tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78086099563504798462024-03-05T09:57:09.830+00:00By JAYZSBy JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-12801947377216012892022-06-08T16:19:00.007+01:002022-06-09T18:58:41.008+01:00Silt and its S-tench<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> This blog entry will probably be quite short, and has been prompted by a couple of lines in a blog by SideStreamBob down at Wordpress.com. So I will get right down to the nitty gritty.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As does Bob, I have always preferred to use groundbait, and hookbaits that blend into the background. I have always tried to avoid anything brightly coloured, thinking that a highly coloured bait might put the fish off. Bob uses black groundbait, manufactured by some company or other, I forget the name, but it is highly irrelevant. I don't use much groundbait myself, but perhaps I should, as, suitably used it promotes an area of scent, without necessarily providing much feed. I more usually go for particle baits, but I have also had some excellent catches on some of those few occasions when more conventional groundbait was in use.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But why black? Bob provided an answer that I had not thought of. It is possible that fish would avoid a light coloured area, strewn with a pale groundbait, on the basis that fish would feel instinctively exposed to predators whilst swimming above it. I wonder if this is true though? Evolution probably does not, and has not, exposed them to pale bottom of lake backgrounds very often, so why would they instinctively avoid it? Why would such get built into the DNA along with other more common reactions to danger. I stress here that I don't know either way. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I read an article ages ago where the writer described attaching a blue plastic toy elephant near his legered bait. It did not stop him catching barbel, his target fish appeared unconcerned by the alien beast that had attached itself to the hooklink. So are fish worried at all by colour of the groundbaited area? Are they even able to see in colour? A quick google suggests that they can, and that many fish can also see in UV light as well. So the presence of a blue elephant in the swim was more ignored than un-noticed.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So what about hookbaits? I admit to having been surprised in recent years ( having come back from many years spent away from angling) by baits of all colours and shades of the rainbow, anglers even catching fish on baits of dayglo colours. I would never have expected this, but it makes one think that the contrasting colours are actually attracting the fish. In retrospect sweetcorn is also not a colour you would easily miss, but it is well known to be effective. In clear water a bright pink popped up boilie would be visible for a fair distance. And in murky water it might just be that extra bit visible at close quarters. Anyway, I have just bought some pink pop-up boilies. I don't really like using any boilies, but will give them a go. I have never caught much at all with boilies, the odd bream or two. So I have developed a Catch 22 cyclic bit of nonsense about them. I have not caught much with them, so don't use them much. This in turn means I don't catch much using them, which diminishes the confidence to put one on a hair. I know the cyclic argument makes no sense, but there it is. Adding a pink colour on top of all that, and my next cast will not have the usual high confidence factor that I generally have.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I mentioned seeing a bait in cloudy water just above in the text. Many of the stillwaters I fish have a very silty bottom. Thick black near liquid, almost toxic mud, acquired from years of rotting leaf fall, fish and bird faeces etc. Many anglers see this as a problem, and design rigs etc to try and deal with it, keeping the bait "afloat". SidestreamBob also mentioned that maggots probably dig themselves into it and disappear rapidly from sight. I have never thought that they did, after all the Cheshire meres are largely bottomed several feet deep with the stuff, yet particle baiting with maggots used to attract the bream, when I fished for them there years ago. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I put a camera into a tench swim a couple of years ago, and it was quickly obvious that feeding tench (and probably other species too) stir up the debris on the lake bottom quite considerably. Certainly enough to render their sight pretty much useless. Other senses, touch, smell and taste have to take over as the main food finding tools in such lakes. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have a garden pond, which has remained unfiltered for nearly 30 years since I built it. Its bottom had become a good 6 inches deep in lovely Cheshire ooze, thick, highly smelly, and very black. I have been netting some of it out this year, a good dozen large bucketfuls to date. I am hoping it will not ruin the compost heap. And here was a chance to experiment. Rain had added an inch or so of clear water above 10 inches of gooey gunge in the bucket. So I dropped in a dozen or so maggots. That was an hour or so ago.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Excuse me now whilst I go to check on them.......</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVujLkUMWsIe2-bO4xuQhfM7bBMn-DYCjq93-NZWTbLc4ogIACHO12CNybNfOvZgWyPyegnVEzu5AGfvpHscixeb7irAy45IB5pEHkDnLvypctpJmerPbF0J3vFm5Jxs7drL4MTy60ot4-fA9iFYWgpthRITFuEYR5ZLU6FY_LaiFMN2bm0q4EU13D-g/s960/maggots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVujLkUMWsIe2-bO4xuQhfM7bBMn-DYCjq93-NZWTbLc4ogIACHO12CNybNfOvZgWyPyegnVEzu5AGfvpHscixeb7irAy45IB5pEHkDnLvypctpJmerPbF0J3vFm5Jxs7drL4MTy60ot4-fA9iFYWgpthRITFuEYR5ZLU6FY_LaiFMN2bm0q4EU13D-g/s320/maggots.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maggots on Mud<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><span style="font-size: large;">Aha.....the maggots are all still on top of the silt, moving rather less vigorously of course, but it seems that maggots do NOT bury themselves, even in almost liquid silt. This is understandable; in water they become almost weightless, and are unable to get enough purchase to bury themselves. The best they can do is to wander under leaves or any other detritus that sits atop the mud. But they don't have the guile to intentionally do this, and so all of my maggots have remained visible. I tried the same experiment with a couple of brandlings. Initially both seemed to dig themselves in, but when the hour was up, both were visible on the surface.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Once a few fish get into this sort of situation, a baited area, and are hungry, their pectoral fins are going 10 to the dozen and everything turns muddy. Maggots and bottom detritus are just swirled around, with little remaining visible.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Conclusions: don't worry about bait burying itself. If it gets buried it will be because of fish activity. Secondly, I must give a proper go to brightly coloured baits, even if the sight of a pink boilie annoys the hell out of me.</span></p>By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-72658484234966833972022-05-05T14:13:00.001+01:002022-05-05T14:18:05.877+01:00Crucians, Again:<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><u> <b>More on the Delightful Crucian Carp.</b></u></span></p><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">But first a moan. I know it has been an age since I last took fingers to keyboard, but I KNOW I had not forgotten my password for this blog. Google however begged to differ, and seems to have leapt in and made my logging in inordinately difficult. Took me an age and several cycles of "forgotten passwords" security info, codes to phone and emails back and forth before I managed to get back in to the blog. I had a serious and worrying concern that I should never get back in and that I might even become banned from the site completely. However, here I am, and making even more than my usual large quota of typos, and desperately trying to eradicate them before releasing this rubbish on an unsuspecting world. Some errors will still get through...they always do. Now it might well seem that I am using the above as an excuse, not to write the blog. Not really, laziness far outshone all that guff as the real reason. But also, I like to have something different to say. I have seen some bloggers who seem just to report, fish by fish, every trip, clunk click. Many of such (not all I would hasten to add) become rather tedious. They do however seem to get a far greater footfall than do I, so maybe 'tis I that is doing it all wrong. </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, after a little over 30 years of nagging, I finally have a fishing tackle room. Now, those of you that know me well, will know that I am not one to nag...I might moan a little at times, but nagging...never...not me. Nope, the nagging was all courtesy of the wife Nina, who is something of an expert at the job. I had weathered it for years, but the scud attack which finally battered me into submission, was when she counted how many rooms in which I had rods. Now I still don't think six rooms with rods was in any way excessive (I am ignoring the garage in the calculations), but her mates ganged up on me. I didn't mention the rods in both cars. It is not as if I ignore her nagging...after a mere twenty years of such I relented and had the bathroom refurbished, and after just twenty seven of ear bashing, the kitchen was renewed. So I am now squeaky clean with lots of brownie points: after all, I did both of her projects BEFORE my tackle room. My room has of course been built in the cellar. With the aid of a lot, no A LOT, of scrap wood I built a Heath Robinson ( but solid) rod rack, and several areas of decking. Seeing all this space Nina decided that all my juggling and unicycling stuff could fit in it too, and on returning</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfRffKonWzsbxi8ndIIhuevVxcrrx1lwlNL7F3KlPdSNC8wm_E0yqOUFStUBdY6wRi7VIgsH6nzt6VWuI0lcPu28_IrXOh_YJcQR6BR1rXN6-q4wCRfwGT20vSDzcsua3ur6Us0NmcBBG6v-yWnPotgWL_FaAdbXMrSybWnA7poNBL9KzDOewBRveMBg/s960/cellar.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="421" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfRffKonWzsbxi8ndIIhuevVxcrrx1lwlNL7F3KlPdSNC8wm_E0yqOUFStUBdY6wRi7VIgsH6nzt6VWuI0lcPu28_IrXOh_YJcQR6BR1rXN6-q4wCRfwGT20vSDzcsua3ur6Us0NmcBBG6v-yWnPotgWL_FaAdbXMrSybWnA7poNBL9KzDOewBRveMBg/w352-h421/cellar.jpg" width="352" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Start of my "walk-in" Channel.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">from fishing one day, that had all been moved into the cellar. I am told that my tools will also be better below ground. How long before my shirts and socks are buried is pure guesswork.</div></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: medium;">The problem is that this room in the cellar has only five feet of headroom, and so in order to walk around safely I decided to dig channels in those areas in which I shall be walking. The areas are all non structural: just an inch of old tarmac covering the soil, so I am not undermining the house. The hole for the channel is so far eighteen inches wide, 6 feet long, and gradually getting deeper. Nina has observed the hole very suspiciously, she has some concerns over its dimensions and the nagging seems to have dropped considerably in both frequency and volume. ;-)</span></div><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">So: crucians: I waste a lot of time trying to catch these utterly delightful creatures. The usual quoted mantra is that they are difficult to catch. I have never agreed with that, but it is hard for the idea not to penetrate my thick skull. Maybe that is why I fish for them so often, and find them so endearing. I repeat: they are NOT difficult to catch if present in any numbers in a water...however...you do need to set up your tackle suitable and apply bait and knowledge appropriately.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieToKrP5c-sQsesiZofcvCBFkHV5agBYa_RJVE7TDoMGHObh8uqihoCKLDOlf-djz-__AR2hNxMH4JxacmskNhVgIxlWlem5N_w_jiHp1qfWLQR1SjA_jJk1ukljtIBnzJrtWtCTGPrLqsBr8ztMSyV7uxvmZvFYlRyTAEI8QNivh2fW11r70lbfNUXA/s5184/TTH1.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3888" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieToKrP5c-sQsesiZofcvCBFkHV5agBYa_RJVE7TDoMGHObh8uqihoCKLDOlf-djz-__AR2hNxMH4JxacmskNhVgIxlWlem5N_w_jiHp1qfWLQR1SjA_jJk1ukljtIBnzJrtWtCTGPrLqsBr8ztMSyV7uxvmZvFYlRyTAEI8QNivh2fW11r70lbfNUXA/s320/TTH1.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fighting through the 2s. </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />I fish one water where the crucians average about two pounds, fish less than 1-8 are more or less none existent. two factors are responsible in my opinion. It is uniformly quite deep, averaging over 6 feet: none too great for spawning areas, but also is infested with pike. So, crucians, being fairly docile, are easy targets for predators, and with</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZFIbRpNTg_OJZjnoVLFg3pyFeIoK8MD-dLYj7nBp1AfcydwQuCC1txXFyR_JvxoY1IF8u_yhtIIhniZx45nvMGGzbj_U7xOHZck8RCmMtWR4mPdf6oYoaHMFmDZsVsvQWCosChKaHil1R/s2048/IMG_20210617_100823.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZFIbRpNTg_OJZjnoVLFg3pyFeIoK8MD-dLYj7nBp1AfcydwQuCC1txXFyR_JvxoY1IF8u_yhtIIhniZx45nvMGGzbj_U7xOHZck8RCmMtWR4mPdf6oYoaHMFmDZsVsvQWCosChKaHil1R/w300-h218/IMG_20210617_100823.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A Feisty Little Fellow</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />spawning successes unlikely, the crucians seem to be at risk of being wiped out. I do fear for the future of the fishery as a crucian venue, as I know the fish are all getting on in years, and may not remain to be caught for much longer. So I spent a lot of time fighting my way past two pound fish, before finally getting a 3-0 and a 3-8. Lovely sized fish. It had been many many years since I had any of that size, so they were particularly welcome. And caught on the float, lift method, with bread for bait. THE way to catch crucians. I know that many anglers these days fish for them with in line feeders and bolt rigs, but it just seems morally and traditionally wrong to do so. I suspect many anglers have little idea what a float is, let alone knowing how to use one effectively. Such a shame. They will never experience that wondrous feeling when a long antenna float slowly lifts 5 or 6 inches at the the behest of an unseen crucian or tench.