Oops, I did it again...

Tuesday afternoon was one of times days when I had to go piking. Cool, sunny, and when I got there just the right sort of ripple on the water. With it being so bright I wasn't expecting any action until late on so I took my time setting up - and taking a few snaps of the orange-topped floats against the cerulean sky. Perfect complementary colours in great light.

There were eighteen tufties drifting about in open water, four ducks among the drakes. The mallards were mostly skulking in the reeds. A buzzard flapped its way eastwards. A kingfisher zipped past me making it's high pitched call. The deadbaits weren't doing anything as interesting.

I moved swims on the hour. Five as the last move to a swim I felt I should have been in all the time. It has three or four nice spots to cast to, all of which have produced pike for me. First cast with the lamprey, a long chuck to a bar, and the float came off the line. It was my native laziness that had stopped me swapping the clip that failed last time out. Well it looked okay to me. Now I had a wayward float drifting towards the edge of a particularly wide reed bed. As good fortune had it the wind must have shifted slightly because the float ended up in a place where the distance from dry land to reed edge was at its least. With the wind dropping it would be there in the morning, when I could get back with a longer net handle. I sat it out until dark, which is now arriving after six, for the increasingly inevitable blank.

The highlight of the afternoon came during the last hour when I was able to spend some time watching a barn owl hunting along the banks and in the scrubby land around the lake. If I'd kept a lower profile I would have had a really close encounter with the owl, but it saw me as I made a sudden movement and it veered off over the reeds.

As I began to pack up There was a light frost forming on my luggage, and as I reached the car park a gritter went by flashing its orange lights. Could I face getting up early in the cold to fish out my float? As things turned out I could. There was no other fool around when I got back to the lake this morning. Walking past the float after packing up I made a mental note of where the float was and worked out that I might need something just a bit longer than my longest landing net pole.

I'd come prepared to cobble together a Heath Robinson pike-float rescue tool! Lacking a long enough landing net handle I had gathered together a 13ft pike rod (lacking a butt ring), a roil of narrow gaffer tape, and the kiddy's fishing net I use for skimming duckweed off my pond. I hastened to the spot in the reeds I'd noted and scanned the edge for my float. It wasn't there. The only footprints in the frost were my own. Had a foolish carp swallowed it? I checked the reed edge away from where the float had last been seen. I walked round to look from the other side. No sign of it.

I was about to give in when the sun broke through the early morning cloud. I looked out over the blue surface of the water, ultramarine with a hint of burnt umber. In the middle distance, glowing in the bright slanting light, was an orange blob. It could be only one thing. Best of all it looked like it might be close enough to the bank to reach

I rushed round to the swim it was drifting around in, put the rod together and checked for its reach. It would need another foot or so. The fishing net was taped to the rod top and the float scooped up first try. Happy days!! My next job is to swap the dodgy clip for a new one. I guess it's done all right though. It must have been on the line for four years or so!

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Time out

No fishing for me since the last blog post. When I have had some free time I've been photographing poultry and poultry people! Sometimes I think I've caught enough fish to satisfy me. A blogger, Eric Weight, who I have been reading for some years now has recently announced that his fishing blog is to disappear for a number of fishing reasons. One of which the pressure a blog can put on you to catch something worth writing about. I know the feeling all too well. One reason I stopped writing for Pike and Predators was that fishing sometimes felt like it was being done just to get material for articles. It gets to be a chore.

Then there's the menace of repetition. How much is there to say about fishing? Really? Not to mention the risk of being stalked on your productive waters. Do you lie about where you're fishing, or just not say anything? Saying nothing is the easiest and safest way to keep your fishing to yourself. of course that's more of a concern when you are catching big fish, or lots of fish. Thankfully these days I'm not doing either, so no one is stalking me to find out my venues!

Anyway, photography and fishing have a lot in common. There's a lot of time spend not getting any decent photos just to get one good one. I have that with fish too - lots of 'dead' time. But in both cases the buzz when it does come together makes the waiting worthwhile. In terms of satisfying the soul and the intellect fishing and photography fill the same bill for me. I gave up painting after finishing college for just that reason. I made paintings because it exercised my brain and the result was satisfying in the same way that fishing is. One of them had to go and fishing is pointless - so the paint brushes were hung up for good! I doubt I'll hang my rods up permanently until I'm too knackered to use them. I might not use them as often as I have in the past though. Even so, there usually comes a time after a fishing sabatical when the stars and weather align and that urge becomes irresistible. Fishing really does get in the blood.

