A testing session

It being the penultimate Sunday of the river season, a warm and sunny one at that, I expected the river to be busy. It was. With just enough room for one car in the car park I was still hopeful of getting the swim I fancied, as it's not a popular one. Sure enough the anglers fishing were grouped in the expected places and the run below the rapids was free. With the sky as clear as the river I reckoned the deeper water, particularly out by the crease, might be worth a chuck. Not expecting much action until the sun began to drop I left my gear and had a wander. Talking to two anglers who had both just returned their first fish of the day, it was two in the afternoon and they'd arrived around nine in the morning, it seemed like the light needed to fade before the fish would feed well. I wandered back to my swim and took my time setting up. There was no rush.

It's always a pity the river season doesn't last another fortnight. The weather so often starts to turn pleasantly warm around late February and into March. This was one of those days when the bunny suit wasn't really required until later in the day. There was little wind to take the edge off the sun's warmth. By the time I had all my gear arranged round my chair and two baits in the water I was ready for a cup of flask tea.

Despite a mid-week frost and the river having dropped and cleared it had risen in temperature to just shy of 7c. This time out I left the barbel rods and boilies at home. Perhaps I shouldn't have done given the conditions?  Then again I wanted to catch chub, not barbel and to try one of my 1.75lb Torrixes as a chub rod. I had rigged it up to fish a lump of three-year-old cheese paste on a size six hook to a 3lb 6oz Reflo Powerline hooklength. The rig was the same helicopter rig I use for the maggot feeder, but I chose to fish it with a straight lead and let the paste do the attracting. It certainly stank well enough! The other rod fished the same as last time out, a single red maggot on a 16. But this time I had some hemp and pellets to add to the maggots in the feeder.

It took a while for bites to materialise. A couple of hours in fact. During the quiet spell I was surprised to see some small fish in the margins. The minnows don't usually show up at this time of year, and looking at the size of some of the fish they hadn't long hatched. What they were I don't know. They did seem to prefer the maggots I threw to them over the pellets and hemp though. Perhaps they were trout fry?

A bigger surprise was that the first proper bite, I'd had a few plucks to the maggot, was to the paste. The rod tip bounced continuously and I lifted into a decent feeling fish that woke up half way in. So much for waiting for the light to go. I'd had the choice of fishing to the right of a bush with a nice clean margin of sloping sand, or to its left with a jumble of sunken branches at my feet. Like a fool I chose the latter, so as I dropped my landing net in the edge it drifted with the eddy straight into the wood and got tangled. I managed to keep a tight line to the fish and free the net. But it was touch and go.

The Torrix did its job well, although I think it would be even better if it was a tad lighter in test curve, and maybe a little softer in the butt. Even so I never felt like the hooklength was in danger or parting.

Safely netted it was time to unhook the chub. At first glance I saw my hooklength had snapped. Closer inspection revealed that the broken line was considerably thicker than what I'd been using, and my hooklength hadn't parted at all. How a chub of four and a half pounds had bust off someone fishing with what looked like ten pound mono I don't know. The hook was deep but easily retrieved and had the remains of two white maggots on it. It was also a fairly heavy gauge hook that had partially opened out. Maybe the chub had picked up a snagged rig?

Having forgotten my keepnet last time out I was better prepared, so the chub was slipped safely into the net read to be joined by a host of it's shoalmates.

Next cast in the maggot rod signalled a positive bite. A wriggling, writhing fish suggested a trout, but no. It was a small grayling which I returned immediately. A repeat performance ten minutes later the maggot rod was in action again, this time it was a trout, and another followed another ten minutes after. That was the biggest trout of the day. And as it turned out the final fish too.

I continued to get plucks to the maggot rod as the light faded, but nothing positive save for one that broke the hooklink. The paste rod was also in action, but again nothing that I managed to connect with. I think I should have cast it further upstream after dark to improve the chances of fish hooking themselves. I had neglected to fit the rod with an isotope so seeing the bites was a bit of a problem. A problem touch legering would have solved I suppose.

