Shop local

In this day and age it's always tempting to take the easy, and usually cheap, way out when you need some new electrical product. So it was I checked out printer prices when mine packed up last week. It was only a cheapish print/scan/copy machine but I needed it replacing urgently for work. Google revealed my local camera shop stocked the one I wanted but it was £15 more than I could get it on-line. However I could have it that day rather than wait, or pay some £7 for next day delivery.

The week before the printer packed up I'd bought a couple of ink cartridges as two colours were getting low. I buy them from the camera shop for convenience and because they are reasonably priced. Of course a new, but very similar, printer has new, but similar, ink cartridges. I'd be stuck with two useless plastic containers full of expensive ink.

Cheekily, I asked if I could swap my unopened inks for the ones to fit my new machine. To my delight this was accepted. Yay! Taking into account the cost of the cartridges and the next day delivery I would have had to pay for I ended up saving money. Which I always like!

Although this is about photographic shopping the same applies to tackle shops. Support local businesses whenever you can - especially independent ones.

So by way of a thank you I shall point you to the photographic extravaganza Wilkinson's are holding next month. It's a camera show called Digital Splash 2012 with talks and demos being held on Sunday 14th October at UCLAN in Preston.

Unfortunately I can't make it as I have a trade show to attend in the Midlands on that day. A shame as I'm sure it will be a great day out.

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Weather report

Solid water on Friday was bad enough, not that I would have been able to fish had it been open, but Saturday was decidedly miserable. I'd driven through a light, sporadic rain to the tackle shop to collect a rod for repair. When I left the shop I nearly ended up on my arse as the rain had frozen on hitting the cold concrete. When I got home my car was glazed with clear ice. The rain was driving in from the south east and freezing on the upstairs windows making them look like they were decorative rippled glass. I'm glad I wasn't trying to fish in all that!

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The end is knee

I thought I'd finish the year with another pike session if the weather was anything like clement today. There was no rain falling when I woke and looked out of the window, so piking I would go. One thing I have decided for my current piking 'campaign' is that rain means a stillwater where I can shelter under my brolly in one swim all day, dry means a drain where I can wander a bit. When I shone my head torch onto the water from one of the bridges spanning the drain I knew I'd dropped a clanger. Yesterday's rain had not only sodden the land, it was being pumped down the drain at a rate of knots. Undeterred I set off for a short walk.

The reason for the short walk (more of a limp, actually) was an aching right hip that flared up last time out. The same knee is also making clicking noises and throbbing a bit, and the ankle below is none to happy. If this carries on I can see me having to change my fishing tactics (fish near the car every time) or give up altogether. Long limps are not an exciting prospect. But enough of the moans.

If the weed and debris coming down with the flow wasn't too much I'd be able to hold baits out to both banks without any trouble. Rather than chance a far bank bait in the dark I dropped two in close and waited until it was light, which was slow coming in the mizzle that had set in, before swinging a third bait to the opposite side of the drain.

Warra mess

There was a strong, but warm, wind blowing from the south west, and once settled behind my brolly I was pretty cosy. It wasn't long before the far bank bait was on the move. Weed. And so it went for the rest of the session. Baits being wound in to have the lines cleared of 'washing'. This went on to both close and far bank baits, which I moved around the general area, until I called it quits at three before another of the light showers that had been falling on and off since the day tried to brighten up around nine thirty arrived. Not the best of sessions, but better than sitting at home arguing with people on the interweb!

As the year closes it's time for the traditional round up of notable captures. Except they have been thin on the ground this year. So I'm not bothering! My one capture of note was the longed for double figure tench that I've been trying to catch since the spring before starting this blog back in 2006. Not a specific double figure tench, any double figure tench would do.

I've fished four waters that might have provided me with such a fish. It was, therefore, doubly satisfying that it came from the one which I found all by myself - in as much as I did the research on a water I new held tench, discovered they could well grow to double figures, and sussed out how to catch them. At 10lb 5oz it is probably my most satisfying personal best of all because of the effort I put in over the four springs I've fished the water. Doubly satisfying that, until the day before I caught it, I had only met two other tench anglers fishing there.

Having achieved this target I'm in a bit of a quandary as to what next spring's fishing should be. There's a part of me saying that I should carry on at that water to see if I can catch more doubles from it, even bigger ones. There's another part of me thinking that I should follow up a new lead. A third bit of my confused brain is suggesting that the syndicate water I joined this year ought to be fished. I hate having choices.

The other major development in 2011 has been the return of my pike mojo. I've got the bug for catching them again. I haven't got the urge to go chasing round the country in search of monsters or mammoths, but I have been getting to local waters well before dawn and fishing hard (mostly!). More critically my mind is always thinking about pike fishing and I get irritable if I don't, or can't, go piking every few days! It's been enjoyable too - even today! Should I get lucky and catch any decent pike, however, you'll not be reading about or seeing them on this blog. Not without a great deal of misleading information at any rate! That's pike fishing for you. It's a secret squirrel game. Which is all part of the fun.

Photoshop - the piker's friend!

One thing I do have planned for next summer, and I really do intend to carry the threat out in 2012 (all being well...), is some eel fishing. I need to get my finger out and follow up a lead I got in the Autumn. It should just take a phone call to sort out.

Before spring arrives there are more pike to be caught - ageing joints permitting. Here's hoping we don't get a big freeze in January or February.

May your lines be tight in 2012.

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More rod (and other) twaddle

The annual Tackle and Guns trade show is coming up this month and Harrison's are working on some new blanks which I got to waggle yesterday. Probably the nicest, to my mind, were a revamped 11ft Avon and a three piece twelve footer of around 2 to 2.25lb which was through actioned but not sloppy. I also saw a stalker that seemed a little stiff in the butt and a new (cheaper) Torrix carp blank. I hope to get a better look at these, and some others that are in the pipeline, as finished rods at the show.

