, combined with swift narrow runs flanked at bends and obstructions by gentle glides, slacks and tiny whirling depressions easing through the creases and slowly, imperceptibly, diminishing to nothing, had raised expectation to unprecented levels.

Over-excited surface-bursting fish remain rare, but they are now occasional, while confidence and competition for a morsel in the chilling, constant curvature of the channel abound.

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A week ago, the tiny River Leam sought to issue forth all its Chub in one magnificent morning.

Fish were so ravenous as to tear-off with large chunks of crust before the anglers' contact with them could be affirmed. Rod tips pulled round barbel like and clutches squealed in otherwise rural tranquility.

Eight fish between 2lbs 1oz and a touch over 3lbs came to the net in a couple of hectic hours while a match angler harvested eleven of these aquatic omnivores for a catch of over 27lbs the following day. 

Quite unprecedented action. 

Those 19 fish averaged 2lbs 6ozs, a fair reflection of the state of this oft misunderstood stream, it's potential shrouded by a paucity of suitable conditions, and yet it has recently been said this is "A River in Decline".

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So the era when global warming manifests physically in the feast and famine of fish is firmly established.

Clear or coloured; low or threatening the fields; stagnating or vigorously flowing. Such are the extreme phases of the midland river in the 21st Century. A time when partly forced predation combined with the above climatic influences is turning, or has turned, our fish to increasingly nocturnal behaviour.

One wonders whether angling clubs of the future will need floodlights.

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In a recent exchange with that expert Specimen fish pursuer James Denison, we were agreed that we can live with the natural balance that otters will ultimately create once back to a population balanced with their environment but when it comes to the invasive signal crayfish and ever increasing displaced cormorants there is no obvious solution, and, as with all these things, the answer will be considered long after the piscatorial horse has bolted.

What will this leave?

In New Zealand there is a purge on non-native fauna but where would we start, with so many established former invaders and introducees that one wonders what would be left if they were removed from the landscape and how that loss would now affect the indigenous species.

Perhaps rewilding, with the reintroduction of long-lost top predators and landscape-shaping species, would impact these flourishing animals the dissipation of some of which is now ingrained in our culture. The rabbit for instance.

No. It is far too complex to contemplate a solution but, one thing is certain, pot-shotting the odd fish-eating bird changes nothing. If it is man that has changed the balance of nature then it is men that have to live with it.

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Moving-on!...

'Bumped into Zed-hunter extraordinaire Mick Newey on a new stretch of the Leam the Bloggers' Syndicate is trialling just after the aforementioned floods, and prior to the colour completely falling away.

Dressed resplendently as always he leapfrogged my swim at the very moment I had my best twang on the new wand, on its first outing.

Rather than plough the usual chub-likely crease, the day was to have been one of experimentation. The mini method feeder idea recently tested for big canal roach seemed, on the face of it, to be equally suitable for small stream, smaller species.

So arriving at the first swim, a bag of 'liquidised' at the ready, a long, steady glide around three feet deep looked ideal - nothing.

Working upstream, any fish facing away from me,  a deeper hole concealed in trees caught the eye. Tap, tap, quiver, twang and a handful of Chublet was eased back into the protected shallows bankside.

...And so it continued, until we met. The bite was struck sharply and a sparklingly silver fish twirled in frantic action in the clearing water. It had the look of a battery powered silver bream but of course it couldn't be. Soon the net slipped under the biggest dace I had ever seen in the pearlescent-clad flesh.

Now when I say biggest ever, the excitement must be tempered by the fact that I have never seen one over five ounces, but nevertheless the fact remains. Mick felt it could go seven or eight ounces and I underestimated, match angler style, the fish ultimately weighed-in at seven ounces four drams.

Perhaps a feeble P.B., but it was one, and that would do me, and, for me at least, that moment was enough to confirm the potential of the water.

Further swims produced other previous P.B.-shaking dace. All from steady, shaded glides over gravel.

The 'mini-method' displayed an additional virtue that could, just possibly, set it on its way to being a standard technique in the F, F & F armoury; it enabled the swim to be searched without risking over-feeding the wrong area and wrecking it before casting in. The rig could be flicked around various spots until the fish were found and then the feed built-up cast by cast, and, by increasing the stop shot size, casting weight could be adjusted neatly too.