Having become spoiled by the quality of photos that my DSLR produces compared to my flip-screen camera I used this opportunity to try the DSLR for a self-take or two. I had made a device to allow me to operate my radio remote release with a knee or foot and it had worked fine in the house. On the bank it didn't work at all! I was, therefore, reduced to holding it in my right hand while holding the fish. Which actually worked quite well. A bracket adaptor to take a bulb release like I have for my smaller camera would work better though, and not depend on batteries to function. Framing is a a bit troublesome without a flip-screen, but not insurmountable. I managed well enough with my previous fishing camera, and the larger sensor of the DSLR allows cropping while maintaining better image quality than my flip-screen camera at full frame. Out of four shots one was pretty good. With more practice, and shifting the camera off auto, I'll get better results.

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No pressure

These last two weeks or so I've been in enforced idleness, and I still am - waiting for cork to materialise from somewhere overseas. It's been a case of promises, promises. Mostly I've been occupying my time with the camera, but after two consecutive afternoons on a windswept beach shooting thrill seeking kite boarders I needed a day of rest.

 The idea of some chub fishing was appealing. More so after a pre-lunch call from a friend who had caught a couple of clonkers a few days earlier. A quick check of the river level on the internet and it was a hasty snack followed by a hectic gathering of tackle and bait. With the car loaded I headed away from the river to buy a pint of red maggots with a sprinkling of whites followed by a U-turn to the motorway.

The morning had seen a frost lightly covering the lawn but by the time I arrived at the river the day felt warmer than it was. The strong wind that had the kiters out in force over the weekend had subsided and birdsong could be heard coming from the woods over the river. There was one white van parked up and it  was no surprise to me to see who the owner was, making a brew in the back of it. As he headed back to the river I loaded myself up and followed.

The idea of a social session, fishing close to Eric appealed, but the big crease was a stronger draw. After all, I'd come to catch fish. The water temp was a shade over 5C so my hopes of a barbel on the boilie rod were low. It was cast out slightly downstream and left to fish for itself.

The chub rod was fishing the same rig I'd last used on the river, down to the size 16 hook. The colour was dropping out of the river as the level continued to fall and I reasoned a fine approach might be best for a bite or two. When rummaging in the freezer for my ancient ball of cheese paste I found two carrier bags of what I hoped were liquidised bread and crushed pellets. It turned out one was pellet and hemp mush, which I didn't want, and the other was crushed halibut pellets, which would have to do. Some of the lumps were too big to pass through the holes in the feeder, so not ideal, but they'd still give off a flavour/scent trail. The 30g feeder was heavy enough to hold and was half filled with the crushed pellets before being topped up with maggots.

Within a quarter of an hour of starting out the frequent recasting started to work and a few tentative taps registered on the quiver tip. From previous experience I have found that when double maggot produces enquiries a single maggot can produce bites. And so it proved. The first blank saving fish of the day was a brownie of half a pound or so that came along after an hour and a  quarter. I had had one really positive bite before hand that had smashed my light hooklink and after which the bites dried up. Possibly a barbel, perhaps a decent chub, maybe even an energetic trout.

Around three quarters of an hour later, at twenty-five past four, still in broad daylight now that spring is approaching rapidly, while talking to Eric who had come up for a chat, I lifted into another positive bite and felt something a bit heavier on the end. It wasn't powering away as a barbel would have done, nor was it charging about like a stupid trout. I'd hooked what I'd come for. Once on the shallows I got a glimpse of the fish and it looked quite small, three pounds or less. It wasn't until I lifted the net that I realised why it had taken so long to get in. A stocky and scale perfect chub that surprised us both by spinning the needle to 4lb 13oz. Not a monster, but my biggest fish of the year so far! Eric obliged with the camera, and I even cracked a smile - of sorts!