</span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX-3MQA7AE3ivhvv-gAWk_5c1mLlH5_feG7deqlDpromvvP3J1ewucQkM9Gsig4S1eOMamOhvNoo968BNSNvu3lB01fQiMTd9JFsv4wwYipY2krAWDs-EYbK9Sew3LBUDK6qZzPQe7U-19/s2048/cruella.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1472" data-original-width="2048" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX-3MQA7AE3ivhvv-gAWk_5c1mLlH5_feG7deqlDpromvvP3J1ewucQkM9Gsig4S1eOMamOhvNoo968BNSNvu3lB01fQiMTd9JFsv4wwYipY2krAWDs-EYbK9Sew3LBUDK6qZzPQe7U-19/s320/cruella.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Just a few ounces.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />I also fish a few small ponds for crucians. These are not big fish waters, most of their crucians are just a few ounces, although I hope they may grow. But they are fish from very clear water, and as such are unutterably delightful. The typical crucian fight with the rod tip vibrating is almost emphasized with these small fish. I invariably know what I have hooked before seeing it. Just look at the photo. Could any fish in the UK be more gorgeous?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">These smaller fish seem to behave rather differently. When seeking larger fish, I almost always see fish splash on the surface in an unmistakeably crucian way. They seem to rise up vertically from my bait, splash very near my float and the go straight back down. A bite often follows very quickly. The smaller fish don't seem to do that in the waters I fish. I have no idea why. I have small crucians in my garden pond too, They never seem to break surface either. They do like to spend much of their time within the lily pads, hiding, maybe from the light, or perhaps from predators. I hope they may breed next year. When feeding, despite being fairly laid back about the process, they always manage to stir up the silt from the pond bed. I suspect this must also happen in angling waters. Tench do the same, and I suspect many stillwater fish are practically unable to SEE a bait. Smell and taste must be far more important than I used to think.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipMqWLcnOTvF9va8-wtneUroGUVrt4y2QNTGIxTEj0dhCKj2iT2CB50Lfce_7H9YT3TCU7-QGbL47dEZZWPAyxcAW_R9Db7uIEVsStZgNItjKVwq7MrRX2l2Kio9ses-18ULJ7GNxQ8-uk/s2048/IMG_20210615_054552.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipMqWLcnOTvF9va8-wtneUroGUVrt4y2QNTGIxTEj0dhCKj2iT2CB50Lfce_7H9YT3TCU7-QGbL47dEZZWPAyxcAW_R9Db7uIEVsStZgNItjKVwq7MrRX2l2Kio9ses-18ULJ7GNxQ8-uk/s320/IMG_20210615_054552.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Fairly Deep Body, High Back.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;">The other interesting fact about crucians is that they have a very variable body shape. In Peter Rolfe's great book about crucian carp "Crock of Gold", he writes about this. Research has found that in waters exposed to predators, such as pike, crucians develop very high backs. Apparently this has even been backed up by laboratory experimentation. The fish shown here is one example, whereas the fish below has a much slimmer body shape. I wondered whether this was a genetic variation, accumulated over many generations, in accordance with the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin. This is, I am told, not the case, rather the fish grow differently according to the presence or absence of pike.</span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjANK11czQ1ifJEywt8nzaWNWqByg7I9XGQEVSW8tav38-rOafdsHhwxYTc1GFbDHrVbYmeeT3mzhqQ8UBrgKvWYv-Ep7AYXnmEMbCl-S0puQ0YaUz5jCY-bCgh7EtxWfW0ecLX2k9DRcsU/s2048/IMG_20210904_155854_1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjANK11czQ1ifJEywt8nzaWNWqByg7I9XGQEVSW8tav38-rOafdsHhwxYTc1GFbDHrVbYmeeT3mzhqQ8UBrgKvWYv-Ep7AYXnmEMbCl-S0puQ0YaUz5jCY-bCgh7EtxWfW0ecLX2k9DRcsU/s320/IMG_20210904_155854_1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Slimline Crucian,</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I am not at all sure that I can agree with that, I remain unconvinced. The last three fish shown here all came from one water, a water with no pike present, a water that has never had pike present, yet some crucians have nevertheless developed quite high backs, and others have not. Lots of variation within just one water. So I remain without an explanation that I can readily accept. Worse that that, I don't have my own theory either. More research needed.<br /><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-1033741306278536072018-08-25T19:41:00.001+01:002020-12-21T12:17:04.952+00:00The Close Season, and Cycling to the Pond.<div style="text-align: justify;">
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The close season has once more come under review on the rivers. The decision is that the status quo will remain, and I do approve of that. When I returned to angling after my long hiatus I was shocked to find the stillwater close season had been discarded. No knowing that, I waited very conscientiously until June the 16th, as I did of old. I always thought that the close enabled banks to regrow, it allowed me to take a rest without having to get out there with the rods. I appreciated the break, and am sure the wildlife did too. Not all fish spawned according to the calendar, and it was accepted that nothing was perfect. Fishing now though, exposes anglers to coarse fish in spawning condition. As I have said before, I hate catching male bream, looking the way they do, in full spawning garb. The look awful, feel awful, and I do wonder whether catching them harms them at this time of year. Other anglers seem to revel in the close season, some appear to only fish for tench when they are in spawn, and do so because they are almost exclusively weight driven. I sometimes feel they get more pleasure from looking at the scales, than from looking at the fish itself. Tench spawning times vary greatly from water to water, and even within the same water, and I do fish for them, but would rather catch a smaller specimen without spawn, than a deep bellied heavily laden individual. I caught my first 3 pound plus rudd last year. 3-1. But the capture has ever remained tainted for me, because it was quite noticeably carrying spawn. I was much happier couple of months or so ago, catching more big rudd, of which none showed any sign of such temporary weight increase. Of course, now, the ONLY time anyone will catch a record, of any of the major species, is when it IS carrying spawn. Records are much higher than 40 years ago, and for THREE reasons:</div>
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1) the reason everyone quotes: large amounts of highly nutritious bait thrown into all our waters. Fish can often become both larger and also very obese....heavier! Fish farms are designed to maximize fish growth rates, and with anglers throwing masses of pellets, boilies and such, into our lakes and rivers, they are creating large fish ponds. Pellets were after all, designed for fish farms so we should not be surprised to have seen rapid and obesity type growth of our fish.</div>
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2) I am sure that the much warmer weather, and the winters in particular, over that time period, of the last 40 or so years, have helped to grow our fish, by giving them a larger time window of active feeding. Look at how much larger the carp are in France, which has had that longer growing season since the year dot. </div>
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3) Anglers are deliberately catching spawn filled fish. </div>
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So never again will the record be taken by a healthy in-season fish, for any of these species. It is difficult for me NOT to think some of the continental anglers have a better method for ratifying their records. The Dutch, and others, simply measure the length of the fish. So record holders, and seekers, are not influenced by the need to seek out unhealthy or spawn filled fish. The longest fish gets the record. It seems, to me at least, a better way to do it. </div>
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So I agree that the close on rivers should remain, and would not be unduly averse to reintroducing it on all our <b>still</b> waters. The close season on rivers restricts, to a degree at least, the ability of weight driven anglers to specifically target spawn bound barbel and chub. Others opinion may well differ, and it may be that weight driven anglers will eventually see the removal of the river close season, and that would give them a fourth reason for fish growing larger than they used to: 12 months of bait going in the rivers, rather than just nine. </div>
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There are a number of small waters nearby, ponds mainly, which I find very pleasant for short A.M. or P.M. trips. None of them contain huge fish, but their nearness to home (I could have been posh there and said "proximity"), is a great advantage. One of them is very pretty, lots of lilypads, surrounded by trees, with newts and all the usual variety of stillwater fish species. Unfortunately; venture just outside that ring of trees, and you are in an area of very downmarket industrial activity, from scrap yards and council tips, to a £2-00 hand car wash, burnt out cars and graffiti strewn walls. Yesterday (June!!), as I fished it, a police helicopter circled overhead for well over an hour. So in consequence of all this, I don't like to park the van anywhere near the pond. I have, in the past, walked there, taking about an hour for the journey as long as I didn't make any wrong turns. The distance almost puts me off walking there to fish. And then I have to walk back. The time it takes to walk back often means I stay later than I ought, rather than tackle the walk. Three years ago I bought a pair of folding bikes, one for myself, and one for Nina. They have remained unused...until yesterday, when I decided I might try to ride to the pond for the evening. I unfolded the bike, had a trial run around the block, just to check all was well, and strapped a pair of rods along the crossbar, added a small rucksack, with built in folding stool, filled with a minimum of bait and tackle, and rode out in the sunshine. All was well, for a couple of miles, but in the third and last mile there were a number of clicks from the handlebars, which were not properly bolted in place, and were rotating slightly with each click. No matter, I arrived safely and fished until well after sunset, catching a very tubercular male bream of about 4 pounds and a small tench. The pond was infested with picnickers, swimmers and barbecues, as the locals enjoyed the sunshine, but the water is deep enough, and cloudy enough, that the fish don't seem much concerned by the disturbance. At times I think disturbance enhances the fishing.</div>
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So I packed up at first dark, and started to ride home. The handlebar problem had worsened, and they would not remain in place, both rotating and sliding sideways. There were at times as much as 20 degrees of play, comparing where the front wheel should be pointing and the direction the cycle was actually taking. My progress was far more wobbly than that made when I am riding a unicycle. (I spent about 20 years running the local juggling and unicycling club). I managed to partially wedge the handlebars in place with a business card, but still had a fair degree of play, making limited progress, in the dark, along narrow pathways: difficult. In fact, I found that much of the time I could not ride the bike at all. The problem was compounded by my never having been on a conventional two wheeled machine for about 55 years. I have been riding a reverse steer bicycle for some years though: in itself a difficult challenge, and one in which a switch off the brain is required, so as to allow the body to automatically compensate for the bike's tendency to do its own thing, and by ignoring any <b><i>conscious</i></b> efforts to steer it. The problem yesterday was that the loose handlebars made the conventional bike FEEL like a reverse steer machine in the dark, and my automatic body reflexes were kicking in ahead of my brain, causing me to sometimes turn the wheel the wrong way and hence fall off. Lean left, try to turn right on a bike, and I guarantee a disaster. Even the rods, sticking out over the from wheel, looked like they turned the wrong way, compared to the rotation of the handlebar stem, and so further reinforced the impression of riding the reverse steer bike. It took me an age to get home, little quicker than had I walked. But I suppose it was fun in an odd kind of way, but the bolt has now been tightened...and some lights fitted!</div>
