In Search of Wonderment.

Deep summer has never held much appeal.

As a kid The Old Duffer and The Old Trout didn't care for the sun and I guess it stuck.

We used to amuse ourselves with hemp and tares and at this time of year, the harvest, it was peak seed fishing season.

Now though, with the bonus fish commitment truly engaged, the prospect of a stream of victims up to the occasional pound limit just does not tick any boxes nor spend any of the emotional budget.

We're in a "stick cleft" (sic) as someone used to say; a dilemma; a damned if we do, damned if we don't time of year.

There are fish to be caught and, Bloggers Challenge-wise, some of  summer stillwater species have been banked but the rivers have been pretty dreadful locally, when low and clear. The recent rains have brought hope but even a swim I felt certain would produce a decent barbel or chub has been piscatorially ravaged on three or four occasions to no avail, other than three measly additional points for a 3oz 2dr dace.

The lake carp are too easy to catch and the canals are nose to tail with disrespecting and dim-witted holiday narrowboaters.

Has the picture been painted?!

So, what to do?

The inadvertent bream campaign culminated in two consecutive 5lbs 4ozs individuals from a pool I've become strangely fond of but I really need to move-on.

Only two weeks or so hence the little Johnnies  and Janets will be brimming the schools; the hire narrowboats will be scrubbed-up for next time and life will be on the up. Big and long-established autumn and winter targets can be pursued with methods of great enjoyment.

Until then however a few important things have eluded my bloggers challenge submissions. River and canal carp, tench and rudd being the main ones. It would be these that ought to form the basis of the next month's action. Canals can be identified where these are all quite possible, perhaps even from a single peg. For any of these species on a river however it's far from a certainty and this must be where the bulk of the homework is done.

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Bloggers Challenge Update:
James, of course, has torn-off into the lead but if the above species can be weighed-in his lead could be whittled down to manageable proportions, for now at least

Current Top 5:
James Denison 828
George Burton 626
Brian Roberts 506
Daniel Everitt 423
Russell Hilton 401

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All that apart, since returning from the Wye, where after, now, a total of around ten days experience at this barbel fishing lark it is starting to make some kind of sense, the Warwickshire Avon's barbel, in some areas, including this, fish of legend, would be under the microscope.

At first, and, as it happens, for around half a dozen sessions, a tactic of either 'bait droppered' hemp & pellets or cage feeder produced not even the slightest indication of fish presence.

Then this weekend, in a down in the mouth chance encounter with Stealth Mode Gary while loading the cars after drawing yet another blank, a little pearl fell from his lips and shone like a Time Square neon advertisement. It was simple and it was instantly eating at me. Immediately it was clear this was the answer even without the accompanying tales of 12.13's, 10.6's, etc., and the obligatory, "...and he lost one at the net he said made those look small...".

So, with rain pouring on arrival (this was serious) and barbed wire scratches on the new-ish car as a bonus the 'Royal we', settled in.

Brolly like a mushroom in the still air and yet room to cast to the right we sat peering-out into the closing gloom for the last two hours of the day. It would be dark early but with a rule of no fishing after sunset it would be dusk forever on an evening like this. Sunset would be prolonged and, as prime big fish time, if it was going to happen it would be today.

Baiting-up and casting-out with confidence we sat back and exchanged idiocies with our Challenge contemporaries. It was not long before the realisation that we'd put the bait just beyond a significant fallen branch (suggesting continuing in this fashion was folly in the landing a fish stakes) caused us to start feeding further-out by catapult.

Giving it twenty minutes to settle in the squelching, overwhelming twilight the prospect of a cast with that sparkling pearl on the hook became necessarily irresistible.

Out it went. A touch out of position and, sure enough, nothing was doing. Second underarm flick to mid-river beyond the snags and we were in business.

A minute or two passed and a definite but slight quiver suggested sub-aquatic interest.

We reached for the rod.

The proverbial three foot twitch had barely materialised when the strike met with unexpectedly mediocre resistance. It was either an enthusiastic big bream or a subdued chub.

Plodding it's way toward us under decent pressure, it morphed. The plodder became a 100m runner. Belatedly out of the blocks and stripping line from the clutch with a sound like a cheap electric drill everything came to life.

It's been like this for me. The first few outings with a certain method or ambition never really have the Heineken effect until that day, usually  sat alone, when a simple tweak to the idea and suddenly it will sing and dance.

Battle continued.

We could, by now, see the fish in the shadow of a dense tree canopy. It looked disappointingly small at depth as I has braced myself for a 'double'. This was partly a strange notion, given the p.b. of only a few weeks prior was 7lbs 14ozs, and partly the result of knowledge. Not many barbel are offered-up by this stretch but when they are they are usually eleven to fourteen pounds.

Meanwhile, back at the branch, the fight was culminating in a series of increasingly desperate clutch-squealing lunges and on the final one, as soon as this fine adversary gave a hint of relaxation, over the string he came to be engulfed in brown fishnet like a shapely leg.

It continued to pour and as she hit the net the fish seemed 'small' in the sense that I had braced myself for a monster, for Barbus maxima.

In the weighing sling and at least four inches broad across the pectorals however this was surely a leviathon as compared to anything I'd seen previously. The 7.14 had seemed massive, this was significantly bigger.

The scales fluctuated between 173 and 182 ounces as she shuffled for comfort beneath. The sling would 'go' sixteen ounces on a dry day, today more. I prayed to the great fish god Gobio that it would come to rest at in excess of 176.

It did not, but no matter; a fish of nine-twelve was impressive enough in the flesh and, soaked in the gloom as we were by the incessant downpour, beaming smiles illuminated the scene.

Barbus notquiteicus slipped back with gusto and there had to be 'one more cast'.

So What Now?

Five weeks of the river fishing season remaining and priorities now fixed.