Half an hour after the chub a sea trout came along, of a similar size to it's brown cousin I had caught earlier. It's that time of year when the river sees the salmon trying to make their way back to the sea. I guess some manage it, but the majority we notice are in a sorry state. If not already dead they are gasping fungus clad specimens clearly destined to become carrion. As one creature dies so others are born. Such is nature's way. Lambs bleating upstream and the constant chinking and trilling of birds in the wood a sure sign the cycle continues.
The sky was cloudy but bright for most of the afternoon, clearing briefly towards sunset when the tops of the far bank trees glowed warmly in the light, the trunks in contrasting shade.

The ruddy glow picked out a stone barn on the other side of the river and I couldn't resist taking a few shots with my fishing camera. I wished I'd packed the DSLR when I reviewed the photos at home, they don't come close to doing the views justice.

In the fading light the tip sprang back once more and after playing the fish gently, as I couldn't remember how strong (or weak) my hooklink was, I landed another chub. A rather tatty-tailed and missing-scaled fish of four pounds-six which I returned without a photograph. It was then I wondered if I should have taken my keepnet along.  Unlike barbel, which can return to a shoal without ill effect on sport, a returning chub appears to spook the rest of the fish in the swim. I always take the keepnet when after roach or dace for the same reason.

My original intention had been to fish until six thirty to avoid teh rush hour traffic on my way home, but when 'Just a Minute' came on the radio I decided to stick it for anther forty-five minutes until 'The Archers' ended. They proved to be forty-five biteless minutes. It was a surprise that I didn't start feeling cold once the light had gone. The air temperature had dropped some four degrees from my arrival, yet it felt quite pleasant. I guess two days in a biting wind must have hardened me up!

Even so it was nice to pack the gear away and head for home. I'd gone a long time with just a flask of tea and one Nutrigrain bar. I needed refueling.

This session drove home to me how much more enjoyable it is to do something when you really want to do it, with nothing to prove, than to do it because you think you should or because you are trying to hit a target. There was no pressure on me, self-imposed or otherwise, to catch anything. No feeling that I had to be there doing what I was doing. I was fishing for chub because I felt like fishing for chub. And it was fun. So much so that I might be going back today as the sun is shining as I write this. Unfortunately my back is aching like mad. Carrying even a light load a short distance and then sitting in a low chair for a few hours doesn't sound like fun today. That's growing old for you. I hope that cork arrives so I can do some work for a rest.

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A balanced approach

I prefer my lure rods to be tip heavy, but some anglers like theirs to balance in their hand when the reel is fitted so the outfit feels almost weightless. There are a number of ways of achieving this, from unsightly lumps of lead taped to the handle through counterbalancing butt caps to internal weight. As I was asked to balance a rod for a customer I thought I'd illustrate how I went abut it.

The first job was to push a flexible plug into the blank. I used a scrap of Duplon. It needs to be flexible to allow it to be pushed further in as weight is added. Years ago I bought a tub of lead shot from a gun shop. I bought it to weight lures and have never managed to use it all up. It is ideal for balancing rods.

With the plug in place it was a matter of trial and error to add the shot to achieve the required balance. Some shot was added, the butt cap pushed in and the balance tested. As more shot was added so the butt cap pushed it all further into the blank. The Duplon allowing this far more easily than a cork plug would have done. Once satisfied with the balance the butt cap was removed and the shot tipped out.

Then some epoxy was mixed and the shot stirred into it.

To get the mix into the slim Fooler blank I used a plastic spatula that comes with the Araldite Rapid I use for fitting tip rings. I was using a slower setting epoxy for this job as I wasn't sure how much working time would be required, and it's cheaper!

With all the shot in place the butt cap was pushed in and the rod propped up vertically so all the weight and glue would settle towards the cap. Job done.

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Boredom, buzzards and blanking

Today was looking like a write off. I had one rod spinning on the drier and my courier's booked to collect. With no work I could get on with I was going to be stuck in all day waiting. I was getting so bored I almost got the tin of white gloss out that I bought three years ago for painting the doors and radiators. I was that bored I had an early lunch. With the cheese on toast  out of the way I was amazed to see a white van pull up the drive. Parcels gone by just after noon. The rest of the day was free!!