Since Barbel Fishing World demanded payment or a charitable donation to use their forums I've been staying away on principle - the reason for the charge was to make everyone post under their real name, which I did anyway and so felt disgruntled. Can't say my world has crumbled without the place. I dropped by today to see what little a guest can see and there was the same old obsessing over stuff that doesn't need obsessing about.

One poster was looking for something better than a paperclip for releasing snagged feeders. Good luck in the search! Nothing that can withstand casting a six ounce feeder is going to work every time, but it is worth bearing in mind that using 30lb braid is a big help in releasing snagged feeders. As with pike bite indication you have to look at the whole 'system', and not one item in isolation, to understand how it functions.

Another topic being discussed is the age old question of how to ring a rod. There's no one right answer to this. What was mentioned was that the 1.75lb Torrix felt more like a tip to middle action than a through because of the 'unusual' ring spacing. Er, no. It feels like a tip to middle action because that's what it is, as I discovered when using mine for tench fishing. It errs to the middle, rather than the tip, but it is not through.

Off to buy some maggots now, and use those 1.75lb Torrixes for some roach fishing!

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Storm in a teapot

Last night I had a late evening phone call from an angling journalist who is of the school of thought which maintains that information about where to fish should be free to everyone.  Apparently anyone who doesn't like seeing swims named is 'mean spirited'. If so then I'm mean spirited and proud of it.

I'm not alone though, as anyone who has posted on the Pike and Predators forum naming a water and asking for the hotspots will testify. The more polite replies will tell them to go fish the place and find the best swims for themselves. The less polite will slag them off mercilessly. It is called The Bear Pit for good reason! But if the naming of waters is avoided it can be a very helpful place to seek advice. Other forums have a no-naming policy for venues, and some (like Barbel Fishing World) have hidden their river report forums from the public gaze to prevent 'lurkers' getting hard won information for free.

There is good reason for this - there is a finite number of fisheries holding big fish and an expanding number of anglers. It may be 'mean spirited and selfish', but it prevents the locations becoming heavily pressured. This is beneficial for the anglers who have fished them for years (they are less likely to roll up and find their top swims taken), and for the fish (some, such as pike and barbel, can suffer badly from poor handling or repeated captures).

Yet still some people are intent of making venues, and swims, known to all and sundry. I just can't see why. It may seem like a high-minded egalitarian move, but if it buggers up other people's fishing I reckon it's mean spirited and selfish. To twist a cliché, knowledge of fishing spots is not a right, it's a privilege.

It could be a generational thing, but I don't see why people should expect to have fishing spots handed to them on a plate. Big fish should be earned to give real and lasting satisfaction to the captor. Perhaps that's an old fashioned concept. Nonetheless I think giving people part of the answer makes them appreciate the solution more when they work out the missing pieces for themselves. Help them with their rigs, and their understanding of how to locate fish by all means, don't tell them where to put their chair. But this is going over old ground for me and will almost certainly fail to convince those who don't already think that way.

Maybe I was a little harsh (in my initial ire at the feature) on the angler involved who could well have been acting with good intentions. Sad and pathetic were perhaps not the right words, more like naive and misguided.

On the positive side it's been raining. The river should be rising and the barbel feeding hard. If you want to know a good spot to try, don't ask me.... [Insert smiley face here to indicate humour for the benefit of the innately stupid.]

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Maths and stats

Sometimes I wonder if keeping records helps at all. It certainly doesn't give you any real idea of angling 'success'.

This time last year I'd been on the river nine times and caught 25 barbel with four of them doubles. This year I've been on the river three times, catching 13 barbel with no doubles. So my catch rate per session is up, but my doubles to total ratio is down. I suppose I could work out the average weights for each season, but I can't be bothered!

Going back one more year and I find that I had only fished for barbel once before August, and ended up with a total of 91 by season's end with better than one in ten being doubles. In '06/'07 I didn't start barbelling until the end of August and still did okay and, more importantly, had fun doing it.I reckon that's a better measure of 'success' than numbers and weights!

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Close season

I don't hold much store in the close season as such. It's far too arbitrary in its timing for my way of looking at things. Nonetheless I usually take a break once the rivers shut. The nights are still a bit cool for me to want to sleep out, and the tench haven't woken up fully - and certainly not reached their peak weights. Besides, tench fishing is about warm mornings with a mist rolling over a mirror calm lake. Well, something like that. My usual break is a couple of weeks, but this time round I think I'll be waiting until Easter is out of the way before dusting down the bivvy and doss bag. Especially as winter is predicted to make a return this week...

Spring sunshine

There are definite signs of spring now, buds in the hedgerow, birds getting amorous, stuff like that. And the clocks have gone forward ridding me of my winter lethargy brought on by dark evenings. For once I'm putting my time to good use and have done some tidying of my vast estate. I'd let part of the garden go to nettles and have looked at it many a time thinking it needed clearing. What I needed was a reason to do it. Creating somewhere to photograph birds provided it. How long this new-found interest will last is anybody's guess. But it's fun at the moment, and quite like fishing in many ways. You need to understand the birds habits, read their body language and time your 'strike' to get a good shot. It's also as dependent upon the weather as fishing can be. In the case of photography it's all about light.

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Back in the groove

My recent return to the photographic world has reminded me that going out looking for photographs is a lot like going fishing. You set out with good intentions but the elements and other factors mean there is no guarantee of success. Saturday morning saw me up and out bright and early hoping to make good use of the promised sunshine to get some pixels organised. The sun came along, but not for long. I did have a cunning plan though...

A tree yesterday

I'd gone for a walk along the river, it would have risen on Friday and it might have warmed too so it was worth investigating. Accompanying my camera gear on the walk was my thermometer. The first stop at the edge of a nicely coloured and dropping river was to throw the thermometer in the water. It didn't take long for me to decide not to return with the rods for a while. 2.9C was far from encouraging, and the distant fells still had a faint covering of snow that would be entering the river some time soon.