For that tail-end of the greatest of all angling challenges, to confound the prey in flowing water, every effort will be made to target them when conditions suit. Without the benefit of turbidity dawn, dusk and after dark only must prevail.

The Winter Big Canal Roach Challenge 2016/17 remains live, and will no doubt blend into spring, prior to a lake campaign when increasing air temperatures have caused that pivotal change in warmth of the water, and thus subsurface activity.

Just a few days ago a trip to a stretch of canal I fished as a schoolboy, cycling to and from tackle-laden, but certainly had not fished in the forty years since, gave up a beauty at one pound six to the usual method when trialling a new float very much suited to lift bites, my old stock now slowly diminishing.

Bream, hybrids and slightly smaller roach also followed.

 
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The Leam.

I recently had the rather nice fortune of being asked by the Leamington Angling Association to write a few words of encouragement for people wishing to be graced by the banks of this engaging little river.

Incidentally, it has never occurred to me until now that non-locals may be inclined to pronounce the river's name 'leem' but, no, it is indeed 'lem' as in the first syllable of Royal Leamington Spa, through which it, usually somewhat stodgily, flows.

By way of endorsement it was only appropriate that practicing of that preaching followed.

One method that can be relied upon to provide some success within its wildly changeable depth, but that I didn't have space to go into in any detail in the LAA piece, is pole feeder fishing and when the river is up, coloured and cold. It gives a couple of extra dimensions in taking advantage of creases and slacks over that of the quiver-tip, namely:
• accuracy of placing bait and feed, and,
• more prospect of hitting finicky roach bites.

Last season and the season before it was trialled to good effect on stretches further upstream than the Leamington water and was immediately found, for no fathomable reason, to result in the best fish very quickly on bread but also to enable fish to be caught in the most challenging of water conditions from deep holes in which usually the hit-and-miss-ossity of any standard legering method in such tight areas of depth and flow power make it such a problem.

I have not written about this before, other than to hint at it some months ago, as it was work in progress but now I feel we are somewhere near the 'show and tell' stage.

Numerous issues have been addressed along the way and it now feels like a properly valid method to be listed alongside all the others. Given the traditional F, F & F penchant for bread and, secondarily, lobworm fishing it suits very well.

There are some clips, of varying quality, on YouTube and these certainly help but it is quite a technically tricky method and, as such, requires some explanation. It does however involve one of the most ingenious ideas one will ever come across to avoid fish feeling the resistance of the pole when biting.

Given the difficulty in explaining this in words alone I am planning a detailed post shortly. Appetite whetted? I do hope so.


Between half and a whole dozen paragraphs ago I seem to recall suggesting this section might be about the Leam, and so it is - now.

The pleasure in this type of small stream fishing is so much more than anyone can convey in words. Even the likes of David Carl Forbes and Tony Miles limited themselves largely to the 'how' rather than the 'why' when putting pen to paper on their now iconic publications on the subject.

For this humble follower of the angle the harder and more unlikely the acquisition of a bite may be, the more pleasure is to be derived in its pursuit.

Last weekend the colour remained strong, as did the flow, and the banker roach swims were targeted. At this time our maritime climate was not struggling to burst over a trio of degrees as it has been these past few days.

Targetting known roach pegs and lowering the feeder neatly on or inside the crease line in the first swim, 8m from where I took my first Leam roach over a pound four or five seasons back, the indicator soon plunged down that hole and the wrath of a worthy sparring partner was engaged.

Now in a narrow, snag-strewn water, this was undoubtedly chubby crunch time. I use a heavy carp-style pole elastic for this job to take account of the heavy flow, depth, weight of feeder and the fish and, it may sound surprising, but the fight of even this 3lb plus chub was no match for the incredible subduing qualities of this latex. It is much easier to keep the fish where you want it as, held high over the head of the fish, the pull and power of the pole itself is cushioned but at the same time so are the movements of the fish and, as long as joints are not unshipped until the quarry is beaten, it can be netted without fear of falling foul of those habitual last minute lunges into weed and roots by your feet.

A very nice Leam chub of 3lbs 4ozs resulted followed by a couple of nice roach.

I then fished the banker swim and sat it out with coarsely liquidised bread in the feeder and nips of flakes on the hook. Roach came after two drops had put a little bait into the water and a series followed up to ten ounces for an enjoyable net of four pounds four ounces in conditions under which one would not have believed it possible without the benefit of this method.

The fish do tend to wander in coloured water, moving up and down and side to side, presumably in reaction to flow changes and it is necessary to work your way around the area on streams such as this to stay in touch. One thing is noticeable though and that is that if there are feeding fish present you will catch them immediately.

Just this last weekend produced a larger chub at 3.7.0 on an 8m Pole with this method, landed comfortably even after it went under a snag but the usual slack line trick saw him come out again. A few nice roach and the odd dace completed the scene.

A three pound chub is a noteworthy fish on the Leam these days and two in a week is a very welcome reward for applying a relatively new-found method.

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North Oxford Canal

This past weekend it was seriously chilly on the bank. Although the air temperatures were higher than on frosty days beforehand, the bitter easterly breeze drove sleet into the cheeks like a dominatrix ice queen.

The first two sheltered pegs produced just a lone 10 ounce roach by way of consolation for having braved it.

The fish knew. They sat in the open water with the Siberian blow straight in the face .

I was supposed to pick The Boy Wonder up at ten (no, he hadn't fallen over) but, due to the age old communication issue with those of a certain age, would not respond to messages, so I waited...it would have been senseless not to. Just as I was losing hope anyway up popped the float in a hideous waving lift bite and, as I struck, the wished-for giant roach to ease the misery of the conditions really did appear to be fighting back. The water was clear to about 20" down, almost too clear, and so the need to stop the fish swirling on the surface was essential.