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-81360323702145940842018-04-23T11:27:00.001+01:002018-04-24T09:24:16.461+01:00Mersey Salmon. Nearly Christmas, So I Feel Entitled to a Rant or Two First, Then the Salmon....and a Couple of Rudd to Finish.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">It has been a while...again. I wrote the title to this before Christmas. It is now April, so my rant mode has long since evaporated. Far too long since my last blog entry. But sometimes I freely admit to not being bothered, too much trouble, watered down by the feeling that at times, I have insufficient of interest to say. Writer's block, I suppose a professional might call it. I'll call it laziness, if that is OK with you?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I have spent quite a time trying to photograph salmon in the Mersey and in its tributary the Goyt. Over the past few years, maybe a decade or so, a few salmon have been seen running up the Mersey. This is very gratifying, another sign that the efforts to clean up the local rivers is working. The salmon have not bred in the river, but are strays from other rivers, or so the EA told me. Contrary to popular opinion, salmon do not <u>always</u> return to the exact spot where they were born. Some get lost on the way, and stray into other river catchments. The EA informed me, a few years ago that fish from the Severn, the Dee, and even some french rivers had reached the Mersey. There are not huge numbers, but enough that, at the right time of year, spending a few hours at the "hot spots" for jumping fish, you are likely to see one or two. I have tried to persuade the EA that they should stock a few thousand parr into the headwaters, in each of several consecutive years, to no avail. I suspect they wish to see and observe how salmon naturally re-establish themselves into a river catchment. They don't want to contaminate the DNA that is natural to the river. BUT, as salmon have been long extinct in the Mersey there is none of the original DNA remaining. It is all foreign DNA, so I don't really see that stocking should be a problem. Ten years on and I have yet to see a single salmon parr in the river. In the River Dee, there are many thousands. Not one have I seen in either the Mersey or its tributaries. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_cnfH7Bi2Jk6OUmB20s5jwZJttaRTeLDvvwv5w0I789BHnnqNhzc-cUfcYQ5jr_Lwi3IEuUmL7Vcmqd2MNHwBXUIJDgu5AmKyrcIC45pWojzqfOqiBhL-WcG6Wpi4c8sl9l140XGUAeP8/s1600/parr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="321" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_cnfH7Bi2Jk6OUmB20s5jwZJttaRTeLDvvwv5w0I789BHnnqNhzc-cUfcYQ5jr_Lwi3IEuUmL7Vcmqd2MNHwBXUIJDgu5AmKyrcIC45pWojzqfOqiBhL-WcG6Wpi4c8sl9l140XGUAeP8/s400/parr.jpg" width="286" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Salmon Parr. and a Young Brown Trout.</td></tr>
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And I know of no-one else who can say reliably that they have seen or caught one. Many anglers would have difficulty in identifying them from young brown trout. I know I did: I had caught several on the Dee before I realized what they were, that they were different: salmon parr. But why do they not seem to be breeding in the Mersey catchment? Several reasons spring to mind. Some of the weirs are very difficult for fish to pass, one or two being impossibly high, even when the rivers are running a lot of water, thus restricting access to many ideal spawning sites. I don't know how badly floods might affect the eggs, or the newly hatched fish, but heavy rivers flows have been a common occurrence. Probably their effect has not been completely devastating, because brown trout, of which there are many, both above and below the larger weirs, seem to breed successfully. Maybe the water is clean enough to allow salmon to run upstream, but not so good yet, as to be suitable for young salmon parr. There is another factor to the equation: cormorants and goosander. The local streams are small, and generally shallow. Goosanders breed near these streams, and have large broods of chicks. The most young I have seen accompanying a single female was seventeen, most of which survived to adult size. That is a lot of small fish disappearing down a lot of avian gullets, and is, in my opinion, likely to greatly hinder the full return of salmon to the Mersey. So come on EA, give us some help! </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I took a few videos of salmon, but have been having immense trouble trying to link them into the blog. I'll try again, but am not hopeful. Any hints on how to incorporate videos would be much appreciated. Most of the fish I saw jumping were trout, maybe less than one in a hundred being a salmon. So this is a link to a shared folder. It contains three of my videos. You may need to copy and paste it into your browser window.</span><br />
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https://1drv.ms/f/s!AlLuA7bpQJftq1bN4YzqH8Rn2kef<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhefgMGXR9Gm2mHTFsPkuueET0SuBecQcESbt9l71Bsczc_X1dH5ebsJEtzr6CnM31yGl9ZX4QuZccD81NuolPwwPyTWVd74CiSGxzUZEQrpmQ1qoWj7On9YH5gzDOMU3w1DveCJc3rXccF/s1600/Mersey+Salmon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="1335" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhefgMGXR9Gm2mHTFsPkuueET0SuBecQcESbt9l71Bsczc_X1dH5ebsJEtzr6CnM31yGl9ZX4QuZccD81NuolPwwPyTWVd74CiSGxzUZEQrpmQ1qoWj7On9YH5gzDOMU3w1DveCJc3rXccF/s320/Mersey+Salmon.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Mersey Salmon</td></tr>
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The file "Woolston" is a concatenation of three salmon jumping at Woolston Weir. This is a condensation of over four hours spent with the camera pointed at the weir. I consider this weir as impassable to fish, and the sight of a fish attempting to jump it, means that it has missed the fish pass. The weir is probably 80 or 90 yards wide, with a small zig-zag channel fish pass right at one edge, the channel being a foot or so wide. It seems to me that this style of fish pass, on a very large weir, must be very inefficient indeed. Two other video are of fish, one definitely a salmon and the other a good sized trout (I think) making it up a section of a newly constructed, and far better designed fish pass. I found it astonishing that the fish powered their way up INSIDE the waterfall, rather than jumping over it.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">This still photo is of a Mersey salmon that was captured by the Woolston weir, when it was configured as a fish trap, rather than a fish pass.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I'll move onto the fishing now, and I would be the first to admit that the winter has not been kind to me. The grayling have proved elusive, on the few days when the rivers have been fishable. No notable fish have fallen to my charms. A few small ladies, the odd little chub and roach. All in all the rivers have been pleasant places to be, and so it has been lucky that catching every time is not really important to me. But I even went carp fishing one day, successes in the flowing water being so rare. I have not carp fished for over 40 years, and the 18 pound common I landed on the day did not thrill me the way it should have done, so I have to conclude that I am probably well over my carp fishing days. They are a species that appeals little, although I will probably have the odd cast at them, they are unlikely ever to feel important to me. They used to have a "hard to catch" reputation, but these days that is no longer the status quo. They have become just another species, to me at least. Other than a couple of zander, largest maybe a little over five pounds, few other fish have chosen to spend any of their time with me until recently. I would temper that by saying that the weather has been such that I often did not venture out, so I have fished much more infrequently than would be usual for me in winter.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">But a couple of weeks or so ago, I went rudd fishing. Such pretty fish, and I have found that they can be very obliging, they look good, and often take a bait well. No need either, to resort to modern scientifically proved, chemically stabilized, weight balanced, vitamin and nutrition packed, and therefore highly EXPENSIVE, baits. A loaf of Warburton's thick sliced toastie bread can often be all that is needed. A quid from most good retailers. Many anglers consider rudd to be a summer fish, and only a summer fish. I have not found that to be the case myself. They change their habits, and in colder weather are unlikely to be feeding on or near the surface. Not being able to see them makes them harder to locate, but if found, they may still feed, albeit differently. The water temperature being just 7 degrees, I decided that bottom fishing would be best, but location might be a problem. The first six hours or so were blank, completely so, and I was looking towards another session without any fish. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Then the dough bobbin ( a Warburton's dough bobbin of course) on the right hand rod twitched. Just twitched, but it was enough to confirm that something was in the swim. I didn't think it was a line bite. Warburton's bread has a confidence boosting texture. A texture that convinces me it is unlikely to fall off the hook, even after several hours. And so I waited. A little later a two inch twitch had me striking, and missing, a bite. I didn't miss the next one. It too was a tiny twitch, no more than a half inch of movement, but something in that movement suggested I strike, and I was into a fish. These little twitches were to be par for the course, and apart from a couple of fish caught on the float, all the bites on legering gear were to be very slight movements of the indicator, whether that was movement of a bobbin, or, as was sometimes the case, the rod tip bending slightly. I suspect that the tentative bites were related to the low water temperature, with fish being reluctant to move at any speed in the cold conditions. I was a little reluctant myself, and was well equipped with gloves, scarf and thick bobble hat. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-NnZcp2b_-d-ZOzPwOWYV7m0zBGhEtcIzrhgDPuJw6Q5zPz2P_wwX5g-6CDJ-PZHxbT2v5a0PMcHdEPxpHQbvkwprGLXc88VjXnzrABUYp3h1-7yidjYnX1MiL6jN03KH22hYxS3Efiz6/s1600/Rudd+2++++2-2+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-NnZcp2b_-d-ZOzPwOWYV7m0zBGhEtcIzrhgDPuJw6Q5zPz2P_wwX5g-6CDJ-PZHxbT2v5a0PMcHdEPxpHQbvkwprGLXc88VjXnzrABUYp3h1-7yidjYnX1MiL6jN03KH22hYxS3Efiz6/s320/Rudd+2++++2-2+%25282%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The First Rudd 2 Pounds 2 Ounces.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">That first fish, a rudd, was my target species, and weighed 2 pounds 2 ounces. An excellent fishy reward well worth the wait. But more and better was to come both that evening and during two more days spent chasing the rudd.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhukY7XJesq3DAJznU3JHmMygJE1SDuaNTXSCci7DlmnZun9N7Eg_w3hJ3RFHYlz2_0hzc-U6Z8-GFuQxH6P9St91uDpc-sY87CU8lFUZF2V4eHZDQSP1g62aptF_LGtb_TMMFST8bgYSmd/s1600/Rudd+1++++3-10++edited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhukY7XJesq3DAJznU3JHmMygJE1SDuaNTXSCci7DlmnZun9N7Eg_w3hJ3RFHYlz2_0hzc-U6Z8-GFuQxH6P9St91uDpc-sY87CU8lFUZF2V4eHZDQSP1g62aptF_LGtb_TMMFST8bgYSmd/s320/Rudd+1++++3-10++edited.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">It was not long before a second fish, having also twitched the bobbin, was en-route and into my landing net. This second fish was a true monster. A huge fish by anyone's standards. Three pounds ten ounces of beautiful, pristine rudd.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMKOVDZXGhijIZFNYWcaXUk42wjwm3vUaK698qLb1nituuhrR2hLMZUOYtttN2skFLBq2rNEQx4GOcStcWZJDGtNDUVdY_764wBSFDrCFUxwcG5D4a1IhpzaGvsDkcdqSpz44NG39Pd-yh/s1600/Rudd+1++++3-10+%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMKOVDZXGhijIZFNYWcaXUk42wjwm3vUaK698qLb1nituuhrR2hLMZUOYtttN2skFLBq2rNEQx4GOcStcWZJDGtNDUVdY_764wBSFDrCFUxwcG5D4a1IhpzaGvsDkcdqSpz44NG39Pd-yh/s640/Rudd+1++++3-10+%25281%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three pounds Ten Ounces.</td></tr>
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That fish proved, unsurprisingly, to be the largest I caught over the three days, but it was not the only huge fish. No less than <b><i>three (that's three!)</i></b> more fish of three pounds plus fell to baits taken from that same loaf.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtRh95cf_TidYP4ZPTdJbvmrh6AkJgnScYUrsQuoPEDAj_oPY7oMMCYs_D-iCeomHYfAkRISnNjrnzp9USALQ1QuOWGlNzuVP7VEFB48KG_vFvu6MZFEn65KC5HbU1__sfBE8vRuNBSfvj/s1600/Bw+Rudd+++3-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtRh95cf_TidYP4ZPTdJbvmrh6AkJgnScYUrsQuoPEDAj_oPY7oMMCYs_D-iCeomHYfAkRISnNjrnzp9USALQ1QuOWGlNzuVP7VEFB48KG_vFvu6MZFEn65KC5HbU1__sfBE8vRuNBSfvj/s640/Bw+Rudd+++3-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">In what was to prove the most satisfying three days of angling I have ever experienced, I finished with a total of twenty rudd. Four threes, the two smallest weighed 1-14 each, the other fourteen were all over two but under three pounds. All were caught on Warburton's bread, most on the leger but two or three on float gear, fished close in under an overhanging tree. The fish then disappeared, bites drying up completely. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Sad to see them go, but their disappearance could not lessen the elation of what had been, undoubtedly, my best ever catch of fish, of any species. I <b>know</b> I should be back there, and do wonder whether a four pound fish could be on the cards, but I like variation in my angling, and the tench are now too big an alternative attraction. Too big did I say? Hmmm, maybe not, as the first two tench this week were smaller than the biggest rudd. ;-)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I have always liked rudd. Sadly they have become either a rare species, or a species which has bred so prolifically in a water as to make even a 4 oz fish, a rarity in amongst throngs of tiny fish. They have a talent for multiplying rapidly, especially in small waters. Finding a good rudd water is never going to be easy, but I feel the larger waters are the places to go. </span><br />