On the rod building front I recently sent out a pair of custom built P-1s to a customer who wanted them to look like Hardy Fibatube rods from the 1970s. Normally I hate doing 'fancy' builds, but this was a bit different. Quite a challenge to source a thread colour which, while not strictly accurate, had the period feel to it. Then there was the handle to make a pastiche of. I thought the result worked out pretty well. Thankfully my customer did too.

In my search for the thread I bought another colour which wasn't suitable, but which looks nice as a very subtle tipping to black. I might have some pictures of that in the hear future. It never ceases to amaze me the range of thread colours I have amassed since I started building rods. And still there are some I have never used!

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Some 'holiday'

It's been quiet in Lumbland. The reorganisation was going well. I was going to manage to wet a line. Then I fell over. For over a week I've been nursing a bad back not feeling like doing much, and not able to lift heavy weights to take rubbish to the tip or put my rucksack on my back. Today I've started feeling like getting the rods out again. This is was obviously the cue for the weather to turn back into summer normality with a temperature drop, strong wind and rain. Oh well. I've another week of my 'holiday' left...

I have seen freshly emerged damselflies round my pond recently, which has done a bit to cheer me up. Seeing one snatched up by a passing sparrow wasn't quite so pleasing! I'm pretty confident that the damsels have emerged from the pond. Fingers crossed for a few more appearing over the summer.

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Nothing of interest

Call me soft, I don't care, I'm waiting for the cold easterlies to abate before venturing out again. With a bit of luck that'll be soon and I can have another try with lures for the perch on the canal. Someone seems to be getting amongst them at the moment. I reckon the rod needs a few more rings on it though...

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Scuppered

Yet another week's plans blown out of the water. On Sunday I had it all sorted out. Three free days to try the new rod out - today through to Friday. Then it all started to go Pete Tong. Monday's quest for tubes to ship rods out was fruitless. The carpet shop had loads of them. Outside and soggy. But they'd have some by Thursday. Oh well, I'd still have two days free after picking them up and shipping rods out. Or so I thought.

An e-mail arrived after my tube hunt saying a rod would be arriving on Wednesday for a refurb. Scratch Wednesday. With the PAC show looming larger I used the waiting around to get stuff sorted in advance. A first in 20 years! I could sneak a session in on Friday. Or so I thought.

A phone call was answered today to let me know a delivery due for Thursday would be delayed until Friday. B-U-G-G-E-R. I hate it when I have the fishing bug and am trapped by waiting around wastes of time.

Soooo... I have one of those plans that is cunning. Although I doubt it'll get carried out as it involves getting up early!

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The greener grass

The fishing will always be better round the next bend of a river, on the other side of the lake, or in the spot with the No Fishing sign. That was why I tramped past the spot I fished on Friday to get to eel Nirvana. The grassy bank perfect or setting up on, rods poking through a wide clearing in the reeds with just enough height to provide some cover. The overhanging trees providing the eels with a sense of security. Just the right kind of weed for prey fish to find attractive but not thick enough to prevent good bait presentation. It would be worth the walk, especially as I had slipped the brolly in the quiver to combat the rain that was due, and starting to fall as I arrived.

What I found was a jungle. Almost impenetrable, but not quite. I found a couple of spots where I could poke a rod or two over the water. One was ideal, apart from the mat of blanket weed extending a rod length or more out from the edge, and more of the stuff further out rising up in clumps. I looked at another which seemed clearer. Rather than set up I had a few casts around with an unbaited rig. The bottom was covered in blanket weed. The dark green, hairy stuff that clocks up run rings and festoons the hooks and bait. Only one thing for it. retrace my steps and fish the same swim as last time.

When I'd packed away on Friday I couldn't find my forceps anywhere. I took it as a good omen when they were there in full view when I got to the swim. I still have a pair of forceps that I left near that spot when I was about sixteen, returning the next day to find them where I'd unhooked a jack. Definitely auspicious. The baits went out to the same spots as before, this time over sprinklings of small trout pellets as I had no maggots.

There was a warm south-westerly blowing, ruffling the surface but not causing a chill. It was quite a breeze and the flag leaves would occasionally brush a line and make the alarm sound. Not much in the way of bird life showed itself. I'd seen a solitary reed warbler on my previous session, but there was no sign of it. Not even a reed bunting, a bird that's around all year but seems more a part of autumn and winter when the reeds die back, fading to the same colours as the bird's plumage.

When the light had faded to the point where colours begin to disappear a slack handful of swallows zipped past at low level. Shortly after a single young bird alighted briefly on the flag to my right, leaving almost instantly either disturbed by a sudden movement I'd made or the swaying of the leaf in the wind. It then returned to land on my right hand rod where it perched looking a little lost and bewildered for long enough to allow me to get a camera out of my bag and take a very rough photograph. I wondered if it had been a part of the small flock that had flown by just before it appeared.