Consequently it was some time into the scrap that a hybrid of 1.8.0 came into view, not a roach but boy was it a welcome sight on that morning.

As I alluded to in a recent post, a roving shoal can suddenly present a flurry of action and four bites in four drops ensued; an immediately following 12 ounce roach; a 6 ouncer, dropped-off when I was being too ambitious, or maybe frozen, to net it, and a missed bite.

...and that was that, but glowing-faced proof that in the harshest of conditions pleasure is to be had for those sufficiently intrepid to search.

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In Conclusion

In closing, one would hope that the rain continues. I note this morning that the local rivers have risen and peaked today after more rain at the weekend.

After the first deluge put the rivers very high, and over the road in places, any additional rain has been slow to enter the them due to previously waterlogged ground and freezing conditions. These factors appear jointly to affect things in that the water logging ensures that pretty much any level of subsequent rain affects the level and colour of the water and the frost locks water into the ground thus making the levels stay high and relatively stable longer due to its gradual release.

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Winter Big Canal Roach Challenge 2016/17

The complete list of 1lb+ fish thus far:
1.15.5
1.9.11*
1.7.6
1.7.3*
1.6.8*
1.6.3*
1.5.13*
1.4.10-
1.4.6
1.4.6
1.4.2
1.3.6
1.3.0
1.3.0
1.2.5
1.1.14
1.1.10
1.1.10*
1.0.10
1.0.8
GUC UNLESS *NOXC

References:

Leamington Angling Association Newsletter, January 2017.
https://leamingtonangling.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/leamington-angling-newsletter-january-2017/


Rough River and Small Stream Fishing. David Carl Forbes (Cassell, 1977).

Big Fish from Small Streams, Tony Miles (Little Egret Press, August 2013). 

Cold, Clear and Chubby

It was never going to be warm...

 SATURDAY

Canals would be frozen, as would small lakes and with high water having run-off the local upper Avon and Leam these offered the only options. As I've been in eight minds for every trip lately, two choices would prove a bonus.

Saturday the Avon was shrouded in freezing fog and thick frost. The little pond by the gate somewhat remarkably not completely crusty.

Tee shirt, thermal layer, grandad tee, thick shirt, microfleece, fleece gilet, thick fleece, thermal padded coat with zipped-in lining. 9 layers and nothing was getting through this.

Minus two on arrival, but it's been worse. Since my water thermometer became zander bait no temperatures have been taken but I suspected the river would have been around 4degC.

  The colour had dropped out more than expected but that seems to be common with this river these days, quite why is beyond me. The Leam would hold it longer.

As I approached a water rail was silently flushed across into the far side undergrowth and a pair of swans with a still clingy brown-mottled youngster dunked for breakfast.

Somehow I expected roach and it was a little liquidised bread cage feeder that sought to do the business.

 Third cast into the deep hole and a tentative bite was missed but immediately after that unmistakable drag round of the winter chub but it didn't fight like chub staying deep and not diving for the gathered uprooted weed under my feet until well into the battle. From thence he was scooped to the bank however and at 3.7 a nice start.

 In celebration a tiny chestnut bank vole tazzed among the stalks at my feet and was out of sight no sooner than he had been in it.

This was a late start. Firstly I had arrived after the usual faff with gates and as I unloaded realised I hadn't stopped for bread on the way. So the nearest option left me with a Marks & Spencer soft white thick sliced loaf.

"How would this compare with the Blue", I asked myself.

In practice it was a good substitute so if you're ever stuck it's another possibility, albeit medium would have been closer to the mark.

Consequently I contact fishing traffic control to advise of the landing error and was advised I had until lunch time to get over it so things weren't so bad...or so it seemed.

Thankfully the resident ravens kept me amused, as the fishing did not continue as it had started, and as I packed away lifting my seat to expose the last area of frost that hadn't yet thawed it felt a little anticlimactic. Just that one nice chub, always a pleasure in cold weather, but I should be thankful for a bite under such conditions.


SUNDAY:

The following day the second option was taken-up.

The Leam did indeed hold a touch more colour but, as before, it was obvious that the best had passed during the working week.

If Saturday had been the script for Sunday it wouldn't have been a surprise. A decent Leam chub of 2.10 early doors and then flushed green sandpiper and squealing water rail in the phragmites later when roving. Bites in every peg but all tiny tippy-taps and only two sub-sized fish, a roach and a dace to show for it.

A very confident Robin shared each of the first four swims in its search for egg sandwich crumbs and, even though each time I moved scraps would have been left behind, it somehow preferred the challenge of testing its bravery with me sat there.

I'd gone a good year or so away from this stretch until recently and it was incredible how it had changed. The floods can be quite impacting here and it showed in the changes where rafts had been lost and others formed; standing reed and rush beds flattened, dragged-out and reshaped; and whole trees removed. It was as if approaching a new venue in many areas and a few mental notes were made. Dace still lived in the same glide though, as did roach.

Through the meadow back to the car the standing water remained frozen as I cracked-on and with the ram looking a little more lively than some weeks ago I gave him and his flock a wide berth; not that he's ever defensive in his duties, but you never can be certain.

WEDNESDAY

Back to the Avon.

The afternoon fog that appeared to be thickening suddenly slipped away on arrival but the water was clearer still. The flow however remained urgent as I again settled into the mysterious deep hole.

 Again a water rail squealed it's piglet-like call from the far bank and a steady approach, given the continuing cold weather, of liquidised bread in a 15g cage feeder and a smaller than usual flake hookbait combined with the more delicate than usual 9' wand.

A series of unhittable fiddly bites ensued and filled the first hour or more - then an unrelenting pull on the 3/4oz tip resulted in solid resistance.