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<br />By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-57274408085760653342017-10-08T08:47:00.003+01:002017-10-08T08:49:21.212+01:00"Not at Your Age", and a Rather Nice Triple Double.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Autumn is here already, I cannot believe how quickly it seems to have arrived. The schoolkids are already ignoring the conkers that litter the ground, looking forward instead to another evening tucked up with their smartphones. Might they have more fun if they drilled through the screens and threaded shoelaces through the holes? I walked along looking at all the sycamore seeds on the pathway, tiny footprints littering the mud of the track. Suddenly there it was: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">"Stop it! That's so embarrassing. You shouldn't be doing that, <i><b>not at your age</b></i>."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">A command, from my wife. But it is such good fun walking along, kicking up the piles of dead leaves on the pavement. Lovely rustling noises, and flurries of autumnal colour as I stir the beech and horse chestnut leaves from where they lay, undisturbed. I have, I suppose, always been a bit of a rebel, and rather than accept the instruction I pondered whether to completely ignore the order, or to suggest she might enjoy it too. The latter thought, having been offered, proved to have been the wrong decision, and I was in trouble again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I have often ignored people who tell me not to do this, or to stop doing that. Many minor things, and a few major sillies that were even more fun. When hang gliders first appeared, (the basic triangular wing versions), I heard that a friend of a friend of a friend, knew someone who he <b>thought</b> had just bought one. So a couple of weeks later I was there, atop a hillside, with an ungainly structure strapped to my back, and the wind in my face. A number of people had told me "Don't do it" and I wouldn't these days, if only because all the risk (fun) seems to have been taken out of it by the H&S gremlins. Nowadays you get a twin seater high tech kite, with an on-board instructor by your side, radio links, and probably a feather mattress to land on. Boring. Oh... and two people with tether ropes, one on each wingtip to keep it level and on course. Danger? What danger? But there will still be those who advise against the idea. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Instead, having splashed out a fiver for a very risky flight or two, I had to look at the owner of the glider and ask if he might have any tips. He had not, by then, offered anything other than details of how to attach the straps.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">"Keep it going straight down, and avoid that dry stone wall. Moving the bar sideways changes direction, move it forward or back to change height. Now; just start to run down the hill!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Very basic instructions that I could have probably worked out for myself. So: three steps and I was airborne. When it started to veer to the left I remembered that moving the bar sideways would correct the direction, realigning the straight down course. And it would have done so, had I moved the bar in the <b>correct</b> direction. Instead I had used it as I would have a car steering wheel, the drift left tightened and I rapidly U-turned back into the hillside, causing the odd bruise and some degree of bending of the airframe struts. But it was fun, great fun disentangling myself from the wreckage. My second flight saw me get over the dry stone wall...just. I would have said feet to spare, but my trainers actually touched the top stones of the structure. I did consider that maybe the site for a first flight might have been better chosen. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Far more recently, after yet another "<b><i>not at your age</i></b>", I was learning to ride a reverse steer bicycle. Not by any means an easy thing to do, by the way. Much harder than learning to ride a unicycle (which was also a <b><i>NAYA </i></b>for me to ignore). But after a couple of hours messing about, and failing to ride the daft bike, I climbed into the car and found myself, at the first corner, starting to turn the steering wheel the wrong way. I immediately corrected it, but the experience of riding the crazy bike must have rewired my brain ever so slightly. Much later and I can now ride it, and no longer have trouble steering the car.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I suppose the real rot started to set in last year: I was fishing a local pond, and one of a group of lads in their twenties addressed me as "Pops". I was horrified, never having been subjected to any form of ageism before. It still upsets me now. I have in fact told my son, as a warning shot, that I am not yet old enough to become a grandfather. And when using my bus pass, watching and listening to the other pensioners on the bus, I have often thought "Good God, I hope I am not seen to be like them."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I was walking home one day recently, passing through a group of high rise flats; council flats I understand. I was approached by a kid, a street urchin about 11 years old who asked me whether I lived there. I responded that I was just passing through and lived elsewhere. He didn't seem to believe me, first insisting I must live in the flats, and then asking me whether I was homeless. Now I know I was dressed in my fishing gear, and yes I do have a beard, but <i style="font-weight: bold;">homeless? Oh my God. </i>In the old days I could have probably clipped the cheeky little so and so about the ear. All I might have done on this occasion was to give him 50 pence to prove I was not destitute. But I decided against it. Let him think what he might. No way was I going to fuel his cigarette addiction. Little bugger.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I have a Chinese friend, known her for about 40 years or so. Although she is smaller and younger than myself, I sort of see her as my big sister. She too tries to keep me on the straight and narrow. Recently, she topped 60 herself, and asked whether I would go with her to her local pensioner social group. She is the type who always gets involved, usually far too deeply, having </span><span style="background-color: white;">in consequence,</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;"> to spend time that she can ill afford, doing things that she probably does not want to do. She has always been a sucker for such things. My presence would be partly to stop her in those tracks, and to give her an excuse to stay somewhat more distant, which will </span><span style="background-color: white;">probably </span><span style="background-color: white;">involve me taking some degree of blame. I'll go with her, but I feel I am just not old enough to be a pensioner yet. I don't mind having had the government pension, and the bus pass, for the last few years, but anything else to do with being a pensioner, I just do not want. I am just not ready for it. <i><b>Not at my age</b></i>!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">So last week, and the week before, I fished through a few nights. Twice in horrendous weather, pouring rain, mud, and a rising water level, lapping around my ankles. Obviously one more <b>"<i>not at my age</i></b>" of course, as my wife had pointed out before I went. Target was bream, and I was equipped with all the usual bait and tackle for such a session. Umbrella rather than a bivvy of course. Bivvies are for teens and twenties, not seasoned old, (would you cross out that word "old please?), warriors such as myself. So it was cold and wet, the misery of the first night only added to by three two pound eels, that, as is their usual wont, caused me hell. Night two was no better, just a single suicidal six inch roach. AND I ripped my trousers from belt down to the knee, climbing down an awkwardly steep bank to my chosen swim. I spent a draughty night. Prior to these sessions, I had not fished seriously for bream for well over 40 years, back in the Cheshire Meres days, and so bream was one of very few species for which my personal best fish had remained undisturbed. I did catch, one day, a number of fish of 8 and 9 pounds, with one of them going 9-15 , but it was a Cheshire Meres double that still topped my list. The Cheshire experience proved useful though, and, modified only by the substitution of a spod, in exchange for the old rubber dinghy, as the method of introducing bait, I entered night three. That dinghy was more like a kid's paddling pool to be honest, bright yellow, and I would no longer trust myself in it...definitely<i> <b>not at my age</b></i>. Luckily it has long been lost in the mists of time, or somewhere in the attic of my previous house. The spod is not perfect for my style of groundbaiting, but at a pinch it does the job...just. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOPYtG4UvM2Fp4htACv6SJQJ-sbATv1kE_gwmtmfTXrhgs8kWGpIxUd2HGNLbp7vp0n5KtU-EYOwUbogKLEvuT7Pa5zn5x0J8HLY_SxxkyjdCMlbZaxhCBngHeIiqW_AdNGVCJTJQsm6A4/s1600/bobbins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1600" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOPYtG4UvM2Fp4htACv6SJQJ-sbATv1kE_gwmtmfTXrhgs8kWGpIxUd2HGNLbp7vp0n5KtU-EYOwUbogKLEvuT7Pa5zn5x0J8HLY_SxxkyjdCMlbZaxhCBngHeIiqW_AdNGVCJTJQsm6A4/s640/bobbins.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dough Bobbins Ready for Action. Raining.</td></tr>
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Night three was difficult, and by 1 one o'clock only another eel had emerged to play with me. But then, my dough bobbin, (Hey! "Old fashioned" is not the same as "old"), on the right hand rod, rose slowly up to the butt ring, in what I have always regarded as a typical big bream bite. The strike made contact and I started to reel in what I was sure was another small eel. No real fight, but occasional resistance suggesting the eel was swimming backwards. But, half way in, it broke surface, odd behaviour for an eel, but it was too dark to see much, other than a disturbance in the mirror-like flat calm surface. As it neared the net though I realized it was a bream, only a bream could show that amount of flank. It looked huge, monstrous, even in the dark. And so it proved: 14 pounds one ounce of very good looking bream, with an absurdly high back, and very thick from side to side. It also deposited copious amounts of slime in my net. A tip here: either know the weight of your landing net in advance, or weigh it later, once the bream slime has left the mesh. It could make several ounces of difference to the weight of your fish, if weight really matters that much to you. It does seem reasonable to consider the slime to be part of that fish at the time it was caught. A second tip: to get rid of the slime, don't waste your time shaking the net: instead leave it submerged for a couple of hours or so, and it will have all quite miraculously, gone. <b>Now</b> weigh your wet net, and subtract from the weight you recorded with the fish in it. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDSWc_ZsA75U5BaP9UG6XTkBe_Xk561izTu5tn5FmdCQfy-lfc9AQM1H7Bc-UVr7c1BOW4tEfFs-iqkB1LkrnR6uJ8Y5e7Fqm7o6EClfLpsm3af3B3nZrCkeNS0f3XuS6DOm8Ru0YKynCZ/s1600/DSC03680.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDSWc_ZsA75U5BaP9UG6XTkBe_Xk561izTu5tn5FmdCQfy-lfc9AQM1H7Bc-UVr7c1BOW4tEfFs-iqkB1LkrnR6uJ8Y5e7Fqm7o6EClfLpsm3af3B3nZrCkeNS0f3XuS6DOm8Ru0YKynCZ/s640/DSC03680.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">14-1 a Humpbacked Whale.</td></tr>
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The bream dragged the LCD digits round to 14-1, considerably bigger than my old P.B. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Three more nights each produced just one bream, a 6 pounder, one of 11-8, and then a second fourteen pound fish, an ounce less than the first. Three doubles in a fortnight: excellent. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUz0DMddk9gG3tT2sntlG_NMPn0WFFnM8mEd00M0oWVV1kYqVsC72elgstg1hoXzHjGqaG9oEjBNwPMJ5KRf28IuW-HTTx5s6Yu7GVJawGj6yWSQyF1QPFaryJSpjkfReccMbzMwFYDw1k/s1600/%256014-0+%25286%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUz0DMddk9gG3tT2sntlG_NMPn0WFFnM8mEd00M0oWVV1kYqVsC72elgstg1hoXzHjGqaG9oEjBNwPMJ5KRf28IuW-HTTx5s6Yu7GVJawGj6yWSQyF1QPFaryJSpjkfReccMbzMwFYDw1k/s640/%256014-0+%25286%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">14-0...."Blinded by the Light".</td></tr>
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But I am now in a quandary. Half of me is in a "been there, done that" mood. None of the bream fought much better than your average dishcloth, they slimed everything up, and it is getting rather cold at night. The other half of me says strike away at that hot iron, for with two fourteen pound fish caught, there might be a chance of a 15, a 16 or maybe even bigger. Not sure what I will do yet...the barbel are calling me, and/but a sixteen pound bream would be no harder to catch than a fourteen, if the two fish were side by side in my swim. </span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The weight of fourteen pounds is quite significant for me. In my younger days, when all that mattered was that next, even bigger, fish, before I took my holiday from fishing for well over 30 years, I knew the then record fish sizes off by heart: Bream 13-12, barbel 14-6, tench 9-1 and there was Richard Walker's "Clarissa" at 44 pounds. I wonder if I should I blame Walker for the present day awful tendency to give fish names? I don't like it at all. But a friend recently referred to those 40 year old records as "our" records, and I would confess that they still have more meaning for me than the current numbers. I never tried to break any of those old records, they just seemed unattainable, but the goal was to get near them. Fish, certainly of those four species, are much larger these days in general, and that applies also to their modern record sizes. I don't know how big the present records are. Never bothered to look, and never reading the "comics", the sizes have remained unknown to me. It is generally thought that the much bigger sizes of fish these days is due to all the high protein bait that gets thrown in by anglers: boilies, pellets etc. etc. I think it is rather more than that. I feel the weather over the past 30 years or so has played its part, milder winters, and warmer summers allowing fish to feed well for longer. Certainly boilies and baits have been in the game, but so many big fish come from so many different waters today, even some that are lightly fished, that I am quite certain global warming ( or at least our improved weather) has played its part well. The result is that I have now broken "our" bream record twice in a month, and "our" tench record several times in the last few years. I don't claim it to have been a great angling feat, certainly a pleasing one, but one that anyone these days could manage with a bit of thought and some serious application to the task. I certainly haven't spent too much of my time fishing for such fish...far too much else to aim for, making full use of all the variations in species, size, methods, and venues that angling offers me.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">But I am not seeking a record fish: <i><b>not at my age</b></i>!</span></div>