When the sun went into hiding, to be replaced by light rain, I was on my way home and thence to the tackle shop where the talk was of torrential rain and gale force winds for today. The consensus was that I was mad to be buying maggots to use for roach. My intention was to wait and see what the morning brought and either head to the river if it looked set fair or to a stillwater if it bode ill.

As things turned out the foul weather was in the south (hurrah!!!) so I could get a couple of small glueing jobs done, make some sarnies and pack my gear in the car to arrive after the turn of the tide. Two cars were parked up with only one angler in sight. He'd caught a couple of chub and told me he didn't fish maggots on this stretch because the dace did his head in.

After arranging my gear in the claggy clay I cast out a single white maggot on a 16 and my usual feeder rig, the feeder being filled with old maggots, their attendant casters, and micro trout pellets. Then I ate my first salami bun and recast. As I was pouring the first flask-tea of the day the quiver tip commenced a-dancing. A nicely conditioned roach of about six or eight ounces. I was fishing a close in line to start with. If I start catching from there and then bites dry up casting further out usually brings renewed action. I prefer to do it that way than start in mid river and come closer. I'm not sure why.

Eye. Aye.

The rig I was using had been trouble free when used with a heavier hooklink for chubbing. While it was tangle-free initially with a light hooklength it had soon started to twist around the lead link and tangle on previous sessions. From there on it spiralled (pun intended) downhill. Tying on a fresh hooklink would sort it temporarily but it was a pain. Why I hadn't switched to a helicopter variantI can only put down to pig-headedness or laziness. This time I made the switch.

It was so simple. A small swivel trapped between two Drennan Grippa Stops on the main line. Another swivel tied to the end of the mainline and the feeder attached to that via a link of slightly weaker mono. The hooklink is looped to the rotating swivel, after having a cut down large Korum rig sleeve (the small ones are too small) slid on to it. The rig sleeve is pushed over the rotating swivel and makes a bit of a boom. It works. Talk about kicking myself.

It was almost an hour later before another fish came along. A dace that didn't looks as big as the ones I'd neglected to weigh last month, so I weighed it. 5.5oz. Or thereabouts. A second dace was weighed at an ounce more. That one didn't look as big as the unweighed ones either. Then I hooked something that tore off downstream, hung in the flow and came adrift as I applied too much pressure trying to pull it upstream. I reckoned it was a chub until I hooked another fish that did something similar. This time I took it easy and allowed the fish to make its own way upstream. It turned out to be a pound-plus roach, and hadn't felt as heavy as the lost fish. A smaller roach was followed by another heavy feeling fish that I took my time with. This one was a chub, of about a pound and a half. I hadn't a clue what I'd lost.

Fred keeps an eye on the rod tip while I eat my sarnies

By now I was fishing further out, about a third of the way across. Bites came with increasing regularity as the afternoon wore on. Mostly dace, two of which looked more like the ones from last month and weighed eight ounces and a fraction less. The bigger fish upped my PB - the first of the year. It still didn't quite seem as big as one I had returned unweighed. Maybe there wasn't much in it, but enough.

The top of a Ruckbag makes a good unhooking mat for small species

Despite a bitterly cold wind I wasn't feeling uncomfortable. I only noticed my toes starting to numb when I thought about them! Getting plenty of bites is a great way to get back into the swing of fishing. In among the dace and dropped fish was another roach of some six ounces. Had I remembered my keepnet I'd have amassed quite a netful. The sky had been grey but cloudy until the sun began to set. For the first time in ages there was a colourful sunset during which fish began to top all along the river.

A disgorger behind the ear is a sure sign of plenty of action

My flask was all but drained, the food long gone. Bites were still coming so my departure time kept getting put back. At five to six, with still enough light to allow the Petzl to stay in the Ruckbag, I hooked something heavy again. I took my time wondering if it was a roach or a chub. the grey dorsal that sliced through the water's surface gave the game away. Only about a pound, but on light tackle with a small hook there's no way to bully these fish in a strong flow. I'd tidied most of the gear away so the recast would be the last.

Hardly had the feeder settled when the tip bounced the upstream self-hooked fish bounce. A shoal of chub must have moved in as a fish that felt just like the previous one got itself in the flow downstream a rod length out. There was still enough colour in the river to make it difficult to see fish until they were almost at the surface. When this one boiled I was sure there was a flash of red, but the light was fading fast. I eased off a little, just in case. When I did catch a definite sight of the roach I was starting to consider prayer.

Not the biggest roach in the world, not even big by some people's standards, it was the best of the day and a great way to end my first session in what seems like ages. I'd finished with 22 fish after a slow start - two chub, five roach and the rest dace. My head was well and truly done in!

Homage to Vincent

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Old and soft

I have to confess that the weather since Christmas has really put me off fishing. Had the roads not been so awful with the snow I would have ventured to a river or two, and probably done the grayling fishing I promised myself but the thought of getting stuck somewhere far from home didn't appeal. Then with the stillwaters frozen solid thoughts of pike or roach were scuppered. In a 'normal' winter such weather lasts maybe two weeks then we're back to the usual not-too-cold dampness with occasional frosts. Weather that is bearable. This winter seems never ending. It's coming up to the last week of February and it's snowing again. What I hear from people who have ventured out recently hasn't made me want to grab the rods and join them.

Frozen again

Some say that this lack of enthusiasm is the result of getting older and seeing sense. I certainly hope so! But then if we were 'sensible' when we were young we wouldn't do or learn much. I guess what you do learn is when you are likely to waste your time, and as time starts running out it's better to use it doing something you enjoy or get something out of. Sitting outdoors feeling my toes growing increasingly cold while not catching fish isn't the 'pleasure' it once was. I've still been getting out in the fresh air and stretching my legs, and my imagination, by taking a camera for a walk. I'm not sure it provides the same satisfaction as fishing can, but it's best done when the sun shines, I keep on the move and stay warm, and I don't have to stay out too long if I don't want to!