The Boy Wonder trotted along and removed rod no2 which was dangling a lob down the edge and meanwhile the excellent little lead rod I was relying on that, it turned out, was attached at long last to that elusive for four years 4lb plus chub, coped as well as one with a blue chip reputation would be expected to.

The fish wasn't particularly long and initially it was puzzling as to why it was a struggle to lift it up the bank...until it came fully into view.

"How big do you think it is?", asked TBW.

" I think it's bigger than the one on Saturday but I'm not sure how much more".

Secretly however I felt it might just be tantamount to THAT fish. The fish I set out four years ago to extract from the Leam. A four pounder.

It was in 2016 that I started a new relationship with the Warwickshire Avon though, having been a regular BAA member decades ago. Many say the biggest fish have been removed by the dear old otter and that may well be true so a four pounder could prove to be of greater value than it might immediately seem as time passes.

When TBW asked how many ounces I needed I couldn't bring myself to say and simply asked what it read, praying to myself he would say more than 64.

"66.6", he exclaimed. It must be an omen for a similar Leam fish next surely.

Damien, the chub.

 4 pounds 2 ounces 10 drams. I became a bit Flintoffian.

We anglers often talk of scale or fin perfect fish and on that score this one took some beating

Strangely not the biggest F,F&F chub. That was a 4.6 specimen from a canal back in the 1990's. Okay it wasn't a River Leam fish but, so long in trying, it was very welcome nevertheless.

That ended the afternoon's action but that really was plenty, thank you very much.

The Vagaries of Natural Fortune, or, Always Something to be Happy About

So there we were back again on the new stretch, Parps with sections of lobworm on the crease of nearside slack on his trusty twin-tip Avon quiver and myself on the new experimental method in a glide running up to a raft

The Leam was at 0.65m which equates to about 0.4m or 16" above summer level and still carrying a nice amount of colour but not enough to prevent us being wary of breaking the skyline as we moved around

While I prepped the new gear I dropped a piece of bread on the tip close-in to the raft and immediately had a roach of seven ounces. Subsequently the rod was quickly thrown up the bank as I could see my preparations were to be interrupted. We were sharing a keep net placed halfway between us as we felt today could produce a few fish and to see the ultimate catch might just be worth sharing

Parps was flicking regular chopped wrigglers into the crease and let them settle in the slack and sat back to await his first bite

Meanwhile a heron flew up across the trees barking as it did so and a wren whirred it's little round clockwork wings as it traversed the water from rush bed to rush bed

First cast once I'd organised myself resulted in a early bite and some resistance. I drew the fish upstream away from the swim without breaking surface and P was there ready to net whatever it proved to be. A chub, as it happened, just over two pounds and a nice start

With each feed another bite came, but not rushed, just steady; and I was under the impression that it was once the folded bread hook bait became fully soaked and expanded that the fish took a gastronomic interest

My companion of the angle was starting get bites and lost two fish with soft action rod doubled over that had me wondering what the problem might be. Of course his adversaries were likely to be footballers and so the possibility of the hook not lodging appropriately in their bony mouths was always a possibility, if not a probability. I offered a few words

A sparrowhawk at one point whooshed over my left shoulder, the turbulence evident in the sound of its wing and tail feathers, twisting to maintain a course on track towards gathered thrush species in the scrub beyond. The local family of swans previously referred to glid (new word) past without so much as a ripple and their number, at four, was now stable it seemed, the cob uttering that odd 'whoopa' sound they make when excited

Two or three further nice roach were then rounded off by a beauty of thirteen ounces before Parps lost another two or three good fish and it was time to pay him a visit again. I allowed him to proceed as before and then struck at the bite for him which was quite positive, without being savage, and a fighter was on. Between us one pound six ounces of angry perch was deposited in the net, and all was well. I suspect it was just the strength of strike that was lacking but another lesson had been learnt and his all-important angling experience widened for future reference when needed

By this time it was approaching dark and we decanted ourselves into the one swim to try a big lump of crust into darkness in the hope of a big ol' rubber lips, nothing was doing as the fieldfares crashed into hawthorns seeking roosting opportunities for the night and so we gave it a few more minutes and then packed our last few items away and undertook the obligatory weigh-in and photo session, and a nice picture the make in the gentle flash of a remarkably good quality camera phone

As I reintroduced the catch to the water, catch - water, water - catch, Parps massively whispered 'Dad!, Look!, Owl!' along the bank and of course as I looked up it was gone but from his description it was our friend Tyto alba, the barn owl, often seen on our own stretch half a mile or so further downstream

 

We had mustered six pounds of nice fish between us, and not a sprat among 'em, in the receding high waters and I'm not sure whether the highlight for the boy wonder was his best ever perch or the owl but it probably doesn't matter; either way the pleasure was huge and he chattered all the way back to the lane bursting with enthusiasm for life and all that it could throw at him

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So today found me there again. The method had worked and it was time to refine it further

 

A heavy frost awaited me however and the stream was now clear to over a metre down under the bread ball test leaving me less than hopeful and sure enough I was right to be sceptical with only one quick rap of the tip in my fourth of fifth swim on a light quiver tip

 

 

Company today was again the heron, of which I attempted a long-distance wide-angle shot (okay so the phone camera isn't that versatile!), and his tiny partner in Piscean crime the kingfisher

 

The is no doubt what the highlight of the morning was though (sorry hornet!)...as I crept through the villages on frosty roads a shape suddenly was upon me as it ambled onto the verge and then bounding in the lack-lustre, "Please don't hit me. I'm not that fast", kind of manner which only the badger, of British land mammals, can display. It made it to the other side following which I, and probably it, breathed more easily

 

So you'll have gathered by now that nothing was caught but it did offer an option to wander into the unknown and suss-out future swims within the new boundaries for plotting the downfall of some unsuspecting inhabitants once there is some more water on and tinge of fishy colour.