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<br />By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-54968488708694962952017-09-19T12:44:00.001+01:002017-09-19T12:44:45.800+01:00The Red River.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Ah yes, the Red River, but first: some photos I might have added last time, but didn't, from the Farne Islands.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsMjlYxkn3W6HbihP5qNBkKrZIK2oOISeUGFG5i5cHzryNhYcFjXtoMff_pUm4NmfGdMNgYrnqr_DTdgvSAu4GED5vjHRYcoidFcA4g0eALiw4K4_9Xa0EOathkLD5KS1qJ93FqbBqztK6/s1600/DSC_0555.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1165" data-original-width="1600" height="465" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsMjlYxkn3W6HbihP5qNBkKrZIK2oOISeUGFG5i5cHzryNhYcFjXtoMff_pUm4NmfGdMNgYrnqr_DTdgvSAu4GED5vjHRYcoidFcA4g0eALiw4K4_9Xa0EOathkLD5KS1qJ93FqbBqztK6/s640/DSC_0555.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Only Razorbill I Managed to Get in Shot.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK9y5o1XHHcWhC4A_8T0k423VloJ7cYMVc5mXJkrSNLUCj3F6tbjPeXEB-v3dH029NGWpeZtFFu0YRgbNGVZqKNuwlKqYtBjb_PhJoqGfue-4ahoo1-JHFYwM0KcNtHNex0r5dFnvPSnDT/s1600/DSC_0652.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="1600" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK9y5o1XHHcWhC4A_8T0k423VloJ7cYMVc5mXJkrSNLUCj3F6tbjPeXEB-v3dH029NGWpeZtFFu0YRgbNGVZqKNuwlKqYtBjb_PhJoqGfue-4ahoo1-JHFYwM0KcNtHNex0r5dFnvPSnDT/s640/DSC_0652.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eider Duck...Just a Big Softie.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidvU9joOS4xbfExNsGK1YqErcJaWSvVOkB3Yt_kYb9EkGD8kw1-850ihZ1U3WP66f6RRVaHZkPyFqgp2o_Jhc_qykGbEMMmU8TuZwbt06CKSVZ3i7gv-ihbaRjo5ldmCtG5pjGP1Szrj4T/s1600/DSC_0505.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1031" data-original-width="1600" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidvU9joOS4xbfExNsGK1YqErcJaWSvVOkB3Yt_kYb9EkGD8kw1-850ihZ1U3WP66f6RRVaHZkPyFqgp2o_Jhc_qykGbEMMmU8TuZwbt06CKSVZ3i7gv-ihbaRjo5ldmCtG5pjGP1Szrj4T/s640/DSC_0505.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And I Am Sure No-one Will Mind Another Arctic Tern... I Didn't Realize That They Had Claws on Those Tiny Webbed Feet.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLzlsfmbpx2H5krEepw7SnAZDriPnySVvf6Ed8vEfmuTnTjF9iZj__r1SseTzvnSXDST5FloFUFMJn4kGqYTh0M01lSMJv4pJCHAIqnui_fDgxrUNsL1r0M-gu7GjkdmuRLLk4uGquwClT/s1600/DSC_0573.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLzlsfmbpx2H5krEepw7SnAZDriPnySVvf6Ed8vEfmuTnTjF9iZj__r1SseTzvnSXDST5FloFUFMJn4kGqYTh0M01lSMJv4pJCHAIqnui_fDgxrUNsL1r0M-gu7GjkdmuRLLk4uGquwClT/s640/DSC_0573.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...And More Puffins.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">So, back to the Red River. I had heard about this river a while ago, its real name being the Medlock, but I had never seen it. So I took a walk yesterday, as part of a keep fit project to go alongside the dieting. Only seven more pounds to lose now, in order to reach my target. But every pound gets more difficult, as my body says "No more, that's enough" and my mind now has to fight back hard as it tries to override my gut's instincts. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">When walking, any signpost that reads "riverside walk" is likely to divert me, and yesterday, one such sign did just that. I found myself on a long length of beautifully laid, Accrington Brick pathway. I followed it upstream. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2brCGrQVWgmsiftSh4D7nSDsJ4R3eEKo_4cnlZGWWugy_3HhEQc8BJzzjvPzKKZJUrYGvJ3-nzb_JyhBhIspe2pgJJL6xv3KmLj1P-nFmCZCbvFRehuI4feHJVSjO5rU1cMbPWc7GpXTS/s1600/DSC03647.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2brCGrQVWgmsiftSh4D7nSDsJ4R3eEKo_4cnlZGWWugy_3HhEQc8BJzzjvPzKKZJUrYGvJ3-nzb_JyhBhIspe2pgJJL6xv3KmLj1P-nFmCZCbvFRehuI4feHJVSjO5rU1cMbPWc7GpXTS/s640/DSC03647.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"> But it is not just the pathway that is composed of brick, the river bed itself, the channel, is made entirely in the same manner. And the other bank has a second pathway, both pathways being about ten feet in width. Hence the "red" river. By watching and timing a floating leaf, and comparing with my own known walking speed, I determined that the river, now at a fairly low level, was flowing at about 7 mph. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBIfIqZ8qyhxLONnDSJoaeQ4YG9lxl4ccEnWRN0NHCTqRiMcP3jMaO4RcRTEc4V36K7b8nIF6sAh0JV3Qw6RSSE8YbnW95IOm5aeNup76xiYWxB1GRnwE7loCXrN9DP_PIkM7qZpA32n_/s1600/DSC03661.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBIfIqZ8qyhxLONnDSJoaeQ4YG9lxl4ccEnWRN0NHCTqRiMcP3jMaO4RcRTEc4V36K7b8nIF6sAh0JV3Qw6RSSE8YbnW95IOm5aeNup76xiYWxB1GRnwE7loCXrN9DP_PIkM7qZpA32n_/s640/DSC03661.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Far faster than is conducive to fish presence, even if the brickwork held any natural food. There was nothing other than water in the channel, no weed, no shopping trolleys, no condoms. Anything in the channel would have been rapidly washed downstream. I don't doubt for a moment that, somewhere downstream, is a huge pile of rubbish of every description. But the red river itself is the cleanest length of water I have ever seen. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Not one plastic </span><span style="background-color: white;">bottle, not even a single football. Not that it does not get its share of rubbish passing through, as can be seen from this outflow pipe, largely blocked with sanitary product.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3CHSDKIHyPFAZi9HX08iKYMsDmX4pZeb4-IBqUg6N8xcoLX01VkYlUohhWzpSeJJ3yuCt1hAmafd9tWLBnPTmKSbrHS6H4Rf7zwjXhpz2GzTn01OqhXI4xOaL-C-hydRcPQPHbNqq-iRJ/s1600/DSC03656.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3CHSDKIHyPFAZi9HX08iKYMsDmX4pZeb4-IBqUg6N8xcoLX01VkYlUohhWzpSeJJ3yuCt1hAmafd9tWLBnPTmKSbrHS6H4Rf7zwjXhpz2GzTn01OqhXI4xOaL-C-hydRcPQPHbNqq-iRJ/s640/DSC03656.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Impressive Dry Stone Walling, with Almost Tropical Looking Vegetation.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The bricks on the curve at the interface between river bed and pathways have precisely tapered cross sections. Sculpted bricks to fit in place precisely. Alongside each pathway, one on each bank, are 8 to 12 feet high dry stone walls. But they are built from huge stones, as much as three feet long and a couple of feet high. A fantastic example of dry stone walling. Not content with that, at the back of the stones is more brickwork, strengthening the walls even more. Wildlife was more or less absent, and apart from half a dozen grey wagtails, a species that appears to enjoy living on the edge, I only glimpsed one other bird, in the undergrowth nearby. I think it was a robin. At various points old archways suggest bits of interesting architecture and tunnels that were once in use. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi79ov3ljsP7X3wBFUmTIlRA6YW9vdAB9GOxriGDYKxpT4my3HqIReLMFWanifUVumm1ktA7ENAm_Qx0gTfL58WtsuHqk4aZ_KNw4-5l-SYUyU9NS3wUbb7KQKjpBVPcHZcgJnieTO-OU3G/s1600/DSC03657.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi79ov3ljsP7X3wBFUmTIlRA6YW9vdAB9GOxriGDYKxpT4my3HqIReLMFWanifUVumm1ktA7ENAm_Qx0gTfL58WtsuHqk4aZ_KNw4-5l-SYUyU9NS3wUbb7KQKjpBVPcHZcgJnieTO-OU3G/s320/DSC03657.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nature Finds a Way.</td></tr>
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A few trees have long since invaded the walls, with heavy trunks and roots clinging into the narrowest of cracks. Graffiti artists have so far, apart from a single tag, completely ignored the place. I should have been horrified by the whole reach, but it did have its own "atmosphere", which in itself was a fascination. And what terrific engineers those Victorians were!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">At the end of the red bricks, was a short tunnel under a roadway, but no means was provided to climb up, and back out, of the brick valley, and I began to realize that this brick pathway was possibly...probably...certainly not the advertised "riverside walk". So I had to walk the whole way back, finding the gate I <i>thought</i> I had come through, was now locked. Slightly worried, I continued downstream to the other end of the red brick road and found a second tunnel. I also, fortunately, found another way back up the banking. The red brick paths on either side of the channel are of course, just extensions of the river bed, and very definitely NOT the riverside walk, and with the river in flood those dry stone walls become the containing banks. I looked up a bit of its history, the bricks being laid following a devastating flood back in 1872, during which the river level was so high, and the flow so great, that many tombstones and bodies were washed away downstream from out of the nearby cemetery. If it is the same cemetery I saw, the nearest body would have been some 40 feet above the river bed. An impressive flood level for any tiny stream.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6muMRLEInNONtjp2gTT72Twujr2QPfYw6HaRio12-ApxAaP-Ci0OYmEhjaMu8lRA846V7BCH4s8HdZ8SIz-549E6fLGP1FwFqHm9l86f4nxmb_55ZANHQbXyKSSHhY11lB56TvEAY3hJC/s1600/DSC03659.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6muMRLEInNONtjp2gTT72Twujr2QPfYw6HaRio12-ApxAaP-Ci0OYmEhjaMu8lRA846V7BCH4s8HdZ8SIz-549E6fLGP1FwFqHm9l86f4nxmb_55ZANHQbXyKSSHhY11lB56TvEAY3hJC/s320/DSC03659.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Arched Structure.</td></tr>
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I read that some of the tombstones are still to be seen in the river far downstream. The downstream tunnel (or culvert) is some 600 yards long, flowing right underneath the car parks of Manchester City football club. Another man-made channel, but this time with an arched brick roof. It is one of quite a few subterranean sections of this river, before it finally joins the Irwell on the other side of Manchester city centre. In 2013 a project was announced to remove all the red bricks, and the underlying concrete foundations, so as to re-naturalize the river. It was reported in the Guardian, but I see no evidence of any work at all having been carried out. In the mile long red section there are at most a couple of hundred missing bricks, each removal looking like the work of the river itself. But in general, there is no sign of any significant deterioration, and absolutely no signs of wear on any of those rock hard bricks, despite well over a century of river flow across them. These 8 million bricks will weather a nuclear attack better than any cockroach. The longevity and toughness of Accrington bricks led them to being used in some parts of the Empire State Building, and also in another building of rather less significance....my own house. Above the bridge, at the upstream edge of the Red River, the channel looks far more natural, although its edges are still, in many places, constrained by stone or brick walling. And there are a few fish present here, I saw a small one rise.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">I fished a very large water a few weeks ago. The objective being, once again, tench. I last fished it over 50 years ago, when I used to catch roach there. It was difficult fishing for a young lad then, long distance casting required to reach deep water, and then it was very deep, far deeper than my rod length, and the float fishing was thus; not at all easy. Roach, but plenty of them was all I caught...maybe with the odd perch, but the water has, like many others, changed dramatically, and now has tench, a species unheard of in the water back then. It is still rated a hard water by local anglers, and they may well be right. After forking out for three day tickets ( at a cost rather more than the old price of half a crown), I had just one tench, and a couple of small roach to show for my efforts. The tench was somewhere between 4 and 5 pounds, I didn't weigh it, but the beast shown below, weighing a lot more, swam right across the lake as I fished. A red deer, antlers still covered in velvet, and therefore probably still growing.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2e2te0msEd-jO6PWxQq8QRoUFM7QW9e5-KL5rMlnWCcKF5yS31DC9ustwwkIxJpVnZ8rAgRu1vw9E57FeU5_BWt-JC_UXEzyMxRH_m40KmmyIpS1w4uuQoXZqDbL0dDn5yvL_r7fyzue/s1600/DSC03334.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2e2te0msEd-jO6PWxQq8QRoUFM7QW9e5-KL5rMlnWCcKF5yS31DC9ustwwkIxJpVnZ8rAgRu1vw9E57FeU5_BWt-JC_UXEzyMxRH_m40KmmyIpS1w4uuQoXZqDbL0dDn5yvL_r7fyzue/s640/DSC03334.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb-TqY3Kgrl4lH2M8Nr7oREW6mzf8S45DWLDzJYlYxCz-oMDGSZZWGh-vuFJtmQThlITdmQGZHqdeY6ofEGhGpIeLIyYgJCkDitFdTRt83kVWOknHF0v5uNkfmWwIms0ldYxD7iO_l4kbE/s1600/DSC03338.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb-TqY3Kgrl4lH2M8Nr7oREW6mzf8S45DWLDzJYlYxCz-oMDGSZZWGh-vuFJtmQThlITdmQGZHqdeY6ofEGhGpIeLIyYgJCkDitFdTRt83kVWOknHF0v5uNkfmWwIms0ldYxD7iO_l4kbE/s640/DSC03338.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE_ERVUq_W53Ko3dMr_aToaFfMlGIlIivxq3O-KSD-IoftyRHnpuVLA8aGzjvThCy1c3R_vXipJEjO_stuNiVXYn1JxqzIjoU3KaM9hJp0WuL7zd5d0VTznSWgW81TEZL0cIhdBa7QGrKW/s1600/DSC03340.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE_ERVUq_W53Ko3dMr_aToaFfMlGIlIivxq3O-KSD-IoftyRHnpuVLA8aGzjvThCy1c3R_vXipJEjO_stuNiVXYn1JxqzIjoU3KaM9hJp0WuL7zd5d0VTznSWgW81TEZL0cIhdBa7QGrKW/s640/DSC03340.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"> In India I have had buffalo, elephant and crocodiles in my swim. On the Shropshire Union Canal I once had a horse fall into my swim. Unfortunately it drowned. But a full grown 14 point stag is a first for me. Later, as I approached my van, he, and a dozen of his mates, in an all male group, blocked my path, being rather reluctant to get out of my way. I half expected to be charged by one or more of them, but it didn't happen. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I Definitely Felt I Was Being Watched</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Fishing wise, not much else to show. A few more tench, four grayling, half a dozen roach-bream hybrids, and two more small roach, these two being all I had caught during three failed sessions chasing bream. But I <b>was</b> visited by this wonderful little grass snake.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SHW1BBHKIj3IE5Nznv5vx93VZkj7QKfmcutLxm6ZazFka090ht0zw2J6_OsmyV4dNjnWxl7cpvCVcYgm4O7dLvmkAaoWp8plPf4txUSudNFZhBAYA4AuIH5gf6vSGkAaXKrf7VvqF9is/s1600/DSC03281.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SHW1BBHKIj3IE5Nznv5vx93VZkj7QKfmcutLxm6ZazFka090ht0zw2J6_OsmyV4dNjnWxl7cpvCVcYgm4O7dLvmkAaoWp8plPf4txUSudNFZhBAYA4AuIH5gf6vSGkAaXKrf7VvqF9is/s640/DSC03281.JPG" width="640" /></a><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">So, a couple of bits of trivia to finish. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I was quite amused by a sign on a camper van: </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">"NO FOOLS LEFT IN THIS VAN OVERNIGHT".</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">And having watched a programme about the brain on TV, I was shocked to find out that BOTOX was no just a sort of plastic crack filler, as I had previously thought, but <span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">a neurotoxin </span><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">produced from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. I suppose I might have guessed that the "tox" referred to a toxin, and maybe not that the "Bo" is derived from a form of botulism. But the very idea of injecting the most lethal neurotoxic known, into one's head, is just astonishing. My son, a doctor, tells me it is only available by prescription in the UK, and that some doctors make a fair packet prescribing it for the clients of various Botox clinics, whose practitioners do not need any medical training. Rather than filling in the cracks in the forehead, this stuff actually is locally paralyzing the flesh. I wonder how many of the recipients of the treatment know just what it is that is being injected? And surely someone could have come up with some far less dangerous, but equally effective, substance?</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">The various forms of such vanity treatments are continuing to diversify, but I was again incredulous when my lad told me that one of the latest male fads is a procedure to remove the wrinkles from the scrotum! OMG...time to go fishing I think. </span></span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </i></span></span></div>
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-90658278286242385642017-09-03T16:54:00.003+01:002017-09-04T14:12:21.473+01:00Of Birds and Badgers....<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Oh dear...I have been lazy and idle once again. Not written anything for ages. The paragraphs that follow were all written months ago, round about ten past Spring, and have lain fallow on the hard drive ever since, gathering dust...although any real dust in a hard drive would have spelled the death of any data on it. My scribblings have instead just died of old age I guess. But here they are, exhumed from the coffin:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">River season approached...rather too fast for my liking. It was almost an advantage NOT to have a whole slice of angling unavailable to me. Even without the river, I felt I had too much to go at and too little time during which to tackle it. Either I ignored all my life outside of angling or I missed out on some things I really wanted to do. Having ignored all other things, many years ago, I know it is not the ideal course to navigate...by far! </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Therefore, now that my full vista of waters is available, I have done rather less with the tench than I had expected. But I have fished a far greater variety of waters for the species than ever before, and the results, as I expected, have been equally variable. The tench have varied in both colour and size. Nothing huge, but some nice ones amongst them. Their colours, especially in fish taken from clear water, can be stunning, some with orange bellies, others very metallic green, and all having that super slippery feel to them. Most have come to the float, and often when also fishing for crucian carp. There is something very exciting about seeing a float slowly rise four or five inches, and having the resultant strike hit something that is solid, and obviously NOT a crucian. Having this happen near the lily pads that fringe the lake, using a light trotting rod, and similarly light tackle all adds to the experience. I was sort of "told off" by a club bailiff this week. He suggested, quite strongly, that I should be using at least 10 pound line, "because the fish are not shy", and "the deep reedbeds fringing most of the lake are a problem, with many anglers losing fish in them". But I just cannot fish like that, I am old fashioned maybe, and like to think that the fight is a two way scenario, not one that I KNOW I will win. Some of the scraps I have had, have therefore been a bit heart in mouth stuff, especially knowing that, if properly entangled in those lily pads I might also lose an expensive, custom built float. I speak to many anglers who take the view that, once hooked, the fish MUST be landed at all costs. And so they use tackle that to me seems far, far too heavy. I don't lose many fish myself to breakages, no matter how caused, and unless that changes I will continue to fish my own way, using whatever tackle I feel is suited. But I will admit that, with a good tench on the line, and in the lilies, I have occasionally wondered whether that 13 foot trotting rod, three pound line, half pound test curve, the one I use for crucians, grayling and the like, is actually a bit under gunned for the job. But I continue to extract the fish from the pads, if with difficulty, and so continue to use it. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"> But the tench fishing has not been without its problems, and I have had about four very good ( but unseen) fish, shed the hook well into the fight. I feel this is unusual for tench, their thick rubbery lips should retain almost any hook hold. But I have changed my hooks this year, to a model with a much finer wire and a micro-barb. I don't venture any final opinion to the barbed/barbless arguments. I feel that an experienced, caring angler should be able to extract a barbed hook without creating any damage to the fish. It might take experience, but it is perfectly feasible to unhook a fish well. I don't hold with another common belief either, that barbless hooks move around in the mouth of the fish, as it is played, therefore causing damage. I see no evidence for that at all. I do think though, that match anglers, who let's face it, <b>need</b> to fish quickly, <b>should</b> be using barbless hooks at all times. For matches I think they should be compulsory, matchmen do not have time to battle a hook out, and so the more unscrupulous may well damage some of their fish. But using barbless should enable them to extract the hook very speedily indeed, with no risk of damage. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"> But what of <b>my</b> problem? Well, I have been wondering whether, in a long fight with a good fish, a fine wire hook might just <b>cut </b>its way through the flesh. I need to study the hook holds in my landed fish, to search for any signs that the hook is acting like cheesewire. I like these hooks, and would like to keep using them, but may find I have to revert in the future. Certainly, to use them with ten pound line, and with a rod capable of applying that kind of tension, I might well be damaging fish...and would certainly be straightening a few hooks too. In my opinion, if you straighten a hook, then the line you are using is too strong for that hook, and I am still surprised that hooks do not come with a recommended line strength.. Hook/line combinations can be tested easily at home before use, but you must try to emulate a genuine hook hold. Putting the hook point on a block of wood and pulling on the attached line is not a good way to do it, as most hook holds are on the bend of the hook, not its point...another reason why the barbed/barbless argument is often a lot of people talking without thinking, without any real knowledge of what is actually happening down at the hook. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">I don't like being TOLD how I must fish, preferring to work things out for myself. I will be ignoring that bailiff's comments for the moment. Many of the clubs' rules are a little unreasonable. I fish waters where you are banned from taking any glass or cans onto the water. The theory is that with no cans in the tacklebag, none get thrown in the bushes, In practice, the kind of angler that is likely to drop litter, is the kind who will ignore the rules, take his 6 pack of Stella anyway, and then throw the cans into the reedbeds before the bailiff sees them. Every winter the departing greenery reveals the rubbish thrown into those out of sight spots. And often, out of sight means out of reach too. The trouble with <b>anyone</b> writing about litter, is that those <b>reading</b> it will already be the converted. It matters not how eloquent we are in discussing and bemoaning the subject, if none of the litter throwers ever get to see our output. Only the stick is likely to work, but too few seem willing to wield it. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Here endeth the stuff I wrote months ago. This that follows is all new, although the events inspiring the text may not be so.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">I have continued in the main to fish small waters for tench and crucians. I could have equally said "fished waters for small tench and crucians, for apart from a few six pound tench early season I have had none over about five pounds since. But as I have often said, size does not overrule everything. Catching 2 and 3 pound tench on light line, fishing near thick lilies in swims also bordered by trees that have fallen into the lake is quite adrenalin inducing. Trying to turn a male tench, determined to reach snags only a yard away, on a centrepin, light rod and that three pound line takes skill, and is often more exciting that reeling in a leger caught 7, 8, 9 or even 10 pound tench from a swim where the only chance of losing a fish is through a hook pull. So: lots of tench, a goodly number of crucians, some of them over two pounds, and stray rudd, roach and carp have filled the sessions so far. Less sessions that usual, for we have had a couple of relatives from the Far east visiting, and so I have been allocated taxi duties, and tourist guide duties. Some walking in the Lake District. We circumnavigated Buttermere, upon which my wife asked whether it was called "Buttermilk, or Buttercream?" Oh well! Earlier in the day we had walked most of the way around Crummock Water. All the way THINKING that it was Buttermilk. It was thus a very long day and quite exhausting.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"> I was fairly well bored by Hadrian's wall and a couple of its hill forts. But one trip I would highly recommend to anyone in July is the Farne Islands. Seabirds in vast numbers as well as grey seals, gave me a good opportunity to play with the camera. Three thousand or so incredibly graceful Arctic terns that completely ignored us, allowing ultra close approach, unless we ventured too near a nest with eggs, in which case they dive bombed us, attacking the head. This sent my wife and guests running for cover, with only myself being daft enough to stay still and suffer the onslaught. Probably my only chance to get attacked in this way, so I was determined to enjoy it. They drew blood from my scalp... through my hat! But beautiful creatures. With such tiny red feet, which is, I suppose, indicative of how rarely they need to use them.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUUzBkAc9Ebc_AAohQTksA5RkgPrrEgR4USn-UqPyzyVbXDIGFfptEQiJ-HcDU90oLndtLgs707Dt9DhyobuXPOzHZKQZn_2r7zpRIXBspk3geFD6I5X2mTS98th8Ia1tjAe-4fU5dxi0l/s1600/DSC_0612.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUUzBkAc9Ebc_AAohQTksA5RkgPrrEgR4USn-UqPyzyVbXDIGFfptEQiJ-HcDU90oLndtLgs707Dt9DhyobuXPOzHZKQZn_2r7zpRIXBspk3geFD6I5X2mTS98th8Ia1tjAe-4fU5dxi0l/s640/DSC_0612.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arctic Tern</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh12mx02yXpwgREF_GyKQLQTT8ervieHPagARNPUqWELHnHNWcKI9dp8ubba0ddQSTAo5Uc1AM_srW4uzGUyTK8ZVAZQIidiSj6Bkm368qtQRqxAqJPUUuXowQxw_e3ezlEgraZEFQf-kjH/s1600/DSC_0600.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh12mx02yXpwgREF_GyKQLQTT8ervieHPagARNPUqWELHnHNWcKI9dp8ubba0ddQSTAo5Uc1AM_srW4uzGUyTK8ZVAZQIidiSj6Bkm368qtQRqxAqJPUUuXowQxw_e3ezlEgraZEFQf-kjH/s640/DSC_0600.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plural.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXX5K2B5eAkimNxIqH9dKZU69qiRiXEnUA1moiZOZfVUejYDd3QCCnfnBdmWTJ2BnXaO-TUsPxfcBksalsvmqxFEzjGHMlJF3gB2D9raIiaIATNoiOidtIxd0E52dRJBowRiE6fFWDf_1I/s1600/DSC_0591.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1038" data-original-width="1600" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXX5K2B5eAkimNxIqH9dKZU69qiRiXEnUA1moiZOZfVUejYDd3QCCnfnBdmWTJ2BnXaO-TUsPxfcBksalsvmqxFEzjGHMlJF3gB2D9raIiaIATNoiOidtIxd0E52dRJBowRiE6fFWDf_1I/s640/DSC_0591.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With Young</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA3XNUe7DDjn9yPKjfUSEJSsLFegsT04mkC0rbDno_rBlZ_PRAJsvyR3hVQaKHEphIX3l6BIiC1S09hpPbnr3NG8puhoCbmnQouQ-_vVGgkq2FMlxFsicZhNOGKaX-3ovzfS_bqlfkRVV0/s1600/DSC_0513.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1244" data-original-width="1600" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA3XNUe7DDjn9yPKjfUSEJSsLFegsT04mkC0rbDno_rBlZ_PRAJsvyR3hVQaKHEphIX3l6BIiC1S09hpPbnr3NG8puhoCbmnQouQ-_vVGgkq2FMlxFsicZhNOGKaX-3ovzfS_bqlfkRVV0/s640/DSC_0513.