There are signs that spring is on the way, though. Even if feeble. I keep reminding myself that last season conditions were poor until the final week, that it only takes a day or two of mild weather to get the rivers back in barbel fettle, and only one bite to crown a season. I'm biding my time. How's that for optimism?

Snowdrops before the snow dropped again

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Snow's no fun

I had it all planned. Christmas rod orders out on Monday and spend the rest of the week fishing. The stillwaters had mostly turned solid but the rivers would be okay for chub, roach and grayling, maybe tempting enough for a pike rod to accompany me. I was looking forward to the change. Then it snowed. It's not being out in the cold that puts me off fishing but the journey to the river. Time was I'd have turned out anyway, but that was in the other country they call the past.

Long ago and far away

The other Christmas my present to myself was a lathe, this year it included a film/slide scanner which I used to scan the photo above. If I don't manage to get out fishing again soon I might blight the blog with some more blasts from the past.

I also treated myself to another Gierach book. Gierach is one of those writers it's easy to become a bore about, one you wish only you had discovered yet want to tell everyone about - even though those who would want to know almost certainly did before you 'discovered' him. That his writing is ostensibly about fly fishing is irrelevant, there are truths which are universal to fishing so it resonates. However, it's often not really about fishing at all. But then fishing often isn't.

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More bloggy stuff

Checking my web stats again I saw a few visitors had come from Chris Ponsford's site, so I clicked through to find out why. I met Chris at the Tackle and Guns trade show a month ago and it turns out he said some nice things about me in his 17/11/09 blog. You can find Chris's site here, and I've added a link to his (infrequently updated) blog on the right. He takes some fine photos. I hope he won't mind me sticking one here to brighten the place up.

Leaping salmon by Chris Ponsford

Some blogs on Blogger feature a 'next blog' link. In the past this was purely a random link but now the feature (usually) takes you to a blog of a similar nature to the one you are visiting. I waste many an hour surfing the 'next blog' link. A lot are US based and/or flyfishing oriented. There's good and bad, as with the whole of the blogosphere, but there is some really nice stuff to read or, more usually, look at.

As this blog doesn't have the Blogger link I've added it to my list of fishy blogs. Click on Random Blog to start your journey into a fishy timesuck.

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Time waits for no man

All too soon I find myself writing again on the passing of a well known pike angler. Barrie Rickards, who died yesterday, was of an earlier generation than James Holgate, but that makes it no easier to come to terms with. I didn't know Barrie all that well, but like James he put work my way when times were hard, asking me to do the diagrams for John Sidley's River Piking book. I also fished in his company a couple of times and he photographed my first zander (a double), the picture subsequently appearing on the cover of a zander book he wrote with Neville Fickling.

Of course I knew of Barrie long before I met him. I'd read many of his articles in Angling magazine and, like so many pikers fishing in the late 'seventies Fishing for Big Pike was my handbook. It is worth noting that this book was written in collaboration with Ray Webb, to whom Barrie always due credit and reminded people that it was Ray's name that took precedence (on the spine and inside if not on the cover). Yet everyone refers to it as being by Rickards and Webb, when the reverse is true.

The Word

The influence of that book on modern pike fishing is immense. It was first published in 1970, a year before Buller's monumental Pike. Yet today when we compare the tackle and tactics recommended in both books Buller's appear archaic, those of Webb and Rickards do not. In fact the rigs they described (maybe with minor tweaks) are still used pretty much universally. With Fishing for Big Pike Barrie Rickards became seen as the father of modern pike fishing. There is much to be said for that, but you can read Barrie's take, written in 1997, on how modern piking evolved in this article.

It is interesting to note that Webb and Rickards came to prominence without catching numbers of thirty pound pike. Of course it could be argued that there were fewer thirty pound pike around when they were fishing, and that is undoubtedly true, but the point is they wrote about their fishing and the photos they took of pike served to illustrate that what they were saying had merit. Their reputations were built on that basis. Today's piking heroes (for want of a better phrase) are building their reputations on the numbers of big pike they have caught rather than the knowledge they have passed on.

Webb and Rickards made a point of stating what they had caught as evidence that their methods worked. Fishing for Big Pike set out to bust a few myths and propose new theories (feeding spells, hotspots and the effects of barometric pressure for example) - so evidence was required. Writers who followed perhaps took this to extremes. Neville Fickling's first (and subsequent) books contained a detailed list of every pike of more than twenty pounds that he had caught at the time of publication. I'm not laying the blame entirely at Neville's feet, but while a list of big pike lends weight to an argument it does not guarantee that the argument is correct. Neville could simply have spent a lot of time fishing poorly on very good waters! Experience isn't necessarily measured in pounds and ounces.

What the writings of Barrie Rickards, Martin Gay, Jim Gibbinson and others following in the footsteps of Dick Walker all shared was an analytical approach to fishing. They looked at what was going on and rather than dream up fanciful explanations they applied logic. That all three of those mentioned were academics as well as anglers no doubt played it's part. I think that is the most important lesson I have learned from their writings - not to accept received wisdom and to think for myself. Will we see their like again?

Tributes: FishingMagic; Pike and Predators

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This and that

As I expected, today was dry and windless. I took the opportunity to inspect the amazing exploding umbrella and managed to put it back in to some sort of working order. Two of the plastic fitments that attach the ribs to the central boss have snapped. Other than that it's perfect. For the time being the rib ends can press against the cover - but they'll wear through it eventually if I leave it that way. Coincidentally I got a call this evening from a friend in the manufacturing side of the tackle trade and he reckons there's a new, over-engineered, brolly about to hit the shops. So I'll be putting my blagging hat on soon!

I've added a link to Bob's Blog today. It's updated a few times a month and if you ignore the never ending bitching carried over from a couple of forums it's a good mix of fishing topics and other stuff. His latest post looks at blogging, which (along with a comment on another forum about magazines) set me thinking. Will weekly angling papers survive once everyone is on-line and understands how to use news feeds?