Certainly with more flow and depth on the stream would take float fishing as well but it shows signs of being a tactic to employ with some regularity, and far less crude on casting than a standard feeder set-up, however tiny 'they' might make them.

That said, it is perhaps time to confess that the past as a 95% float angler has been completely turned on its historical, not to say "hysterical", head in this second, and last, wave of angling submersion. It didn't take long for the taxed and diminishing grey matter to twig that the effort and, let's be frank, discomfort of float fishing for bigger fish really is not worth it all that often.

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Catch Mick Newey's blog here

... And James Denison's here

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.

Pursuing the Stream

Reading and researching every available article and note (there ain't much) to squeeze that extra drip from the fruit that is the tiny River Leam has helped, but not as much as one might prefer.

It's now around five or six years since the tiny Warwickshire River Leam drew this convert into its thrall with that irresistable 'Trust in me' aura.

In those years the perpetual targets have been a 4lb chub and a roach of 1lb 8ozs.

The best chub to date had been one of 3lbs 13ozs a few winters ago, but I know I lost a bigger one on the penultimate day of the season before last, confirming the suspicion that they are in there.

Records are kept of all chub over one and a half pounds in weight and up until this partucular day 69 had been caught, headed by the 3.13 of course.

In terms of roach, the number falling to the float, flight & flannel rod that exceeded one pound have been very limited, numbering in fact less than a handful of individuals, with the biggest 1.4.6 taken from a shallow gravelly glide with some water on.

Whenever chub are the target the approach is similar, tried and trusted. Bait is the established favourite of bread usually fed as mash but occasionally loose pellets of flake squeezed for a slow sink. Then the hookbait alternates between crust on a 3" pop-up and flake with a 15" tail. Line is 5-8lb straight through and, although often coupled with a 6 or 8 hook, currently the rig carries a 10 or a 12 in the clearer water while getting to understand three new meadows of The Stream.

When roach might be around a 1 or 2 swan link of stiff 8lb fluorocarbon that the main line can glide through is preferred to pinched-on shot, just to provide that psychological comfort that the first thing the fish feel as they pick up the bait will not be the weight. Of course this is all irrelevant because when a decent fish bites, be it chub or roach, it's always positive, but it can make an angler confident to have thought these things through.

Enough of the 'how to...' though.

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So, yesterday evening, after a tiring day, a couple of hours crawling in the undergrowth seemed appealing and the F, F & F bus headed for the new stretch.

Previously, different pegs had been fished each time and this time would be no different.

Flicking a few loose flake offerings, squeezed just enough to make them slowly sink, into the fastest flow emerging from behind a heavy green bulrush bed, dulled by a blistering summer, and down under a willow casting a mysterious darkness over the water preceded the first free-lined 'cast'. The flake floated though and, drawing it back, it appeared to want to sink so sink it did and it was given slack line. Immediately a shape emerged from the darkness and the faint white blob was consumed.

In a confined space, where the only rod curving option was horizontal and sideways, it instantly became clear that this would be the only fish from this swim as it churned clouds of silt from long-unwashed weedbeds but at 2lbs 1oz this chub was a good start.

Creeping upstream, via a couple of blank dobs in a tiny clearing, a narrowed channel of accelerated water caught the eye, as it rolled off the base of a gravel bar and swirled into a pool. An upstream cast was the obvious solution and, with a large chunk of crust to maximise the chances of a chub spotting the waft of temptation, the line was tightened.

As the muscles relaxed into a repose, a twitch, a twang and battle was taken-up. Soon though the head-shaking turned into the typical dive for nearbank cover and, this time, still being out of practice, this was the one that would indeed 'get away'.

Further swims were investigated. Overhanging trees, steady glides, rapids between reedbeds; small one lost, two pounder landed; and eventually, as dusk fell, the trusty Avon took on a nervy arc, bent double. The line singing under pressure and the clutch ticking accentuated the fact that this was a worthy opponent. Certainly more so than anything else on the evening.

Recalling and learning from the lost fish this one was 'mouth-out' as soon as was feasible, without taking too much risk, and, with the gasp of air taken, it was ready and waiting to be hoiked onto the bank.