 

Meanwhile I suspect the canal will call again, a good heavy frost never bothered those hardy residents

Autumn in Full Flow

The rate of decomposition of aquatic plants has been quite surprising and given that the daytime temperatures have been more akin to a poor summer and the first noteworthy frost only bit this week this appears to prove that, unlike the triggers our so called intelligence would have us believe apply to such events, it is not simply heat that controls the reaction of life to the seasons

On the stretch of the Leam that Parps and I have the rights to the arrowheads were slipping into browning dormancy some weeks ago and now, it always seems sudden, the bulrush is losing its bottle green shade in many stems, and ‘cabbages’ break up into slimy, khaki folds as, with the oncoming winter, they prepare for that which will ultimately leave only the rhizome intact


Ten days ago the first seasonal redwings sipped in panic as they burst from foraging to the shelter of thick hawthorn in the nearby Warwickshire countryside and only this past week their erstwhile companion the fieldfare followed a similar pattern as a flock of forty took an undulating course parallel to the Fosse

The gnawing sound on stems being trimmed becomes ever less frequent whether I sit bankside or walk quietly near water and the family of six swans on our stretch is reduced to four by the ravages of predatory instinct and the need to feed the next generation of ‘higher’ species

Yesterday morning a train of five jackdaws sky-jacked a quite massive cronking raven as it headed out to the meadows, its Maltese cross profile as evident as ever it could be in this fascinating individual. How long before we become blasé about their presence in the central and east midlands much as we have with the buzzard, and yet at the same time we worry about the loss of species? Strange times indeed

I read recently that the great ecologist Edward O Wilson was marking the start of the MEMO project to build a shrine to the species which have become extinct since the dodo began the decline, now known widely as the sixth mass extinction, on the ‘Jurassic Coast’. A thirty million pound investment in what, to my mind, could prove to be the most powerful reminder to us (in Britain at least) that it really is time to act. Human life created the issue and, if it is possible to reverse the collapse, surely we owe it to the earth to urge it back to fitness

(see here www.memoproject.org)

 

Speaking of counter-intuitive increases in populations as I was, I am seeing, preceded by a deep dull drone, regular hornets in many locations now and yet, until about three years ago, I could only recall one dead individual noted on a bathroom window cill during a survey of a rural house a decade ago. A friend of mine had a swarm take up residence in her porch just a month ago but while they seem somewhat breathtakingly repulsive, with their bloated wasp-like appearance, they are apparently quite docile and unlikely to attack unless, like the bee, they are provoked to such a degree that they feel the need to defend themselves – such as at food sources or nest sites. In fact there is only one documented record of anyone seeking medical attention after a hornet encounter in the whole of Europe! So, like the buzzard and then the raven, is the hornet expanding in Britain having been restricted to southern counties in the past? Well yes, according to the Natural History Museum, it is indeed as they say ‘a known fact’ that hornets are spreading from their historic stronghold around the Exeter and New Forest area

 

The wet weather towards the end of this week has pushed the Middle River Leam level from the standard summer range of 0.25-0.3m to a positively healthy 0.75 over the past two days and with this in mind fresh vigorous lobworms were obtained and are added to the bait range with the obligatory bread. So with a simple Avon quiver set-up and the contrary, but still relatively strong, sun bursting across the field and in through the windows a plan was hatched

Roach, chub and anything else daft enough to be fooled would be the target. The spaniels seemed to know too but they, with live lamb on the agenda, would be staying to bathe in that same sunlight from indoors

On arrival, the afternoon sun was starting to slide behind a comforting blanket of light cloud while two herons took flight and barked, as only they can, their raucous contact call. As I sauntered to the water’s edge kingfishers piped and their neon blue streaks abounded. Jackdaws jack-ack-acked as, in their fluster, they exploded from the wood with fears all their own…and all was well in the valley

I all-but trod on a field vole as it scurried underfoot into waterside rush margins where cattle and sheep had broken the bank into terraces as it dropped toward the water. But it was not him I sought. For me it was the waterscape that drew me in search of undercuts, slacks and glides; and therein, I dreamt, the aforementioned quarry

Recently I had discovered an undercut with overhanging grasses and hoped it would offer steady water under these first suitably raised water levels of the colder months, but it was not to be; the water gently, admittedly, boiled and surged through the channel and I would need to wait for levels to fall, or rise considerably more, for this area to came back into play

 

An enticing slack I had harboured far from complementary thoughts about when approaching from the opposite bank in the past suddenly seemed all the more attractive downstream of a substantial bed. As the main flow cut past the outside of the shelter, it cried-out for a stab at its likely refugees. Heads, tails and indeed the haemorrhaging middles of a series of unfortunate lobworms were offered to its inhabitants, and, cast after cast, bites ensued. Roach, perch around 12 ounces, then a river best (though far from exceptional example) of 1-1-3 battled and failed to get under the decomposing but, at the same time, high water-animated rush stems. Then another roach before the closing gloom of the evening pushed me back to my prepared bread swim to engage in the last rites of the angling day at the head of an awkward to access shallow gravel run

Last weekend I had been buzzed by a tawny owl elsewhere on the river just minutes after briefly observing its barn-dwelling cousin hunting over rank bankside vegetation. An incoming message from mission control had lit me up in the dark and the enquirer came for a closer look, delaying his fly-by with a brief hover and eventually alighting over my left shoulder until, as I reached for the camera he slipped with the flow and out of sight. This week was to be little different, a male buzzard had landed in bare branches on the opposite bank but soon realised there was a bigger predator already here and silently flapped north and away from this imposter but, as darkness fell and before the evening hoot commenced, another tawny owl swept in from behind willows to my right and settled ten metres in front of me. This time I managed to reach the camera but the owl, wiser than I and fearful as to survive, saw this as an invitation to drift back from whence he appeared and to my horror the gadget slipped from my grasp, bounced down the grassy bank and settled part-submerged in the water. As I write it sits upside-down, stripped-down as much as is possible, next to a radiator – in hope, whether vain or not is yet to be revealed

Although another two small roach were quite taken with the bread after dark the swim wasn’t ‘right’ and I decided to tidy-away and weigh the perch with a heavy dew coating everything at hand

Next week. There's always next week.