Given the number of angling forums around news travels pretty quick these days, often appearing on the web before it does in print, and frauds get exposed quickly too. There is also a growing angling blogosphere, and I know for certain that print journalists check blogs out - including this one.

Most blogs and forums now supply a feed. So as soon as more anglers realise that the don't have to check out all the angling blogs and forums manually for updates, but can put them into a newsreader where updates appear by magic, with a link to click to go to the complete post, then things will change.

As I use Blogger to compose my blog I subscribe to blog feeds there. I enter my 'dashboard' (as the control area is called) and see the latest updates to all my favourite feeds. If you visit lots of blogs, or other sites with feeds, then get yourself set up to subscribe or follow.

Modern browsers allow you to subscribe to feeds directly. If you use Firefox and see this logo next to the web page's address (as you will for this page) you can click it and see the feed - then set up a subscription in a reader of your choice, including the Firefox browser. Do this for all the blogs you visit and you can check them all out for updates at one time. Updates are automatically loaded but in Firefox all you'll get is the title of the latest post. If you set up an on-line newsreader, like Google Reader, you'll get more than the title, you'll get the first few lines and maybe a photo. The latest post being at the top. And you can set it to show all feeds at once so even less work is involved!

I also reckon that the big firms that sponsor anglers are missing a trick with blogs. A lot have 'blogs' on their websites, but in essence they are just occasional articles that their sponsored anglers send in. Few of them have feeds, so you have to check manually, and they are not updated too frequently - so you don't bother.

As far as I can tell most big firms really haven't grasped what the web is about yet. It's about changing content. The biggest trick that's being missed is to allow the sponsored anglers to blog directly and to do away with the monthly print articles. It'll happen - eventually - and then the print media will struggle.

Where they need to move is into on-line publishing. Their material can be blogged, and they can use forums to attract more visitors. So how will they make their money given that nobody wants to pay for on-line advertising? Simple. They do what Predator Publications/Carp Talk has done and get into selling DVDs and books. In fact get into producing them to sell via the on-line presence. Even put them on-line on a pay per view basis. onlinefishing.tv is having a stab at the latter after starting out as a subscription channel, and I see it's now looking to sell DVDs. So maybe the future has already arrived?

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Change of plan...

For whatever reason I couldn't get motivated to risk a drive to the river today. Probably because I really want to fish somewhere else, for something other than barbel. Instead I've been packing rods ready to despatch tomorrow - after I've visited the garage...

My idle hours have been spent rereading my 1979 edition of Jack Hilton's Quest for Carp which, covering the years to 1970 and like Casting at the Sun, recounts earlier days of carp fishing when there were plenty of problems to solve - not least what tackle was best. Carp anglers, all big fish anglers in fact, have it easy these days.

A truly iconic cover photo of Bill Quinlan

Big fish angling was much more of an adventure back in the early days. Not only was it unknown what might lurk in lightly fished, secluded pools, but tackle had to be made to do the job. One can appreciate that catching a handful of what would be considered mediocre fish today was a real achievement, and that the process was as much a part of it as the catching. No twin skinned bivvies for Hilton and co. Just an umbrella, a groundsheet and some polythene sheeting. And can you imagine today's carp anglers suffering in a mail bag instead of a fleece lined duvet sleeping bag? They must have been exciting times. I wonder how many of today's carp anglers will have read Quest for Carp?

By the time I came to big fish angling it had almost all been sorted out. There were numerous glass fibre specialist blanks available and Send Marketing Brollycamps were to be aspired to as were Optonic bite alarms - and out of the price range of an impoverished student. Today tackle is almost ridiculously cheap, and rarely nasty.

The closest I've been to being involved in something like the pioneering days of the post-Walker era was the 'big lure revolution' of the 1990s. Only looking back do I see that now. I wonder if the likes of Hilton realised how much they were changing things at the time they were freelining potatoes?

Checking the webstats for this blog to see where you lot find it I saw that Ted Carter's have started a fishing blog. If you are local to the Preston area or interested in fishing tackle developments it might be worth keeping an eye on.

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The Law of Sod

I'd been a good little boy all week, working instead of fishing, which meant that the weekend and most of next week could be spent wetting a line. I had taken a detour on my way back from Liverpool to have a look at a local commercial fishery that has recently opened - out of curiosity rather than a desire to fish the place - and was a mere five miles from home when the car stalled as I turned a corner over a bridge. I managed to keep the engine running as I waited at the level crossing then, knowing there was a junction ahead and cars behind me, I pulled over. The engine died again. I put the hazards on and had a think. I fired the car up after a few minutes and drove home without any more trouble.

This has happened before and the car is likely to stall, or run like a sack of spuds, at any time. It cost something over £200 to sort out last time. So I have that to look forward to next week, and my plans to have an away day this weekend have been scuppered. With the wind howling in from the north west and having brought rain I must admit I'm not too bothered about being stuck indoors, but I can't go a whole week without fishing, so I'll take a chance somewhere close to home tomorrow.

In the meantime here's an embarrassing photo of me with my first ever barbel, caught (in 1991 during my Grizzly Adams years) on a lump of luncheon meat, touch legered on the River Dane...

Not even five pounds

...and one of my second caught on a hair rigged boilie from the Ribble 13 years later...

Over seven

...and my first double, from the Trent, six months after that.

Nearly eleven and a half

I'm lucky to have a photo of that one. The camera batteries died after the shot was taken. It was a cool January night but the Trent fished well while the Ribble had been a struggle. Looking at my results for January through to the end of the season in 2005 I made 13 trips to the Ribble for one four pound barbel, while four sessions on the Trent produced eleven - three over nine pounds. I put this down to the Trent, certainly in the lower reaches, being less prone to rapid temperature (and level) fluctuations in the winter giving the barbel a better chance to acclimatise and settle down to feed.

