A Reflective Surface

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today so different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spring, and the sweet shop is again open.

The Ring around the Bullseye

Why it needed the second set of scales I've no idea. As always they both proved each other to be faithful. There should never have been a doubt.

It is essential to be certain in those breathtaking, almost heart-stopping, moments in life. No times to be taking risks, or being rushed, or in any way glib these.


There had been no sign of life being present until that tell-tale stick of cane stood up as sudden as an adjacent thunder clap...and stayed there. That is always a sign of confidence, and confident it was.

Confident, powerful and unrelenting.


Conditions were perfect for the situation. Overcast, a drift in the air but the water flat calm, mild and with water visibility around ten inches. The 'peeu, peeu' of a flock of winter-visiting siskins fleetingly filled the air above the trees and the Grand Union was in fine fettle for whittling out the odd roach.

Odd it was.

Odd in being alone. Odd in its fighting spirit. Odd in the singularity of the bite.

Above all though odd in its size.


Roach of, what this regular colder weather campaign targets as the true quarry, upwards of one pound four ounces, trying to determine the ceiling, are so difficult to track down. Each stretch requires searching until areas are identified and that can be revisited irregularly through to March. At least three weeks between trips and the pressure doesn't tell on them.

To find fish over that size is another matter and in the experience of these tales of F,F&F it has become clear that:
A/. The fish are often loners (at that size);
B/. The fish are always first to be caught of a morning;
C/. They always feed before the sun breaks over any shade, and,
D/. They're fighters!

So this one was no different, ticking all those boxes and more

Once in the net the enormity of the accomplishment is consuming. Shaking hands, beating heart (naturally!), shortness of breath and, frankly, a mild sense of panic. The question of whether to continue or simply flee to the humble abode, knowing, just knowing.

No other fish can cause such symptoms in this particular angler. The past year or two have produced fish of other species that should have, but somehow it just isn't there.

So how does one make them appear their true size in photographs?

Like this?

Or like this?

The latter I suspect.

And what did he weigh one might ask? One pound, fifteen ounces, five drams. 

A truly magnificent fish from any water and Grand Union p.b. to boot, this very morning. 

What is it about big roach?

Disruption and Discontent or The Fish won't Feed 'cos the Weather doesn't Know What to do Next

It's been a tough year for the angler thus far...and sheep. Thankfully the latter, with their special feet and woolly coats, can cling-on through the worst of weathers

If it hasn't been gales, heavy rain and rising filthy rivers it's been frozen canals, lakes affected by fluctuating temperatures and excessive colour in the waters. Not the greatest of recipes

The decision had been made to seek to gain blogger's challenge points on rivers or seek-out pike where their seasons are limited until March and then revert to still-waters and canals but it has proven almost pointless, in both respects

 

Until just this last Tuesday six consecutive blanks on a wide variety of all three categories of venue and numerous methods had been fruitless since the last week of January. It feels longer. Most of the visits didn't produce even the merest hint of a bite and none of them saw fit to offer reward with any sport at all

Then on Thursday three bites all hooked and two nice chub of 3.6.0 and 3.4.0, with one  perhaps a touch larger lost at the rim of the net, were offered-up by the Upper Warks Avon and, at last, razor blades were not a consideration for the journey home

The better of the brace added a measly two points to the challenge tally but it was a pleasant event adding that couple to the chart having been so long away from it. I estimate that the past four point-scoring fish have added a sum total of around 6 to the aggregate. Not great.

The winter birdwatching has been okay while out there sitting by a range of waters, the highlight of this was a small flock of siskin feeding on weather damaged alder in the glorious and thermal-layer eschewing sunshine of last Sunday, together with close-up views of treecreeper and the, ever confiding, long-tailed tit flock, and of course it's always a pleasure to see the immaculate and continually diving goldeneye.

Kingfishers have been abundant and a brown hare brightened a cloudy lakeside stroll with lures, though he seemed uninterested in an imitation perch, perhaps a fake blade of grass may have been more to his liking

It's quite incredible when I think back through the tactics used in that spell that link-legered bread and lobworm, free-lined lobworm, cage feeder with groundbait and maggot/worm/caster hookbait, lures, deadbaits, etc., etc., have all failed when in different conditions all would produce the necessary goods.

The fish simply shut down.


Even these wouldn't work

The weather hasn't been all bad though. When the river fell, and at the same time it was suitably cold, fantastical glistening pendants of ice formed as the stiffening receding waters clung on to strands of vegetation bent like small spinning rods to the lowering surface; extensive sheets of magically thin ice were left floating in the air over the shallows and those natural, but rarely seen, phenomena formed in the riparian margins turned boredom to wonder

A glimpse of the chocolate merlin commuting through her wintering quarters in the valley of the stream was enough to bring confirmation that sometimes it's acceptable to think all is well in the real world. Well enough for now anyway, pending a turn in fortunes

A planned day off was looking perfectly timed until the rains returned today and by the time those clouds are drained the rivers will be rising again, the lakes will be coloured by cold water and the canals likewise.

What are we to do?

The Boy Wonder and I satisfy ourselves by working-out imaginary comedy situations. An evolving episode of which currently involves a tramp working as a barrista in Nero, or Costa, or Starbucks, or somewhere. Anyway it was funny to us, wherever it was staged. He even found a better way to get his groundbait out to the middle of the lake...

Things became so bad on Sunday that I sat with the dead-bait line metaphorically tied to my toe, Huckleberry Finn-style, when the incredible quantity of, mainly plastic, refuse settled in the debris left behind by the receded Avon became interesting. I actually found myself sifting through it to see what I could identify, until I heard a rat scuttling below the land-based raft and thought better of inviting Weil's Disease upon myself

The badger footprints in the deposited silt were good though, among the rat impressions - not ones I had trodden on, I do mean the footprints

Updates:

Mouse training -
Bubble still runs at the sight of anything that isn't known to her to be in her cage.
Squeak is now taking sunflower seeds from my fingers
...and I found out they can eat celery, which they love.

Blogger's Challenge -
Everyone is struggling in the Midlands and James just gets further and further in front with his ever-increasing dace, grayling, unicorn and other mythical beasts we can only dream of up here in Warwickshire. Next time I think it unquestionably necessary to handicap him like a champion race horse. I don't feel a weight disadvantage would help much though as he's probably fit enough to deal with that too. I'm leaning toward a straightforward ban, that should do it

Snow-caught Chub Challenge (commenced 2012/13) -
I have always loved seeing experts with their pictures of chub in the snow but it has not been until the past three or four years that I have tried it and, at last, in the most recent fall, it happened. Not huge at 2.6.0, and not the deepest snow cover, but welcome and an ambition achieved