When the Fishing gets The Bird

Distant washing moggy

At the crack of dawn this morning on former moorland by the canal with a young plantation nearby it was evident that willow warblers had this year arrived in good number, with three simultaneously singing from different perches both within the wood and in standard hedgerow trees

A mistle thrush struck-up it's somewhat limited repertoire from a distant branch and the occasional blackcap, chaffinch and dunnock joined in

Of greatest interest however was the faint calling of the lapwing later fully brought out of his carefree staccato patterings in an arable field by a passing corvid, causing him to take to the air like Mo Farah with dodgy joints. Rocking first this way then that with his over-sized pied wings exaggerating each movement and giving away the nesting activity his imperceptible mate undertook below on the bare earth

The bird interest was exceptional for a fishing trip, mind you my trips are never just fishing trips, they ought to have another name really, 'nature observation' or some such title perhaps. Again the enchantment stemmed from the numerous songs to be heard at various times. The morning had commenced with the slightest hint of frost on the banks in isolated pockets opposite the wood and it was there that the angling expectation took root with a good helping of mashed bread deposited down the middle of this narrow stretch, the first two casts produced roach of just over and just under the pound...no longer the wait of an hour or two for a bite with the gradually increasing water temperature. The peg was the most pleasurable, with a short section of subsided bank allowing a seat to be taken down at water level - always preferable for that feeling of being at one with the water and surroundings

Despite a burst of topping fish half an hour after dawn no more action was to be enjoyed. A first boat at 06.38 did not help greatly but that is the risk of early Saturday mornings, when narrowboats hired by the inexperienced need to cover too much water in getting back to the marina for handover, necessitating an early start for them too

So, armed with some knowledge gained in recent weeks, more bread was introduced some four pegs to the left opposite an open field. Immediately it was noticeable that the bird list was growing just for the sake of an 80 yard walk into a adjoining habitat linked only by the canal and its margins, as the gear was relocated while the feed settled. A male reed bunting could be heard forcing out his feeble notes in the now suddenly emerging rushes and the previously seemingly distant lapwing was now more visible and careering over his chosen field in a manner evocative of an age gone by; when, on many a rose-tinted balmy spring evening, The Old Duffer and I, would wonder at their ability to tumble apparently out of control without breaking any wings or losing feathers and yet braking before hitting the ground too. All to distract the intruder, and what a distraction! 

Of course the first cast in the new swim produced more of the same but this was some fighter. I prayed, in some sort of bizarre agnostic fashion, for a dream roach.....

Hybrid. 2-11-5 

Another big canal hybrid eventually relented and slipped into that dream-like state that finds them in the net. A couple more fish followed and an overall catch of over six and a half pounds was returned to the, by then (8.15am), strongly pulling water on conclusion of a brief but most enjoyable dawn to breakfast, pre-B&Q, session

Some chunky fish, now fully recovered from a hard winter but some showing signs of the excitement of spring with absent scales
Roach 1-2-5, 0-15-3, 0-6-0. Bream 1-7-8. RxB Hybrid 2-11-5

SPECIES LIST:
Willow warbler, carrion crow, blackbird, woodpigeon, mallard, moorhen, magpie, blackcap (singing, and female viewed), skylark, chaffinch, lapwing, bullfinch, reed bunting, jackdaw, dunnock, greenfinch, mistle thrush, goldfinch, collared dove, swallow, indet gull, wren, blue tit, robin, house sparrow.
Roach, bronze bream, (roachXbream hybrid).

If Saturday had been dream-like then Sunday was the real thing. Another early alarm call but this time ten minutes earlier to allow a longer walk should the opportunity present itself, as no decision would be made on destination until the wheels were turning. Last time this road was taken a barn owl was seen scattering jackdaws and this time it was in the same spot and slipped over a farm gate between trees to vanish into the mist

Only a few hundred yards on, Volpone trotted across the metalled surface with his bunny and disappeared into the darkness of the hedge destined to cause mayhem amongst the waiting cubs no doubt

I hadn't visited this stretch since match angling had lost its gloss but recalled two things quite vividly a match winning perch taken on half a pinkie in the depths of winter and an asthma attack from the long walk in a heavy frost; a day of extremes!

Similarities with today were initially limited to the frost with the fields white-over at 5am but soon cleared as the air warmed with the cloud cover that approached gently from the north-east. Mist gently drifted across the water as I approached an S-bend I had not seen for over twenty years, an area where I had learnt bread punch fishing by trial and error (and a few magazine articles) as a teenager

A narrowboat floated in the mist as if a cake decoration on icing with a deep ribbon of the frozen green field below. Soon the sky turned orange as the sun rose together with a number of large fish beneath the growing cloud cover and dramatically illuminated the whole scene with growing concentric rings of each topping specimen glinting gold

Rooks were the first birds to show as they ferried more beetles than the land can concievably support back to their young in bulging bald beaks. The first lift-bite came five to ten minutes in when a vigorous fight culminated in a noticeably silver fish coming to the surface, no hint of blue to the scales. A large silver bream pulled the scales down to 1-3-6, a sliver off the PB, and the best start imaginable

The first skylark took to the wing to declare the day open for business as a number of blackbirds practiced their own tunes from a variety of perches near and far