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Modern times

After doing some work in the morning I couldn't make my mind up what to do next. Having wasted too much time in deliberation I decided to go barbel fishing (just once more!) and chance a long walk to Buzzard Bend. I'd been listening Farming Today in the morning and the terrible issue of noise pollution in the countryside. People, who claimed to be country folk, were complaining about shooting, bird scarers, church bells and big tractors. It made me wonder what they expect from the world. These sounds are all part of the ambience of the countryside for me. Just like blanking makes catching more pleasureable they make the silence that follows them all the more intense.

Walking upstream the first field that had been lush grass and clover last week, was shorn and yellow. The second was still being worked, the rural idyll hideously shattered by two enormous tractors collecting silage making the most of the continuing Indian Summer. There should be a law against it...

The bend is deep, snaggy, and an easy cast. I leaded around then spodded out some two pints of pellets and the contents of a tin of hemp. Fear not, I hadn't bought the tinned seed. It had been acquired in exchange for some leads and pellets. With the appetisers laid I cast out the main course. A 15mm boilie on one rod and a 10mm boilie on the other, both with their attendant bags of pellets. The ritual bag filling then commenced.

Since seeing the Korum PVA mesh sold in watertight pots I have been keeping mine in a screw top container. The one shown below will hold 20m of mesh, and being clear I can see how much I have left. I leave half an inch of the mesh hanging out when I put the lid on so I can find the end easily.

PVA container

It was quarter to five by the time the baits were out, the sun still shining warm and bright. A kingfisher was having success on the far bank. There are plenty of small fish in the margins at the moment. The silage was gathered in and a natural 'silence' descended once more on the valley. A buzzard mewed, a blackbird chattered its alarm call and flew across the river to disappear into the thick canopy of the wooded bank opposite. The leaves are now showing definite signs of autumn. The air was still, I watched a leaf detach from a branch and flutter slowly to the water's surface and drift equally slowly downstream. Fish were rising noisily.

A lazy, hazy day

The river was low and clear, with it's usually light peaty stain. I was expecting kick-off time to be around eight. I wound the baits in and went for a wander up river. There was a tempting looking run with far bank snags. Not tempting enough for me to move after putting the bait in on the bend. Back in my chosen swim I dropped my rig in the margin to see how obtrusive the braided hooklink was - and took an underwater photo. The hook looks more obvious than the braid to me.

What the fishes see

The baits were recast, but I swapped the big bait rig over to clear nylon. An experiment to see if it would bring me a bite in daylight when the 'highly visible' braid might not. I sat down and swigged from my bottle of pop. Hearing a rustling in the balsam I turned round to be greeted by a fellow angler who enquired how this swim fished as he hadn't tried it. I replied that I hadn't got a clue. "This is the first time I've..." ZZZZzzzzzzz. The small boilie had been swapped for an 8mm crab pellet and a barbel had approved of the change.

Barbel fight differently in deeper water than they do in the shallows. In the shallows they use their power to cover distance at speed, in deeper water they use it to bulldog. This one was bulldogging like a good un. With the river being clear it had glistening brassy flanks. It also looked like it had swum into a big rock as a small fry. A chunky fish even so.

Son of parrot

So much for the braid putting the barbel off. Half an hour later the big boilie was taken. One all to the two rigs in daylight. There was some light cloud overhead, the evening was staying warm. A couple of days earlier I was wrapped up in fleece long before dark. This time I was in my t-shirt until eight.

Sunset in the valley

By the time the next bite came, again to the pellet, I was fleeced-up but by no means cold. The fingerless mittens were still in the rucksack and dew wasn't forming heavily. This third fish gave an unusual bite. A short zuzz on the baitrunner followed by a tapping rod tip. The initial impression when I leaned into it was of a chub. Until it started to take line. At a couple of ounces over nine pounds it was the best, and last, barbel of the session.

As the evening wore on it felt more and more like nothing else would happen. It didn't. I have a hunch that if I had put more bait in from the off, or topped it up as the session progressed, I might have caught a few more. There's no way to prove it though. I packed up at half past eleven and began the fifteen minute trudge back to the car. As I was loading the gear in the car I saw a bright green cricket on the window of the rear door. Prehistoric looking, and larger than I had imagined crickets to be.

I have two choices of route home. The short one through town and suburbs, the long one along motorway and through the flatlands. I opted for the motorway. This was a bad move with a capital 'B'. Before I had reached the end of the slip road I ground to a halt in what was obviously a lengthy tailback. It's less than two miles to the next junction. It took me an hour to get there and turn off - the tailback went on for as far as I could see. The cause was 'workforce in carriageway', four lanes being reduced to one.

Every light in town was on red, reminding me why I take the motorway. At one set I noticed movement at the bottom left of the windscreen. The cricket. It must have crawled along the side of the car. As my journey home continued the cricket carried on creeping. By the time it was in front of me I'd got quite fond of it and didn't want to drive too fast in case it got swept away by the airflow. I entered a 50 zone and it turned head on to become more streamlined. As I hit the dual carriage way I saw it brace its legs. If it had knuckles I'm sure they would have been white. Turning in to the village it started to crawl on to a windscreen wiper. By the time I parked up it had descended the other side. I thought it had an air of relief about it!

The fastest cricket in the west

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Foggy dew

Every so often the weathermen and women get it right. The Indian Summer arrived on Wednesday morning. By noon it was red hot. So Wednesday evening saw me braving the rush hour traffic to deliver the fettled rods from Sunday. There was plenty of room on the stretch and the gear was (not so amazingly) in the back of the car. What the hell?

The drawback to Indian Summers is that the nights are long and the sun low in the sky. While midday temperatures can be high they soon fall once night falls, and they are slow rising again in the morning. By the time I had my gear in place the bank was shading me and I needed my fleece. For a change I used a spod to put some pellets out. The bait dropper would have been a pig to cast the required distance and could easily have snagged up. The baits were cast out and I began bagging chore.