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">And how on Earth do puffins manage to catch seven or nine sandeels in their beak, without the fish</span><span style="background-color: white;"> wriggling free, or being dropped? A friend said he believed that they held them under their tongues, thus releasing the beak for the next sandeel to be caught. Obviously this beakful is intended for a chick or it would have been swallowed, but I was surprised that the bird was just standing around, almost waiting for a neighbour to steal them. I can only guess that the bird had forgotten where its burrow was. Maybe it had some age related problem...I saw a program that said the oldest UK puffin was about 38 years old, and that they often live to be 30 plus.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_g66NA2I1B4UuSIMOnbaQ4asepxBrPP5OphGgf2P1-cW7lfvyNWKdH8PZ_JIiXDVcc8sve8ttrkYpIObhTRipFlN_LgBjWqHB2lS9VA9ye_Jsu4wPm4L7mWGLxwxGpoWTG8kpftGaoyZW/s1600/DSC_0537.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_g66NA2I1B4UuSIMOnbaQ4asepxBrPP5OphGgf2P1-cW7lfvyNWKdH8PZ_JIiXDVcc8sve8ttrkYpIObhTRipFlN_LgBjWqHB2lS9VA9ye_Jsu4wPm4L7mWGLxwxGpoWTG8kpftGaoyZW/s640/DSC_0537.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Puffins.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5VCb8_AfbJ4SqS6qscWYk3_dZvslqyvqxobGXJsZyorPlRX8J2B_g7KIuW9SfmOnHics_V5llsndxOAUcGdOinWr0pV8X-M225E2Q112cm4d5skrBw1ysher4oCGr2M1WyrpiAKQRQKo0/s1600/DSC_0560.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5VCb8_AfbJ4SqS6qscWYk3_dZvslqyvqxobGXJsZyorPlRX8J2B_g7KIuW9SfmOnHics_V5llsndxOAUcGdOinWr0pV8X-M225E2Q112cm4d5skrBw1ysher4oCGr2M1WyrpiAKQRQKo0/s640/DSC_0560.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Somewhat Unfortunately Named Shag With its Dramatic Green Eye</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLicaQiNxXRxXSQxxMs472X9Ui8ZkZq3lp5cuIE8vepOPpJsG5HEliYICWcnyBMH3lrOVKmDOYZohT5_62AeISthBQ1gDmPe8JCwHfTlFv6vwHfBeepMpXN2-c8CQon-eFBMhlve4UI0Rt/s1600/DSC_0558.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLicaQiNxXRxXSQxxMs472X9Ui8ZkZq3lp5cuIE8vepOPpJsG5HEliYICWcnyBMH3lrOVKmDOYZohT5_62AeISthBQ1gDmPe8JCwHfTlFv6vwHfBeepMpXN2-c8CQon-eFBMhlve4UI0Rt/s640/DSC_0558.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Deep Throat.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmvjtvC7d0971m4ESVW9mtyjItKA2l7gjl3daUkMPYGr3eO2GMoHgLZghEI7aKOYA-8jOxerIO3Yq_nthLsI3HecWCypFpvwm6oL3r_8xl1k_uuwLfPdA_9DQfUbd0MOLxWOrCov9ymKG9/s1600/DSC_0551.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmvjtvC7d0971m4ESVW9mtyjItKA2l7gjl3daUkMPYGr3eO2GMoHgLZghEI7aKOYA-8jOxerIO3Yq_nthLsI3HecWCypFpvwm6oL3r_8xl1k_uuwLfPdA_9DQfUbd0MOLxWOrCov9ymKG9/s640/DSC_0551.JPG" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Guillemot</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw8D9xNKnVRpdBv6qI-_cjRPzLOTxQpvkGdrm116UHsKbQk9ZTT8boYBGEWzm5gF_5q96x7KFImtodUcji3yh0-aQ5pmiQB6ej07hqj3uqNAcKplhV9xu8Liyfqh0xC7PFqnKzQwfsPbMQ/s1600/DSC_0554.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw8D9xNKnVRpdBv6qI-_cjRPzLOTxQpvkGdrm116UHsKbQk9ZTT8boYBGEWzm5gF_5q96x7KFImtodUcji3yh0-aQ5pmiQB6ej07hqj3uqNAcKplhV9xu8Liyfqh0xC7PFqnKzQwfsPbMQ/s640/DSC_0554.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Black Legged Kittiwake with Young..</td></tr>
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All of the seabirds were astonishingly tolerant of the close presence of visitors to the islands, luckily for them for tourists were present in quite large numbers. The National Trust keep a close watch on the place ( maybe aided by the RSPB). <br />
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Having returned home, with the photography bug somewhat rejuvenated, it was time to have yet another try to get a badger in the frame. As an angler I see badgers more often than most , but trying to photograph them has always been fraught and has never produced any good results, apart from one that I caught asleep by the roadside once. But this week's efforts have borne very ripe fruit.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXsIUyc7mvxY6CxcHRibgNTO3c-x2T8qmomjhQCKTvnIzLPES9IltLOCumkBsBN_8ybRiPhhS71QwyyNf3PdpKEjB_V0vnXxBb1S18mqRDPxuskdqYmwwUxQ2fzS7iQCEqn1-tleezaQw/s1600/DSC_0106.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXsIUyc7mvxY6CxcHRibgNTO3c-x2T8qmomjhQCKTvnIzLPES9IltLOCumkBsBN_8ybRiPhhS71QwyyNf3PdpKEjB_V0vnXxBb1S18mqRDPxuskdqYmwwUxQ2fzS7iQCEqn1-tleezaQw/s640/DSC_0106.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Brock</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9LvpkRMiszSVlEz3Yx3vKDdv-xmNtcX-V5-avIEfElk08jN5Nbg3rg2ta4_ti5Cj7CKHLmZhHDoIcAz7ycz8Ys9NGh-i9zl7g4efTreELkhCqLHmKlvAQA2v42QxZMzsY2o-V1F1FY74/s1600/badgersplus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="995" data-original-width="1600" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9LvpkRMiszSVlEz3Yx3vKDdv-xmNtcX-V5-avIEfElk08jN5Nbg3rg2ta4_ti5Cj7CKHLmZhHDoIcAz7ycz8Ys9NGh-i9zl7g4efTreELkhCqLHmKlvAQA2v42QxZMzsY2o-V1F1FY74/s640/badgersplus.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With a Stray Fox.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjykHvvKxPo6FS4F5jE6DvH8V1YRtWOFdK-5cpm7AToKloCf05Vo8yYLoHKdV54vYwd27Shtv5U1hzQHFRI9hDXH0BAgu2HBWRg3f_ElZGmfe7uv4okqtpQO7dlfYzkcLvRDktJMo6k2zmg/s1600/Badgers+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1017" data-original-width="1600" height="406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjykHvvKxPo6FS4F5jE6DvH8V1YRtWOFdK-5cpm7AToKloCf05Vo8yYLoHKdV54vYwd27Shtv5U1hzQHFRI9hDXH0BAgu2HBWRg3f_ElZGmfe7uv4okqtpQO7dlfYzkcLvRDktJMo6k2zmg/s640/Badgers+crop.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Male, Female? Female, Male? </td></tr>
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The badgers were very tolerant of the camera flash, even the autofocus pre-flash, which lights up for at least a second. they did show some nervousness, but only when they had picked up a large item of food, such a as piece of bread. When taking peanuts they ignored the presence of the camera, which was no more than four feet away, completely. I was a few yards further back, with a remote camera trigger. One last tip for night observation, before I sign off. I was surprised to find that using ordinary binoculars (8 x 30) at night, actually made the view so much better. I had always assumed that they would have magnified, yet dimmed, the image. Something I had simply accepted, rather than actually thinking about the optics involved. <br />
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-91061239357981616342017-05-21T12:30:00.001+01:002020-12-22T18:20:29.210+00:00How Big is a Zebra?<div style="text-align: justify;">
A silly question you might suggest, but a question to which most of us have a pretty accurate answer, even those of us that have recently not been anywhere near a zoo, or to Africa for that matter. A more relevant question here might be "How big is a robin?" Or perhaps a red admiral butterfly, or a stag beetle? In each case I doubt I have a reader who could not give a pretty good idea of the size of each of those animals. He probably has more detail too, for instance that the Zebra's body stripes are vertical. He perhaps might know that each individual zebra has a unique pattern of those stripes, yet each of those individuals will be sufficiently different as to be identifiable by its stripe pattern. And it is also a very interesting question as to how those stripes are created, or how a trout gets its spot distribution, each of those being different too. That pattern generation was a question so interesting that even the great Alan Turing did some research on it. Biological mathematical enactments of chaos theory seems to have part to play in the creation of these patterns.</div>
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But if instead of the title question I had asked "How big is a roach?", or "What size is a bream?", you would have been unable to answer, unless supplied with a photograph, or the fish itself. Why the difference? Fish are pretty much unique in the animal kingdom, in that their adult size is not anything like a standard size. The size of an adult fish ( most especially in freshwater) is determined by numbers of fish present, water quality and by food availability. Not just by "This is how big it will grow". Do I hear someone shouting "What about dogs?" I should have added, "species that have not been mucked about with by man", although a dalmatian will always be about the same size as any other dalmatian. A Yorkshire terrier is still the same species as an old English sheepdog, and they could breed quite viably, although various stages in the process would have a fair degree of discomfort involved for one or both partners. In some ponds rudd of maybe 6 inches or so are fully mature, able to breed, and unable to grow any larger in that location. In another water they might all be expected to reach a couple of pounds. In some way, fish, having been evolving for half a billion years, have managed to do things differently.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBAJLjOWz60a4dM2XiIULje8vVdu1XyD3RRCNWMwAYXLD5UZeB_mAgDz6C3tZN0dpf9ZZMADonPIUsg7yj4-s5CvqarzDnCLNWcGZNZb5Mrj2bVoF65eQwpsDQg7_kLlJeOyai5N9hKlxZ/s1600/Roach+3-14+++2-10.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBAJLjOWz60a4dM2XiIULje8vVdu1XyD3RRCNWMwAYXLD5UZeB_mAgDz6C3tZN0dpf9ZZMADonPIUsg7yj4-s5CvqarzDnCLNWcGZNZb5Mrj2bVoF65eQwpsDQg7_kLlJeOyai5N9hKlxZ/s320/Roach+3-14+++2-10.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Angling Times Photo of a Brace of Huge Roach.</td></tr>
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There is another thing I have noticed about fish. Did any of you see the Angling Times photo recently of a huge brace of roach? 3-14 and 2-10. I have reproduced the photograph here, and hope that Angling Times will not be too upset by my doing so. These two fish are, quite obviously <b>not</b> young fish. Fish do not get to be of near record size in a short lifespan. But examine them closely: they <b>look</b> very young. Not a mark on them, no wrinkles about the eyes, no care worn, thin skeletal looks. They just look very young fish. And it is something I have often seen before, both in photos of fish, and in my own captures. If a fish is unaffected by disease, by parasites, or by predators and goes largely uncaught by anglers, it can still look newly minted, at almost any age or size, even if that fish lives in a river. Fish seem to have some inbuilt anti-aging mechanism, that most other species, especially humans, do not have. It is a trick I could use myself these days, if I had any idea how they do it, and maybe fish might provide a fertile hunting ground for those scientists doing research on extending the human life span. More relevantly, for anglers, it enables us to catch large fish that are unutterably beautiful. If big fish chasing had been more of a 'grab a granny' type of activity, it would be have been far less popular.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd4LH4dlCkJY-FuwMHsZqEQdSPsq5fw5lYP_hEWFrpmkvMkSftCXtl5TeZ5GYQlDewutPjw1quyFqCreniaoiUFfsOx1B6m3K7mfE6UVpq6WD42WZq4OtMYg1vOWtpm1KM5LCTHWqolgG_/s1600/2-0+%252810%2529.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd4LH4dlCkJY-FuwMHsZqEQdSPsq5fw5lYP_hEWFrpmkvMkSftCXtl5TeZ5GYQlDewutPjw1quyFqCreniaoiUFfsOx1B6m3K7mfE6UVpq6WD42WZq4OtMYg1vOWtpm1KM5LCTHWqolgG_/s320/2-0+%252810%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two Pounds Exactly.</td></tr>
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So: How big is a roach? ...or this roach in particular.<br />
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The answer in this case is exactly two pounds: a fish I caught by accident a couple of weeks ago whilst fishing for something else entirely. Not my biggest roach, but in my view any roach over one pound is an excellent fish, and two pounders are great gifts indeed...even if unintended captures. The circumstances of this capture though, were so bizarre, that I still scarcely believe them myself, and knowing that, I am not going to ask any of you to believe it either. Therefore I am not going to go into any detail. That's right: I am not telling you, so there, nah na na nah, nah! As some comedians might say: "Always leave them wanting more". But there was a useful lesson to be had there: when an opportunity arrives, take it. So I re-jigged my approach so as to specifically seek roach, and using mainly Warburton's bread ( one of my all time favourite baits), I landed a few more good roach over a period of three days, with a total of fourteen of the fish going over a pound. Very pleasing. But I was unable to get an intentional two pounder, the best going 1-15. That happens to me a lot, catching a fish just under a particular well known and recognized target size. I did however get a second accidental capture whilst chasing the roach: this time it was a rudd. 3 pounds one ounce. One hell of a fish. My best rudd ever, but once again, a completely unintended success. But, taking the same lesson a second time, I sought out some weedier, shallower water and fished specifically for rudd, whilst keeping the thick sliced bait. Again I was unable to better or equal the fish that had intruded into the roach sessions. But:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2VvSLlQAQSthhtkX3yUhXTFmtlK6x6azmoxnHwXy9JQ5grEMQ5THVDoEtt5fgKo0cZIalZ3txkppRF9Zmgk6j2yc1SWllQwumUkbcpjlzoHSX0OIWF97ZWeUakgKt99hFvpXan_scwfAF/s1600/DSC02989.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2VvSLlQAQSthhtkX3yUhXTFmtlK6x6azmoxnHwXy9JQ5grEMQ5THVDoEtt5fgKo0cZIalZ3txkppRF9Zmgk6j2yc1SWllQwumUkbcpjlzoHSX0OIWF97ZWeUakgKt99hFvpXan_scwfAF/s640/DSC02989.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2-7 and...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-BrtT68vsB4I72mPWNx5nSuzyJx1ZEuWMePbRkH1i42WWOMofjHJQxTm5-82Bu8TnZyVLHx_R10B3FLBoSgBUCa1n-8NcVhbjvhh2i8YN-dQnVE7jVpbqnb7-n5FJHYmiF-yCmSIIBR2F/s1600/DSC03049.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-BrtT68vsB4I72mPWNx5nSuzyJx1ZEuWMePbRkH1i42WWOMofjHJQxTm5-82Bu8TnZyVLHx_R10B3FLBoSgBUCa1n-8NcVhbjvhh2i8YN-dQnVE7jVpbqnb7-n5FJHYmiF-yCmSIIBR2F/s640/DSC03049.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2 pounds 8 Ounces of Gorgeous Rudd</td></tr>