The worm line, 15 yards to the right at the bottom of the near shelf, was subject to the 'sleeper wand' but first cast the bait did not hit the bottom before a violent twang of the tip resulted in the hooking of a superb fat spring Dandy of the Stream resplendent in striped tunic and collapsible battlements. An all canals PB at 1-13-5

It was then fish for fish on the two lines but the undoubted highlight was yet another PB hybrid, where are they all coming from, and do they fight?! The seemingly impossible four pounds ceiling shattered by this fish of 4-2-3

The rest of the session was usurped by the bird life and a steady stream of smaller perch on the 'tip seemed somewhat insignificant as a mysterious repetitive warbling seeped from a scrubby patch to the left. Wandering along using the hedge as cover a closer view was attempted but the culprit was deep inside the thorns so I returned to my own perch but not before a pair of tree sparrows chirped their way from an ash to a field hedge in a landscape that has always been something of stronghold for them despite their apparent recent decline

Another hybird came to the net on the wand, this one 1-11-3 and swiftly followed by a good roach on the float, which seemed fairly modest until lying in the net, of 1-2-0

Soon though the warbling moved to a bramble patch with few leaves and gave the ideal opportunity have have another go. With all the stealth of a penguin in clogs I ventured closer and could see movement as the songster headed toward the camera. By this time the iPhone app had confirmed that the sound was made by a lesser whitethroat, all that was missing was a good sighting to ink-in the tick. Then suddenly, and equally briefly, he was all but in the open and a couple of long-lens record shots were reeled-off. Result!

Over eleven pounds of clonkers in a mixed bag including a few small perch out of shot and the surreal period of North Oxford Canal angling continues

What to make of this quality of fishing before the boat activity starts? Well, that's another story...

SPECIES:

Barn owl, red fox, skylark, tree sparrow, blackbird, indet gull, rook, mallard, moorhen, canada goose, dunnock, reed bunting, great tit, wren, chaffinch, lapwing, lesser whitethroat, kestrel, silver bream, roach, perch, rXb hybrid 





Silver Anniversary

It was almost exactly a year since the big canal roach adventure started with a trip to today's venue but this time the approach would be with rod and line rather than the pole in order to compare the methods on a deeper narrow stretch where the target fish always seem to be present

The morning, which commenced with a great view of a roadside muntjac, produced the now customary frost of course but, as daytime temperatures have been a somewhat balmy 7-8degC of late, no ice had formed and the crispness of the bankside vegetation would soon be burnt-off for certain

As the rod was set-up some aural entertainment was to be had as a variety of 'kronks' emanated from the north and I turned to see a pair of ravens tussling with a third bird, presumed intruding into their airspace, and all with notably different voices. It really is now reaching a stage, similar to the buzzard spread a decade ago, when one expects to hear ravens rather than not in Warwickshire these days

On casting-in a tried and trusted float rig just past middle, a good half hours' peak fishing time bewilderment ensued as the appropriate presentation was struggled with until the realisation dawned that, for some unaccountable reason, the bread was somehow more bouyant than normal and was floating in mid-water preventing the proper settling of the rig resulting in more than the expected normal quantity of shot on the bottom to anchor the flake down

A skylark heralded this stunted spring, to date subdued by unending easterly winds, by climbing to his quite literally out-of-sight peak in a series of fluttering, twittering stages while a chaffinch set-up his song perch in a small hawthorn to my right on the water's edge where, first, a drake mallard, then a cock blackbird and the, always fascinating, moorhen foraged in consecutive sittings immediately below in rough grass. Meanwhile the line did it's best to freeze into the tip ring and the overloaded reel spool shed line like a slinky, constantly...but we got there

Thirty minutes or so after resolving the bread bouyancy issue a somewhat half-hearted lift bite met with no resistance on the strike but, just a couple of casts later, a more meaningful indication proved fruitful when a hard-fighting roach was hooked and netted. As usual when the fish first surfaced various words of amazement at a certain PB crept-out into the chill yet still air. The stocky fish was immediately weighed at 1-3-13 but was expected to go at least 1-6-0, nevertheless the fourth biggest canal roach in the growing list

Precisely an hour later, after the first of four surprisingly carefully guided narrowboats, another lift-bite which became a sailaway betrayed the presence of bronze bream dna and lead to the capture of a hybrid of just over a pound

Two hours in, and with two hours to go, boat traffic permitting, a handful of chopped lobs was introduced 15m to the right and a light link-leger cast to the spot as a sleeper option followed swiftly by a visit from two particularly friendly german shepherds sniffing for food; fortunately, unlike the regular jack russels on this cut, they didn't consider bread to fit the bill

One more missed bite preceded a twitch on the tip which I also missed as excitement got the better of me but next cast, with a tail of a lob, the tip pulled steadily round and a good battle with a roach of just under fifteen ounces christened the new wand at the second attempt

A Silver Anniversary without doubt

A year ago the peg produced two roach of exactly a pound and a three pound bream in the first half-hour...yes the same first half-hour spent in a puzzled state on this trip!

Another pair of ravens graced the trip home which was lit-up initially by a violet peeking-out of the undergrowth by the path, offering further evidence that maybe spring was actually here, as I pondered the challenge undertaken. Clearly the pole is the best option on frosty mornings such as this when elastic would better resist the temptation to completely freeze-up than the delicate tip-eye of a purpose-made canal float rod. Decision made!

Spring at last?

Species list:

Magpie, raven, blackbird, fieldfare, chaffinch, greenfinch, robin, canada goose, greylag goose, mallard, moorhen, woodpigeon, violet, roach, RxB hybrid

　

Up and Running Water



How narrow can a swim be? The narrowest I have ever fished by around 5 metres


Well, it happened

Health, almost, restored...mild temperatures...time to commence the new era and head for the canal river!

The horizontally, and vertically, meandering Leam was the destination. A new venue, nay river, for me.