I wasn't happy. After filling enough bags with pellets to keep me going for a few hours I moved. Only a few yards downstream. Just far enough for my downstream rod to be come my upstream rod and the upstream rod to be leapfrogged to fish further down the swim.

Things were quiet, even after dark. The sky was clear and a bright moon began to rise. I amused myself by bracing my head against the back of my chair and watching the moon's progress behind the leaves and branches of a tree on the far bank. It moves surprisingly quickly. After a few recasts the upstream rod began to bounce. A good scrap was had from what proved to be the largest fish of the night at an ounce under eight pounds. Ten minutes later a five-ish pounder was landed to the downstream rod followed by a repeat performance another ten minutes after that. Then there was a lull before two more fish came along after ten, and another lull before two more were caught within minutes just before eleven.

With the sky so clear there was soon a heavy dew forming on the grass, the rods, and anything else that didn't move. I expected a mist to roll over the water at some point, and it did. It wasn't heavy or constant. There was a breeze that kept it dispersed most of the time. The thermometer had fallen from 17 when I had parked up to 8.5 when I loaded the car. By the time I set off for home at midnight there was a heavier, but patchy, mist in the valley.

On the drive home I began to ponder The Abolitionist Project and its aim of ridding the world of all suffering by chemical and genetic means. If all the world was permanently blissed out on MDMA there would be no highs and lows. Life would be dull. It would be more like purgatory. Imagine being forced to fish somewhere you got a bite every cast and landed every fish, each identical to the next. There'd be no misery of lost fish, but there'd be no elation of landing a whopper. My mind wandered.

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

"Rudyard (after a lake) Kipling (not after a maker of exceedingly good cakes)

It sounds clever at first, but it's a load of old tosh when you think about it. How can anyone treat blanking the same as catching? And why should you?

Triumphs in fishing are made all the sweeter by the inevitable failures and disasters. If you catch all the time without really trying it can become a bit boring. As I have still only had two blank barbel sessions this season, and having hooked and lost a barbel on one of those, the appeal is starting to pall. It's still difficult to resist 'just one more session'. So after my next barbel session I'm going to have a change. Maybe.

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Now, then, forever

Driving across the flatlands I turned one of the many ninety degree bends and ran straight into a wave of overwhelming nostalgia. On my left was field of half-dried hay being turned in the late summer sun. The grass lying like a loosely thrown duvet over the ground. The next sharp bend turned right before I could change up a gear and there was a wheat field, motionless. The early evening light throwing the Naples Yellow ears into chequerplate relief.

Nostalgia for England is not Bob Cratchet in the snow or Heathcliff on the rain-lashed moor, it's Constable, Housman and larks ascending in the brief, nameless period of low sun and still air between summer and autumn. I don't remember which route I took to the river. I was lost somewhere in the past that was also the now.

The river was flowing peacefully when I arrived to fish a spot EH had shown me on Tuesday. It had the vibe and I wanted to try it out. After struggling through the vegetation I took my time getting set up. A quick lead around and I knew it would be snaggy. Big rocks in the margins and cobbles on the river bed. With the flow pushing through under the rod ends I droppered out some pellets. I was trying a different rod for this. I was hoping that the nine footer would double as a rod for tight swims. It was a bit lacking for the dropper. Back to the drawing board - or I should say the blank pile.

Even while I was baiting up the mallards arrived. Not my friends from downriver, a more bolshy bunch. I chucked a couple of broken boilies in and the ducks dived for them. Bang went that idea. With the baits in place I sat down for the inevitable PVA bag tying session. The warm evening made this a piece of cake. Although not hot I was able to sit out in shirtsleeve order until gone eight. By which time the rod tips had already started twitching to the attentions of chub. I didn't expect any real action until the light had gone.

The swim was a comfortable one, and as I was sat a few feet above the waterline, fishing close in, I was able to keep the rods low. This positioned the tips at eye level, preventing neck ache, and the isotopes glowed brightly against the silhouette of the opposite bank as dusk turned to night proper. When the bite came I wasn't expecting it.

The downstream reel buzzed wildly and I found myself playing the fish before I knew what was going on. The marginal boulders made for a tense, interesting fight. I managed to clamber down to the water's edge and with the fish beaten drew it safely over the rocky jumble into the net. A fish of six or seven pounds was unhooked in the river and swam slowly back over the ledge to deeper water.

More taps and twitches were coming to both rods. It was almost an hour later when the upstream rod slack-lined repeatedly. This was no barbel, no chub either, but an eel. It was flicked off the hook into the water.

A clear blue evening sky heralded a starry night. And a starry night would mean a drop in air temperature that would allow a river mist to form. I was surveying the river for mist - a killer of sport - which was light and sparse, when I glanced upstream and saw the moon's orangey glow through the leaves of an ash, I think it was an ash, on the far bank. Not quite a half moon, not quite a crescent. A Samuel Palmer moment and the nostalgia swirled round me. The polythene wrapped silage bales opposite seemed as timeless as standing stones.

By eleven thirty the mist was thickening. For the first time this season my toes were feeling chilly. I tidied my gear away without interruption, climbed the grassy bank and loaded the car.

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Books, writers and writing

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd read Casting at the Sun recently. I also got a copy of My Fishing Days and Fishing Ways by J.W. Martin (The Trent Otter) at the same time. Two reprints from the Medlar Classics series - affordable hardbacks produced in an appealing format. I'm not a book snob and think books are meant to be read not objects to be admired, so the cheap price appeals to me. Paperbacks would have been even more appealing.

It must be me getting old, as I usually prefer books that are instructional rather than intended to invoke the spirit of angling, but the Yates book is a very good read. An evocative tale of his journey through carp fishing to catching the record. But for me it is spoiled by the section relating to the Golden Scale Club.

Nostalgia is fine, but trying to live in a romanticised Enid Blyton world in the modern age makes me spit. If Yates wants to fish with old tackle to catch carp, great. But please leave the silly names and ginger ale out of it. If I get the urge to read the book again I shall be taking a sharp knife to physically excise the offending pages!