Something made me grab the pike rods and some baits from the freezer and head off to a local water I hadn't bait fished for almost thirty years. I was hoping that it still fished to the same pattern of producing on late winter afternoons, and that leapfrogging with paternostered deadbaits fished tight to the stick ups would still do the business.

The sun was shining warmly, the sky was blue, and the day was one of those you can get in February when it feels like spring has arrived. even though you know it will have gone as soon as the sun begins to set and the winter chill will return.

Sure enough, by the time I had reached the point where I wanted to start working my way back to the car from I was sweating under the bunny suit. So much so that by the time all three baits were out, one was a float legered mackerel tail for variety, I had to strip the sweatshirt off. Even so I had gone prepared for dusk by packing a fleece in the rucksack.

If I'm honest, one of the reasons I had been keen to go piking was to try out a little camera trick I'd read about. But the day was peaceful, three buzzards soared and mewed overhead. Perfect buzzard weather, no wind to speak of, clear air and bright sun. Ideal for them to scan the fields for carrion from on high. I settled on my unhooking mat and kept my eyes on the three floats. No alarms required for this semi-mobile approach.

I would move the rods after twenty minutes or so, maybe a little longer in some spots. One thing I had forgotten was how to cast accurately at short range with paternosters. I got the hang of it quickly enough. The trick is to drop the lead where you want the bait to go and the bait will follow. Having the paternoster link tied to the top treble, or to the wire a couple of inches above it, helps to prevent tangles and makes the job easier too. If you try to cast the bait to the target area you end up with the lead, or bait, in the reeds, or way out of position.

In such shallow water I also set the bait depth by the distance it is below the float stop, rather than the length of the paternoster link just like you would if fishing a free rover - the paternoster link is just a tether. Rods are propped up on a single rest, or laid on the reeds, with the line in a Gardner clip taped to the reel seat.

The phototrickery I wanted to try was making daylight shots look like they are taken at dusk or even at night. The first shot in this post was taken at 13.25, the one below at 14.45. Both in bright sunshine. I need to practice this, but I can see how it could be pretty effective with the right background - less sky and more trees perhaps. It just goes to show how the camera can lie.

Gradually I worked my way along the stick-ups. Watching and listening to reed buntings in their natural habitat. The floats didn't stir, save when the canal started to draw off around three thirty, which would have been round high tide at the lock gates by my reckoning. As the run off stopped the floats settled again and I made my final move for the last hour.

The sun had already gone behind a bank of cloud moving in from the south west in a sweeping curve forcing me to put my sweatshirt back on. By the time of my last move it was cold enough for the fleece and the woolly hat. This didn't deter small fish from starting to dimple the surface as the light levels dropped. There were a couple of predatory swirls either side of my rods, one looking suspiciously perch like. I was reasonably confident of a take, but none came. I wound the rods in and trudged back through the mud to the car.

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Out again at last

There was something in the air this morning that made me want to get the rods out rather than the cameras. Not having any pressing work to do as I'm awaiting a delivery of blanks and fittings next week to keep me busy I posted the two orders for bits and bobs, nipped to the tackle shop for some maggots and then headed home to make some pack-up and sort my river feeder kit out. Knowing the tide was to peak around noon I managed to time it spot on to fish as it turned.

The river had been producing big bags of chub, roach and dace through the long cold spell but I hadn't been in the mood to face the weather or the crowds that had been lining the banks - both because of the good catches and the lack of fishable stillwaters.

Needless to say when I asked an angler on the stretch I was going to fish how he was fairing I found out he hadn't had a bite in the hour and a half since he started, and nobody else around had caught much either.

The river looked in good nick, not too low, not too clear. I was still confident as I began to set up. The flow stopped just as I prepared to cast out and the river began to back up a little. After I had fished a couple of casts the tide turned and I swapped from double red maggot on a 14 to a single red on a 16. I reckoned the bright sun and clearish water might need a more delicate approach. Anticipating a huge haul of silvers I had my keepnet at the ready as I have found returning these smaller fish immediately tends to put the shoals off and catches dwindle. Unlike dumb barbel that couldn't care less about their shoalmates being caught and returned.