There was no sign of the wind dying down, if anything it was strengthening. The intermittent bleeps from the alarms became more frequent. what I'd taken to be a wind bite developed. The right hand bobbin was moving upwards in fitful jerks. I struck and hooked another eel of a size that was less than encouraging. As soon as it was in the net and I lifted the mesh from the water the wind caught it and blew it into the reeds and flag! Iwasn't sure if the eel was still in the net, but it was.

With a fresh bait recast I tidied the swim, propping the landing net back in the reeds to my left. The lost-and-found forceps were on my chair, so I picked them up to clip them back on the mesh of the net where they reside. At which they snapped. They don't make forceps like they used to! Should I have landed another eel there was still a spare pair in the ruckbag.

The clouds heading my way thickened in the south. I felt drizzle. Probably a passing shower, but for some reason I'd had enough. With the gear packed and on my back I set off into the wind. The drizzle got heavier and I almost wished I'd put my waterproof jacket on. The drizzle abated. When I arrived home the clouds were breaking up.

I had the rest of this week all planned nicely. Then my printer packed up. Yes I have tried switching it off and back on again... I have also tried the other potential cure - hitting it. A lack of a printer wasn't a pressing problem, until I realised this morning that I need it to print labels to send parcels out. So I'm off on a printer safari. If it fails I'll have to resort to ordering on-line and wasting a day that was to be spent fishing waiting for the bloody thing to turn up.

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Off the wall

It's that time of year when rod orders slow up and I have free time on my hands, especially when I can't summon up the energy to go fishing. So I dig out stuff I've had lying around and mess about. When I ordered butt caps from the 'States I also got something whacky. A trigger grip reel seat painted with skulls. I have no idea why!

There was an unpainted Axiom blank lying around so I thought I'd see what I could do with the pairing. The photos here are only a dry run. I've not made my mind up yet, but I am thinking that chrome framed rings whipped in black tipped with silver might suit the concept. Not to mention a skull and crossbones decal on the blank between the grips!

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Hip to the latest jive

Ages ago I made the QR barcode on the right. I knew how they are used but couldn't think of an application for it (outside of sticking it in my adverts), and had even less idea if it worked as I don't have one of those 'clever phones', or whatever they're called, to scan it with. I'm not a Luddite, I just haven't had a need for a phone that takes pictures and contacts the interwebs. I can see the attraction of something like that, as a toy, but as I hardly ever use my mobile as it is one would be just that. A toy. An expensive toy.

Ah, but I could surf the web while I'm fishing. Er, no. That's one of the reasons I go fishing. To get away from the time sucking computer and waste my time trying to catch fish instead. Time wasted fishing doesn't make me feel guilty. Unlike typing this cobblers when I could be putting some orders together to take to the Post Office. OK. I'm having a brew right now. But often I sit here idly reading stuff that's not important when I could be either working or having real fun doing something real rather than virtual.

The barcode had been sat on my desktop for ages doing nothing. For some reason, yesterday, I thought I'd upload it as my avatar on The Pikers Pit forum. I wasn't sure why, or if anyone would notice, or if it would actually work. For all I knew the generator had made a link to a porn site!

It only took a short time before I had two private messages about my latest avatar!  One thanking me and nicking the idea, the other asking how I made it.

I hope I haven't started a trend. If I have then forums will be filled with avatars that all look pretty much the same to human eyes and we might as well not have them!

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D'oh!

Sometimes I don't read my own instructions. Yesterday I whipped a rod up in black as standard only to discover when I came to do the lettering and consulted my work sheet that it should have been whipped with ruby thread. So I had to do it all again...

Anyway, I've started work on a series of blog posts about fishing photography. Simple stuff, I hope, that might help improve some people's picture making efforts. Call back in  day or two for the first one.

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Tales of the tape

Sometimes I think rod builders would be lost without masking tape. It has numerous uses, from building blanks up to take reel seats through holding rings in place as they are being whipped in place to marking rod sections so they don't get mixed up. So hardly a day goes by without me using masking tape for something or other.

To a casual user of the tape it probably seems like all tapes are the same, apart from coming in different widths. Not so to the connoisseur. There are very sticky tapes, hardly sticky at all tapes, ones that can be left in situ for ages and leave no residue, others that almost need scraping off after a couple of days, or ones that peel off overnight of their own accord. They all have their uses. But then there are nightmare tapes...