The Martin book, on the other hand, is a genuine piece of history, having been written in 1906. For me the sections about the Trent and barbel are the most interesting. The famous Cromwell weir was still at the planning stage, so the river must have been tidal further upstream and somewhat different to what it is today, yet many of the stretches mentioned will be familiar to Trent regulars and are still productive today. I've caught from some of them myself. While tackle and baits have changed in some respects it's interesting to read how little some other things have altered. The fish are still the same, so they still hold in the same sorts of places they did 100 years ago and behave in similar fashion.

Another thing that hasn't changed is anglers moaning that the fishing isn't as good as it was years ago. In Martin's case I can't help thinking that taking most of the catch home, or selling it to pay for the next day's bait, can't have helped. So it's no wonder that a double figure pike was a rare capture, and a twenty pounder an absolute monster, but fourteen pound barbel were still to be had from the Mighty Trent. A good read. I must seek out a (cheap) copy of his barbel book.

You may have noticed a new quote from John Gierach in the sidebar. Not a writer I was familiar with, what with him being an American cane fly rod wafter, but I have seen a number of quotes from his writing on a few sites - notably Pure Piscator. I thought I ought to acquaint myself with his work as he clearly had things to say that were worth saying.

I ordered Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders, a compendium of essays culled from six of his books. My third angling book purchase in as many weeks that contains no photographs of fish or diagrams of rigs! Gierach's a writer more on the 'why' of angling than the 'how' (although there's some of that slipped in almost incidentally), on anglers and their motivations. It turns out he studied philosophy, and had ambitions to become a 'serious' writer, which no doubt accounts for this. A parallel with Yates, perhaps, who went to art school - which attracts people who don't like the concept of work in the nine-to-five sense of the word, people who look at the world through enquiring eyes.

I have long felt that fishing is akin to the creation of art, be that in paint or prose. Writing, painting, and fishing are all about immersion in the task at hand, about solving problems, finding new ways to do things, avoiding repetition, keeping out of ruts. They are all three intellectual pursuits. The results (the book, the painting, the fish in the net) are not what they are about. They are about the process. While that process can be frustrating, to the point of heartbreak or despair, it is what provides the satisfaction. Gierach knows this. Joseph Conrad knew it too; "They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means". That's stuck with me for nigh on thirty years - which is why the full quote appears at the foot of this page.

Books of essays can be dipped into. Having a mistrust of all things fly-fishing I turned straight to the essay Pike - hoping I might ease myself into the book through a species I have some understanding of and almost immediately found a quotable line; "Skill in fishing is a nebulous thing based largely on seasoned intuition, perhaps informed by a little knowledge, but catching a few fish now and then doesn't mean you have it". The book is by my bedside. I can see it being defaced by my corner foldings and underlinings...

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Blogs, blagging and the infernalweb

Recently I received an e-mail promoting the publication of a facsimile of an angler's journal. It's a bit pretentious for my tastes, being hand-lettered and illustrated by the author, but I'm sure it will appeal to angling book collectors and romantics.

Nice. If you like that sort of thing.

I wonder if today's bloggers used to keep journals, or has the ease of blogging turned them into diarists? In my teens and twenties I kept a detailed diary, sometimes later pasting in photos of memorable fish. Then I gave up with the descriptive bits and simply noted interesting occurrences, times of bites, fish landed, swims fished, conditions and so forth. I still carry a hardback A6 notebook for that purpose and use the notes to write up this blog and articles (when I used to write them, that is). I have a pile of these notebooks going right back t0 the early eighties, and before that I used to note how many fish I had caught in Angling Times diary and an old school exercise book.

Over 25 years of fishing notes

Making notes of what you have caught, as you catch the fish, turns up surprises when you look up red letter days. They often turn out to be a paler red than remembered! If you note down times of capture and baits it can show patterns though. So it is practical, nostalgic and humbling.

No publisher would produce a facsimile of that!

If you are reading this you already know that there are plenty of people writing about their fishing on the infernalweb. I have a few links to some of my favourite blogs in the sidebar, and have added two more today. I'm choosy about the sites I link to though. Some I read occasionally set me ranting - either because of the way they are written or because of the opinions of the blogger. But I reckon that if you like this blog (see Sad Deluded Fools, below right) there's a fair chance you'll like the same sort of blogs and sites I enjoy visiting. In amongst the poorly written, ill informed dross there is good stuff out there. Both informative and entertaining.

I find it particularly encouraging that young anglers are contributing to the web. It shows that there is a continuing desire among anglers to share their experiences and to express the pleasure it brings them. Blogging gives them the freedom to develop their own style and a place to have their say. Breaking into the angling print media is less easy than it used to be for an un-sponsored writer. Pike and Predators and Coarse Angling Today being two of the few magazines that don't feature obviously sponsored anglers contributions as a matter of course.

The tie ups between magazine, advertisers and contributing authors can be quite convoluted. I know for a fact that agreements/arrangements are made between publications and manufacturers that their sponsored anglers will write (sometimes exclusively) for those publications. The fees for the articles making up part of the angler's sponsorship deal. The inclusion of articles heavily featuring the sponsor's logos and products helps keep the advertisers on board. I suppose magazines use these thinly disguised advertorials because they are guaranteed space fillers, because they must know most people can see through the ruse, and many readers detest them.

Before I get accused of hypocrisy, I know I mention Korum and Sonubaits a bit on here. Well, I happen to know someone who works for the Preston Innovations empire so I get given gear and bait from time to time - on the understanding I mention or review the stuff I like. John knows full well that I won't praise something just because I've been given it. As I said to him when I was filling my car with bait one time, "I won't use crap bait just because it's free!" Being naturally 'careful' I do my best to blag, or negotiate a discount or deal, on any tackle I really want. If that fails then I'll pay full whack. In fact, there have been times when I have bought bait or gear that I could have blagged because I wanted it in a hurry. Strange, but true!

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