Fred was keeping an eye on the quiver tip while my mind and eyes wandered from the task and watched the birdlife. Apart from a wren in the bush behind me there were flocks of starlings working the field opposite, and mingling with them were smaller numbers of fieldfare and redwing.Three goosander flew downriver and I think I spied a distant peregrine. With other birds calling and being seen it wasn't a bad few hours birdwatching - if I'd been birdwatching! I've almost been sucked into the birding world by a friend of mine. Luckily I realised that I see just as many species, if not more, when I'm fishing. Purely because I'm sat in one place for a few hours. Birders tend to do that in a hide. I find hides unbearably dull after ten minutes. If I want to sit around waiting for something to happen I'd rather be it a fish hanging itself on my rig. Enough of my thankful epiphany and return to the fold of angling.

Even though it is still most definitely winter the world starts to anticipate spring once the days start to lengthen. It only takes a blue sky and sunshine to get the great tits chinking away, and every year I am still surprised to see the tips of new shoots timidly poking through the frosted earth. I should know better, because the buds forming on trees actually help push the old leaves off in autumn. Nature doesn't hang around in it's constant cycle.

Bites were slow coming. I kept fishing the same nearside line that has produced for me in this swim before. Eventually the tip did the repeated spring-back-pull-down thing and I felt the first fish of the year on the end of my line. It would have been the first fish of the year if it hadn't dropped off... The next cast was a repeat with the exception that the fish stayed hooked. It was a surprise to net a trout though. I'm not good on differentiating brown from sea trout, so I'll just say it was a trout!

Recasting to the same spot saw another trouty thing wriggling its way netwards. Every time I catch a trout I wonder why people choose to fish fro them. They're stupid and fight like erratic eels. On the plus side they can be tasty to eat, but that's about their only good point. It's no wonder there are rules making them difficult to catch, and a long close season for them on rivers. Chuck a maggot at a trout and it's yours for supper if you want it. They make barbel seem difficult to catch...

At intervals this was how things progressed. Two or three bites on consecutive casts (resulting in a trout or nothing) followed by a lull before another few bites. The one break in the routine was a fish that felt different, and a bit larger, than the small, writhing trout. I wasn't convinced until I saw a 'coarse' dorsal break surface. I was well pleased to slide the net under a 'prime redfin' that tipped the scales at a few ounces over the pound mark. Maybe I'm easily pleased when it comes to roach, or maybe it's the young lad in me, but I think any roach over a pound is worth catching. The roach is one of the most fishy of fishes, and one I grew up catching from my local canal. I slipped the fish into the keepnet ready for it to be joined by more. It didn't happen. So I took its photo through a misted up camera lens, while Fred looked on, as I packed up in the dark with frost forming once more on the banks, and on my luggage.

Weighing small fish species can be a bit of a problem. Carp or pike size, and even 'specimen size', weigh slings are unnecessarily large, plastic carrier bags are okay and easy to come by but can hold water (cough!). I've used all three in my time but have never been too happy with them. A few weeks ago after selling my boat I was sorting through some stuff I hadn't been able to get at in the garage when the boat was in residence and found an old 'sling' my mum had made for me when I was a teenager. I'm pretty sure it was based on one I had seen described in a fishing magazine. All it consists of is a square of net curtain material (floral pattern optional), with a nylon curtain ring sewn to each corner. Mine is about two feet square. It folds up neatly, almost shakes dry, and is just the right size for fish like roach, rudd, perch and dace. Almost too simple to be true!

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The turning of the year

It was the last harsh winter that started the rot. My plans had been for some dace, roach, chub and grayling fishing when winter came. Looking back I see I did manage some roach and dace fishing, but when the snows came my thoughts of travelling for the grayling and chub went west. I didn't fancy getting snowed in down a remote country lane, and motorway madness didn't appeal either.