New 11' Avon; half hundred-weight of gear distilled into one rucksack/seaty thing, I was amazed how little kit I could get away with taking; 5.6lb line straight through to an 8 with a link leger and later free-lining (freelining!!) big lumps of flake - what was going-on here?!

For a man brought up to fish in February with a single squatt on the finest of wire 26's to 0.55mm hook length in the hope of avoiding a blank on the hardest of hard venues this was the angling equivalent of changing from a Mini to a Land Rover 130 and expecting to get the hang of it immediately, or at least within the two hours I had set-aside before the Cup Final started - penalties, I ask you - in the words of Edwin Starr, 'There has to be a better way '

So there I was, the first peg that appeared deep enough and I couldn't resist stopping just there armed only with a John Dwyer White Tin Loaf and mental notes of Tony Miles' chapter on chub fishing with bread crust (this paragraph to be read in the style and accent of Neil Oliver, of 'Coast' fame, for full effect)

The emotion, the smell (cattle drink), the noise of unruly kids out for walk with parents all burning-off the roast beef, the birdsong, the unexpected warmth, the clear water and a feeling of prominence, the confusion - boy was I confused. The simplest of issues had me taxed; no towpath (no path, even), no level area, no seat legs to set me all comfy-like, the mud, the crackling seed-head remnants of last years tall ruderals to tangle in, no keepnet to set, no depth to plumb, no whistle to await or to race to get ready before. 'Okay, let's just calm down and get the seating position right', I told myself. Once that had been achieved, calm did descend and the thought of fishing started to come to the fore



The first peg and scene of much confusion


The simple set-up was copied from the mental note...a two swanshot link looped-over the mainline stopped with an AAA and a 6" tail to the aforementioned 8 hook, a hook which in a previous life I would have considered a possible contender as a gaff. This wasn't just new ground, this was igneous rock to my previous soft silt but there was one over-riding factor telling me this really would be okay and that was the manner in which Tony Miles had written his book. I felt the same in 1977, and many times since, when dipping into Kevin Ashurst's 'World Class Match Fishing', which, although ghosted by Colin Dyson, comes across as the advice of man totally at ease with his outstanding ability, displaying a confidence that could easily have been received as a sign of conceit if mishandled but was carefully balanced to come across as supreme belief in the methods rather than falling into the trap that some other fishing writers have been ensnared by over the years. Miles' matter of fact 'this will work' attitude had me convinced from the moment I read it. I just knew it could work, the rest remained to be seen

The water really was clear and the reflection of a passing azure bullet exaggerated the fact, kingfisher number two followed 20 seconds later on the same flight path (now a species of European conservation concern according to RSPB). I thought initially it may have been possible to see the bottom of the whole swim and when I had at first introduced a handful of mashed bread (prior to the confusion episode) into the restricted flow between bulrush beds it seemed to glow as it burst out into widening pool below. After I had started to fish however it became apparent that the crease between slack water and main flow, or what flow there was, ran into deeper water such that the mommy crust actually disappeared as it sank ('mommy' - chewy, not crunchy...The Old Trout's glossary of the essential terms of life)

I fairly soon realised that 2SSG was far too heavy but then conversely and immediately learned that it takes quite some weight to sink a 2" round tear of flake but after some jiggerypokery managed to balance the rig so that it gently moved round into the slack from the flow

Fifteen minutes of getting to know the swim accompanied by a fairly regular twitching of the tip - this bit I thought I would struggle with but, again, Miles' words helped me resist a change to a light rig in the need to catch anything that would bite - must have been followed by the kind of savage bite he had warned me about. I say 'must have' because I don't actually remember it, what I recall is striking and a fish kiting towards the far rush bed. This was where the Avon was to come into play, no line given, no option of back-winding here!, just hang-on and lean into it. Although the fish felt at least 30 times larger than my usual stamp it was tamed fairly easily with this kit, apart from a short-lived wrap around some weed on the inside

Safely in the net, the words 'it worked' emerged from the corner of my mouth, out loud and with a visible exclamation mark. Followed by the whispered 'how big is that?!' Composure was (relatively) soon regained and logic applied to the situation 'Okay it's not five or even four pound' and it wasn't even three but it was the biggest chub I've had for many a year. It went 2.5.0 on my trusty 'Little Samson's, dug-out of retirement and calibrated with the official and traditional bag of sugar earlier in the day. As I said, 30 times my usual stamp. Then came the flap about wanting to photograph the fish but being concerned about it being put back, so hasty pictures were taken, just to prove the capture, and we can work on that aspect some other time



Not a real chub by most bloggers' standards, admittedly, but certainly one by mine

The disturbance lead to the conclusion that in reality I was unlikely to catch anything else here. I gave it a while longer, without the previous constant tapping of the tip, and decided to move on to another peg for the next 45 minutes or so before I had to leave. The same tip-twitching activity occurred in peg 2, accompanied by the metallic squeak of a treecreeper investigating the gnarled bark of far bank trees on its vertical spiral, and here I also tried freelining, starting to understand what it really took to sink such a bouyant bait but there were no proper bites to experience at this point, the peg having been fished earlier in the day, and time soon drifted away



Peg 2, and the glint of a low sun

 Packing away took seconds, not half an hour, so that was also good and the walk back and trip home were undertaken with that long-lost feeling of accomplishment. However small this event may have been in the scale of things generally it was a big step for me and the first of many I am now certain. Already the target of a four pound river chub has been set as the next goal, although I am not into the realms of airing, sharing or even considering PB's or the like yet. That is some way off and I am not currently sure that is the route this little escapade is due to take, so much remains to be discovered about...er...so much and yet I have fished for 25 years or so in the past. How blinkered we can become


References:
The Complete Specimen Hunter, Tony Miles
Birds of Conservation Concern 3, http://www.rspb.org.uk/
Distant memory