Ones that stick to themselves and tear as you unroll them. I've had rolls like this which clear themselves and work fine once so much tape has been used. These tend to be the individually shrink-wrapped ones. The shrink-wrap seems to compress the edges of the roll so the layers adhere to each other. In extreme cases I've taken to slicing through the layers with a sharp knife to get to the easy to use layers. At the moment I have some really frustrating tape. I bought a batch of it that was listed as the same as a previous batch which had been perfect. This stuff is awful. The edges of the rolls are not compressed, it just sticks to itself for no good reason and drives me mad as it tears every couple of feet. More than once I have hurled a roll of it across the room in frustration.

It must be playing on my mind because I dreamed about masking tape last night. Some really nice creamy stuff that peeled from the roll like it was oiled silk and adhered to the blanks perfectly!

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All fired up

The PAC Convention was a good day out by unanimous agreement. Talking fishing with enthusiasts like Gord Burton has got me back in the mood. Trouble is that I've got too much work on now to get time to hit the water! If all goes well I'll manage to fish somewhere next week. Here are a few characters from the show.

The one and only Gord Burton

Mark Barrett and Denis Moules, book barrons

Bill Palmer tests one of Billy's Backbiters

Layabout, legend and mild-mannered maverick

Those are some of the terms (along with dosser and curmudgeon) used about me by Alan Barnes in the interview he wrote up for The Angling Star - a Sheffield based monthly angling paper. It made me titter.

No such thing as bad publicity!

It was positively warm yesterday, just about into double figures for a while but cooling fast when the sun began to set. All being well I'll be back on the bank somewhere this weekend.

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In search of fishable water

Yet another week (the fifth) has gone by without me wetting a line. Mainly because it's been all go, to be honest. Running around on work related errands on Monday and Tuesday, a high powered (not!) business meeting on Wednesday, rods to send out and more to build on Thursday with a late trip to my local tackle shop to pass an hour or two - during which I purchased some rig bits for tench fishing. If you can't fish you might as well buy tackle!

That left today for an afternoon's jaunt which hasn't exactly inspired me to get the tackle ready. The first water I saw was my local river, where it's tidal - but a good couple of hours before high water. It was up to the flood bank, looking like liquid mud and churning merrily. Lovely.

Thence to the Land that Time Forgot. A duckpond I passed was ice free, but a flooded patch of land was still iced over. Sure enough the lake was in it's own micro-climate. The valley was filled with a thick mist, the water's surface was invisible from the road as I drove past. I'd stretch my legs and go check it out. There were gulls to be heard mewing from the direction of the water as I walked through the copse of tall, bare beech trees. It turned out they were standing on the half (or more) of the lake that was still frozen. There was a piker starting to pack up who hadn't had a sniff. Cross that one off the list of options.

I took a circuitous route home, not entirely by design... Some roadside waters I passed by were clear, others not. All the rivers and streams were belting through and looking like sludge. At least the local canal, which was still frozen when I looked at it yesterday, appeared clear where I crossed it if nowhere else. Sod it.

Wherever, and whenever, I do get out again I have a new fishing buddy. I ordered some batteries yesterday and they arrived bright and early this morning with an unexpected free gift. A 'Magnetic Duracell Bunny'. I hope the little pink bugger is lucky because he's not very magnetic!

Don't look at me like that!

For those who missed the brazen plug on my dlst.co.uk site I'll repeat here that Derek Macdonald can be seen using a P-3 or two on the Sky Sports website. I'm going back into hibernation.

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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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Fame at last

Leafing through the Tackle and Guns trade magazine that arrived today I noticed Shimano must have taken me on as a consultant by telepathy!

I don't know where they get the idea these small Baitrunners are good for deadbaiting though.

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Geeksville

I know most of you couldn't care less (if at all), but I've added some code to the blog so that the photo-link to my DLST website changes randomly each time a page of this blog is loaded. It was something to do while listening to England's changing fortunes on the first day of the final Ashes Test. I'm not telling you how many different pics there are though!

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A credit would be nice

I was idly Googling for 'big bream' when up popped one of my photos. Expecting it to link back here I clicked it and got a surprise.

C'est le web!

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Nasty mice

A 'mate' of mine sent me this a few years ago. With friends like that...

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Chomping at the bit

It didn't matter where or what for but I had to wet a line today before I went completely round the twist. It was just after eight when I pulled into the car park for what proved to be a short, fishless, fluff flinging session and there was a butty box waiting to be given a new home. I always consider finding something useful to be a good omen. However, closer inspection resulted in it staying where it was...

They weren't biting today

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Just had to share!

I spotted this (and more) over at Barbel Fishing World.

Click to make it bigger

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