Without ceremony upon exposing it's true value from the folds of the enveloping mesh, a fish floating around the magical mark revealed itself.

Would this be it? I could have been

Scales settling at 75.1 ounces made for some optimism, less 64 for 4lbs left me hoping the net weighed less than 10.1ozs.

11.8ozs - disappointment, but then elation at a new Leam P.B. and knowledge that by February this could be that target 4 pounder.

3.15.5 - so, so close!

...but now I know where it lives!

Another Back-end to Die from.

This back-end of the traditional coarse fishing season has been, like so many others, a time of luck and opportunity.

One seeks to glean what one can from our rivers but dear old Jack Frost and John Snow(?) tend to intervene more often than not. Indeed when these two characters are not at large it's probably raining heavily anyway.

The albatross shot on the way back from Wiltshire a month or so ago hangs like a necklace of increasing pungency.

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The Bloggers Challenge has proven a tremendous boost to the season. The careful planning of the pursuit of each species across all three platforms has been incredibly engaging and not a trip has gone by that wasn't influenced by the competition, the format of which I find completely enthralling.

I confess I had been targeting the overall leader board this time but of course in the knowledge that James would be way out in front by now; and such has been the case.

As a canal angler who has not spent any significant portion of his life fishing stillwaters (until the past three years or so) and whose regular river experience was in the distant past some thirty years back this has been an entertaining challenge and never has research been so thoroughly undertaken.

Despite this however the points-scoring fish caught to date were all duped within thirty minutes of home apart from the Hants Avon chub.

Some of the fishing has been incredible, the run of five Warks Avon barbel, smallest 9.12, for instance and the all round capacity to achieve that is Napton Reservoir.

In fact, if it were analysed, a good proportion of the fish will have come from the excellent waters of Leamington A A where much of the period has been spent.

For most participants though the challenge has been more of precisely that since Christmas. River pike had been a main target to get up above the measly 6lber extracted from the side of the keepnet in Summer 2017 but a mixture of lack of experience, the species seemingly going off the feed in general and plain bad luck conspired such that this would fail but, with a decent plan in place for the March 15th to May 1st period, the numerous hours spent in their pursuit would not, fingers crossed, prove too detrimental overall.

Chief mover over the past few days though has been Brian Roberts (no, not my local villager and former Cov City full back but of Pike Blog) with a quick burst of very impressive fish...2oz gudgeon, 8.4 bream, 1.9 roach, etc., etc.

Bloggers Challenge top 5's:

Overall:
James Denison 1089
George Burton 871
Brian Roberts 795
Russell Hilton 680
Danny Everitt 601

Rivers/drains:
James Denison 583
Brian Roberts 449
Mick Newey 376
Sean Dowling 316
George Burton 295

Stillwaters:
Brian Roberts 301
James Denison 296
George Burton 283
Danny Everitt 255
Russell Hilton 150

Canals:
George Burton 293
Russell Hilton 246
James Denison 209
Ben Hennessy 133
Danny Everitt 128

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So thoughts have turned to next season ('always will think this way, close season or not) and I've started enquiring and negotiating access to as much of the River Leam as possible. Currently at least another four more meadows have been added to the LAA stretches, our private meadow and the Godiva length, which may well come into play again.

I'm enchanted by the challenge of the river. A bit like a child with a pond net. It doesn't have to be the biggest, longest, most overfed capture but, given it is less than 10 minutes away at its closest, is hugely varied and contains a natural range & balance of species, a concerted effort for them is a great prospect.

Each water has its ceiling on sizes. A 5.11 Hants Avon Chub might equate to a 3.6 Leam fish and therefore, despite what the national angling press might seek to sensationalise, the fact is they are as worthy as each other in their relative ways.

A quick recce on two of the new lengths highlighted the obvious - that it will be difficult to find fishable holes in summer - but autumn and winter fishing with water on should prove fruitful.

Points scoring dace from new stretch of Leam on first visit

An updated list of River Leam p.b's will probably follow by way of targets and interest moving forward.