When the river season came to a close I missed out on a last gasp barbel for the first time in a few years but was already looking forward to some sunny days and lots of tench. That didn't happen. A combination of work preventing me putting the time in and rain (putting me off sheltering in a bivvy for three days at a time) meant I didn't get to do as much as I had hoped. What time I did put in was hard work. Most of the tench anglers I spoke to said the same. The consensus being that the winter had upset the usual patterns of tench behaviour. When I did drop on the tench the big ones evaded me. I was expecting each run to produce an eight pounder and so didn't set up the tripod to get a self take of the sevens. I wish I had now! In fact I don't recall setting up the tripod once in 2010.

The tench activity lasted just one hectic morning, and despite the cold winter the weed growth was prolific. Perhaps it was nature's way of  compensating, but it made fishing tricky and I left the tench alone early for another year.

Back on the river after barbel and the fire to fish for them had gone. I always need to be learning to stay interested in something, and while I might not know everything about catching barbel I know more than enough to catch them consistently on my regular rivers. It was a simple case of rolling up, casting out, and waiting for the rod tip to pull over. I deliberately ignored banker swims and tried other spots, and still caught. For a combination of reasons driving long distances for short sessions had also lost its appeal, so my sessions on more distant barbel rivers got knocked on the head too.

Having got back in to photography earlier in the year that was providing the challenges I need to keep my mind active and stay sane, so I concentrated on taking photos. Even in my most fanatical periods of fishing I've always maintained that it was only something I did to keep my time filled and my mind occupied. Fishing is not compulsory. I got jaded with pike fishing because it had become almost like a job, turning out in order to get topics to write about and photos to accompany the articles. This blog has been in danger of pushing my fishing that way at times. It's been good to take a break from both the fishing and the blogging.

Good too to take up a camera again after almost 30 years away from 'serious' photography. Like fishing, photography makes you think, and when out in the countryside can put you close to sights that 'ordinary people' don't see. If you go looking with the right eyes. Wildlife highlights for me have included having a young kestrel fly towards me and perch a few yards away, watching two other kestrels fighting on the ground and 'squeaking' a barn owl in close one evening. Close encounters with a stoat, fallow deer, and a reed warbler have also livened up my walks with a camera.

The urge to wet a line still comes over me from time to time as I wander around wet places. More and more these days, however, it's not the size of the fish that spurs me on it's the surroundings to fish in and the methods to use that drive me. There's the bream pit I travel to that I really enjoy fishing although the bream aren't monsters, but there's no night fishing allowed making for a lot of driving at daft hours to put in the long summer day sessions. There isn't even anywhere to kip in the car in the locality, so I don't fish it as much as I'd like to.

I've been wanting to do some stillwater roach fishing for a few years. I find long range feeder fishing enjoyable as you are constantly recasting to keep the feed going in - and the fish hook themselves! A suitable water no too far from home is hard to find. The reservoir is nice enough, and while I enjoy the reliable action the fish aren't quite as big as I'd prefer to catch. Size does still matter, a few pound plus fish now and then would be nice.  I did have another couple of waters lined up for a try at roaching this winter (and I was going to chuck some pike baits out) - but the serious cold snap that has rounded off this year put the lid (literally) on those plans for now!

As it has warmed up recently, probably only temporarily, I'm starting to think of fishing again. I've not quite got the photography bug out of my system, but I want to get some more fish caught. What I need is an incentive, a challenge, something new. A possibility of joining a syndicate on a quiet lake has got me thinking of spring. I really must make sure I manage work commitments better this coming spring and put some quality tench time in somewhere or other.

My list of big fish isn't too spectacular this year - a reflection of the lack of effort I've put in, although it's better than I'd remembered and a few years ago I'd have been over the moon with the barbel, bream and tench (the male tench is still a good one by my standards). One can get a bit complacent I guess. However, I still wish I'd weighed more of those dace...

• Barbel - 9-13
  
• Bream - 7-15
• Dace - 0-08
• Roach - 1-06
• Tench - 7-13 (f), 6-14 (m)
  

No fish photos, but here are a few that aren't of fish.

Roll on spring.

Happy new year!

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