Currently main Leam p.b's are:
Chub 3.13
Roach 1.4
Dace 0.4.6
Perch 1.12
These from very limited opportunities given the length of the river that is theoretically fishable.

Certainly pike go to double figures, perch to 2.8 min., roach to 1.14, chub must go over 4lbs somewhere and the dace potential has not been met by the waters I have fished but I suspect fish over 8ozs are present in suitable places.

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Since the Hants Avon trip the only noteworthy catch has been a nice bream of 4.5 from the Warks Avon, on a bread feeder sleeper rod while deadbaiting with hideously oversized mackerel parts, so with the final river weekend upon us, rod licences renewed, temperatures suddenly soaring into double figures but heavy rain causing local rivers to burst the season is highly likely to end on a river fishing wash-out and leave us wishing it had occurred either a touch sooner, or much later.

To repeat then; "A time of luck and opportunity"; enough time and too little opportunity, for this angler at least...but there's life in us yet!

Return of the Mysterons

Heavy turbidity as the aftermath of snow melt, rain, silt and road salt eased away. The Stream remained fulsome and hearty but since the preceding tea time Little Johnny Frost had been at work. Sparkled did everything; the grass, teasels, flood flotsam, burdocks, fences, trees and of course the water margins

Over the past two weeks the fortune to see three otters, two certainly dogs, across three watercourses, and all in daylight, has been a dream. Some brethren of the maggot might claim this a nightmare, but not here

These magnificent, intelligent, artful creatures mesmerise like no other. Bites and ravens ignored as peripheral

Hauling-out onto a vast raft of torn-out bulrushes, logs and branches deposited by the first high waters of this turbulent winter the dog otter slipped in and out of the water of this County's primary river and then out of sight just 10m away, oblivious to human presence and the 11m of carbon pole running past his flanks

Later at dusk he returned, swam past this silent still frame, took-up a lounger on the raft again and proceeded to utter a series of chesty coughs. Fish bone stuck? Who knows, but another fascinating moment in the company of a top predator was there to be absorbed

By this time mist, leaning towards fog, was befuddling the autofocus and all we were left with was those Mysteron eyes and ghostly apparitions



Dodgy pic of Mr Ron

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The canal of childhood development, tough but rewarding, was behaving as is its wont. Perfect colour for fish but Mr Hackett had preceded us and "The Bushes", those that the great Billy Makin would seek on a bee-line after an early bath on another stretch in pursuit of ten pounds of caster roach before tea, were no more. The whole stretch, and indeed every other we have seen, trimmed to the piles (nasty business)

They will regenerate of course but what focusses the piscine attention meanwhile with no cover? Marinas? Quite possibly. One might like to think the fish will spread-out and offer greater eveness throughout the affected parts but that is for the future to solve

One twelve ounce roach (plus a thirteen ounce perch to TBW) and thoughts turned to the flask. Reaching for it a stream of bubbles appeared, diagonally, near side to far, then a log appeared tight to the concrete under brambles followed by the logs head, it had eyes. This beauty was a good four foot long; sleek, oily, alert, and hunting

Capturing inadequate film it turned and zig-zagged bank-to-bank with more bubbles, occasionally raising its head to breathe

The canals in these parts support otter sprainting locations under the majority of bridges, the longer the bridge the more used it seems, yet this was the first canal sighting of His Majesty where, it might be suspected, he and his kith are generally nocturnal given the levels of bankside and waterborne disturbance

Dodgy pic - Ron's Head

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Back to the stream...

Eventually some topping fish were spotted and three or four nice roach up to three parts of a pound enhanced by two chub of just a big gudgeon over two pounds made for a very nice 6lbs+ catch in the conditions 

 

It was during this period of intense concentration on the pole with bread feeder that a splashy swirl occurred upstream and, turning to view, it was immediately obvious what had caused it.

More bubbling through the swim and head and body popped up some ten metres or so downstream. This one not so big but clearly also hunting among the bankside roots and debris. Suspected as a female, camera in hand the pursuit commenced but she was brighter and was out of sight all-but instantaneously leaving only emptiness and some out of focus film to remember her by, AGAIN, and this time to poor to contemplate sharing
 
With apologies to:

• All otters called Ron
• Gerry Anderson
• My reader