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With fish of 2-5, 2-7 and 2-8, to add to the 3-1, I had no reason to complain or moan about it. More young looking fish. So, quite a successful few days. Yet another intruder blundered its way rather forcefully into the rudd session, nearly dragging my rod into the water. A common carp of fifteen pounds gave me quite a bit of drama, on a 13 foot light trotting rod, a centrepin and 4 pound line. It made a number of long runs, luckily all were directed well away from the nearby dense reedbeds. And I was fortunate in that I had filled the reel with a much longer length of line than I would normally have used, had I been using that same centrepin for river fishing, where too much line can create a "bedding in" problem that makes smooth long trotting difficult.<br />
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All in all a very big change from the last two or three weeks of the river season, which had cut up very rough for me, with very few fish at all in the landing net. I may have to revisit these redfins a bit later in the season, once they have got over their spawning period. The rudd, if not the roach, were just beginning to show the first signs of an expanding waistline.</div>
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This last week or so the crucians have been calling me again, although I suspect they may not quite be fully in the swing of things, feeding freely. Three sessions on one good crucian lake brought two blanks, and four fish on the third day. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBAcJNXi4PgkjvknThyphenhypheneSwvKRMq3zK6npcVyb24pPpkP-f2vMfB3fZOeW67ae4zkuIZXdl03TATh052Jd27oBxNJ079w79N_z4GK2L_ybj2XPqQ6dl1p9xsqUzKy9RivuOGU4M1dHn5dHG/s1600/DSC03153.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBAcJNXi4PgkjvknThyphenhypheneSwvKRMq3zK6npcVyb24pPpkP-f2vMfB3fZOeW67ae4zkuIZXdl03TATh052Jd27oBxNJ079w79N_z4GK2L_ybj2XPqQ6dl1p9xsqUzKy9RivuOGU4M1dHn5dHG/s320/DSC03153.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">High Backed Crucian.</td></tr>
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Two pound fish were again on the menu, with a couple reaching that mark, the best being a super cuddly example, very high backed indeed, a fish that scored 2.7 on the Richter scale. Bread again of course, with a very delicate lift method rig being used to present it. There is scientific research that demonstrates that crucians, caught in a water with predators such as pike, develop much higher backs than fish living without the presence of predatory fish. The body shape to me suggests why the lift method works so well with the species. After "bending" down to pick up a bait, the fish would soon have to get back on an even keel.<br />
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I should perhaps add a couple of things that I may have missed out when writing about the lift method recently. I always overshot a lift float, such that the bottom tell-tale shot actually sinks the float. The depth is then adjusted carefully, the objective being to get the line from float to that last shot as near vertical as possible. A couple of inches too deep and it needs a bit of tension in the line twixt reel and float. Admittedly there is then very fine control as to how much of the float shows, <b>bu</b>t, there is a disadvantage. Any fish swimming nearby, wafting the bottom of the rig around, may move that shot along the bottom. If it moved towards the angler, a lift bite will be seen: a false lift bite being generated as the line tension is eased. The shot is still on the bottom and the fish, having passed by, is probably now nowhere near when the strike is made. With the line vertical, most bites seem to be lift bites, rather than the float bobbing under, and a lift is almost invariably a sign of a fish with the bait in its mouth. Fishing lift method is probably the only time I bother being so very precise, aiming to get the float depth set to within half an inch or so. And it should probably be pointed out that the lift method is one way of getting single shot sensitivity, whilst using a float taking quite a large shot load in total. It allows casting at a far greater distance than would otherwise have been possible with a single shot float. I find a float that will take half a dozen shot will of course rise a little more slowly than a single shot float, but I quite like the drama of seeing an antenna rise several inches, in such a leisurely way. <br />
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I fished a second water, a small reservoir that I had fished for crucians a few years ago. All I had caught back then were hybrids. I knew they were not pure bred fish, But were they Crucian/goldfish...crucian/common carp? I thought the former. A dozen or so such fish decided me not to go back there in any hurry. But I didn't really know at the time exactly what they were, so I recently decided I would go back to check, using the greater knowledge that I now have. After catching half a dozen or so, I concluded they were goldfish, and crucian/goldfish hybrids. But pleasingly, very pleasingly, this time I also had five proper crucians. None much over half a pound, but any crucian is a delight for me to catch. <br />
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A third, local water has proved more difficult, with only one crucian from three half day sessions. Several tench happened along to cut through the quiet periods, causing havoc by charging into the lilies when hooked, and another common carp tested the mettle, having been hooked an inch away from the same lily pads. Twice though, fish, that I think were tench, managed to actually bite through the line very near the hook. I was not broken, the fish either bit through the line with their pharyngeal teeth, or managed to cut me off on a snag very near to the hook. Most odd. A pair of kingfishers were working this small reservoir, catching small roach and perch very effectively indeed. I missed bites watching them. They bashed the heads of the fish a few times and then flew off to a small nearby stream where it would seem they must have young. A couple of other unusual bird events happened on the same water. After flying very low over the middle of the water a few times a pigeon, of the town centre type, actually landed on the water, right in the middle of the lake. After 3 or 4 seconds it took off again and flew away. Was it collecting water in its plumage to give to its young in this dry weather, rather like some Australian bird species do? I have no idea. But a heron also landed in the lake, sitting in the water like a mallard. It picked up a floating dead fish, and then flew off again. It, unlike the pigeon, had an obvious motive. Once before I saw a heron land on a large pond. It then paddled its way back to the bank and shallow water...with legs totally unsuited to the job of course. I only now realize it also could have probably taken off again from the water, had it but tried. Herons are such fascinating creatures. One, on a local little pond, used to dive in, gannet-like, to take small fish being reeled in by the anglers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZFsfqkbD82IWPJJO0j25keRLGI9nSr9xz1ICOqwWLE8YKN55ZpE9og3yqz9NWX_c3z4KQP4DL0YINjnumbMtHj9jJbtXN8hIWWEEd-HA2V1huW234IBi-1OLmLT6NaMFWW51sJs5T1m_/s1600/stonechat.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZFsfqkbD82IWPJJO0j25keRLGI9nSr9xz1ICOqwWLE8YKN55ZpE9og3yqz9NWX_c3z4KQP4DL0YINjnumbMtHj9jJbtXN8hIWWEEd-HA2V1huW234IBi-1OLmLT6NaMFWW51sJs5T1m_/s320/stonechat.jpg" width="320" /></a>Couple of interesting birds again this week: the photo is of what I think is a stonechat, seen on a patch of waste ground as I was taking a stroll recently. A new bird for me.<br />
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But also, much rarer: I was catapulting some bait out one day, when a previously unseen bird took sudden evasive action, so as to not be blasted by the group of small pellets. Rather like a shotgun blast without the blast...or the shot...or the gun. Only got a quick look at it, but it was most definitely a bittern. The only one I have ever seen. Brown, a little smaller than a heron. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVtJ0WaJvWENWH8tJN2e7KyqAXFHZzQHs5hRWX71aHcSWRtJOlP7Iy1aPFFCvIyXPwuJi48EfeJrMTgTpJ2hBL98EU0UGPiSeoig70_mCsD8VzE-ILsRXPeH2KQ1RN3Ybm7Qrs95_hz7q4/s1600/DSC03179.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVtJ0WaJvWENWH8tJN2e7KyqAXFHZzQHs5hRWX71aHcSWRtJOlP7Iy1aPFFCvIyXPwuJi48EfeJrMTgTpJ2hBL98EU0UGPiSeoig70_mCsD8VzE-ILsRXPeH2KQ1RN3Ybm7Qrs95_hz7q4/s320/DSC03179.JPG" width="320" /></a> And yesterday, to finish off nicely, being very traditional, using a Mk IV Richard Walker Avon, and float fished bread: more crucians. I like the way crucians, when feeding, usually reveal their presence, either by blowing a few bubbles, or more often, by dashing quite vertically to the surface, and with a great splash, diving straight back down again. A few even jump clear of the surface. Spring is here, well advanced now, and fish captures are definitely back on the menu. But I am now torn between more of the same, and the alternative of my old friends the Tincas.<br />
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-74171006608671534972017-04-05T15:08:00.002+01:002020-12-22T18:31:49.682+00:00Early Spring<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">JayZS Twig Rig.</td></tr>
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I heard the first croak of a frog in my pond this morning. Today is really warm for February, with a goodly number of my crocus showing colour, even the purple ones, which are always the last to do so. A few even have fully open flowers. The snowdrops are looking fabulous too. The robins are getting paired up as are the goldfinches visiting the feeders. the finches and dunnocks are usually seen off by the robins, aggressive little so and sos. But they back off for blackbirds, sparrows and great tits. All this springing into life is lost on the fish in the river, which are still being reluctant to come out and look around. Difficult not to think that they have left the building entirely. Only six grayling in half a dozen half day sessions. Yesterday morning gave me one very small grayling and a somewhat larger trout. Both hooked on a JayZS twig rig. I didn't show a picture of the twig rig in the last blog. Whilst I hope I had explained it sufficiently clearly I feel there may be a need to show a photograph of it here. A ridiculous idea you may well think, but it does seem to work.<br />
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Because the fishing has been so poor, I have done even more walking about, usually straying near one or other watercourse. Always more to see when there is nearby water, greater range of birds, and it is generally simply much prettier. Unless of course you are near some of the piles of rubbish we get thrown into local streams. Most of it though does not kill the wildlife, the sewage effluent probably actually increases the total biomass that the rivers can support, and the debris provides hidey-holes for all sorts of creatures that eventually end up feeding the fish and fowl that populate the stream.<br />
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I try not to leap onto social media posts in order to point out grammatical or spelling errors. Whilst it does annoy me how poor some of the English can be, I have learned to ignore it much or the time, and I certainly do not claim to be perfect myself, far from it. OK, OK, I might occasionally wade in when someone else has a go at such errors and, in doing so, almost inevitably makes an error or errors himself. The first rule of the internet is that once you complain about spelling you are far more likely to get something wrong yourself. There are some spelling errors that do get me quite annoyed. I have probably mentioned before that about half the world's keyboard warriors cannot seem to differentiate between 'lose' and 'loose'. Yet it is such a simple word.<br />
For my recent birthday my son gave me a book: 'Human Universe' by Professor Brian Cox, OBE and Andrew Cohen. The book accompanied a TV series of the same name, a series I must have missed, which is shame because it is just the sort of documentary I thrive on and salivate about. The professor is a very well educated man, prone to using big words like 'solipsistic'. I had to look that one up, and well as one or two others as I read the book. Nearing the end of the book, I turned over the leaf onto pages 218/219. As I started to read page 218, well before I reached the end of the first sentence, the word "loose" can storming out at me from one third of the way down page 219. It is difficult to understand why the word shouted so loudly at me. It can only be that I have a sort of unconscious radar for it. It was an incorrect spelling of the word "lose". I was horrified. What chance do schoolkids have if both a university professor, the Head of the BBC Science Unit and also whomsoever they employed to proof read the text, all get it wrong? Line 12 and 13, page 219:<br />
<span style="color: red;"><b>"For all practical purposes, therefore, they are isolated; it's not possible to panic or simply loose patience and return to civilisation above."</b> </span> AARGGHHHH!!! Coincidentally 219 is my house number. Was I pre-destined to spot this? Either way I was astounded.<br />
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Most of the time I am amused by these errors. A local print shop had, signwritten above its door: <span style="color: red;">"LEVENSHULME PRINTER'S"</span>. I suspect that they may have been responsible for four large rather fishy signs on a nearby roundabout that advertised car sales: <span style="color: red;">"DACE MOTOR'S"</span>. Most of the time I am amused by the errors.<br />
But the best apostrophe came to light a few days ago, in a fishing related forum, where one angler had written: <span style="color: red;">"I hell'd the fish carefully."</span> Kept me amused me for days, that one has.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Trying to find other ways to occupy my time whilst the rivers are still out of sorts and most of the stillwaters I fish are not quite ready for me, I sorted through some of my idle and certainly long forgotten bits of fishing tackle. I was surprised to find an unopened box of split shot. Surprised because to my certain knowledge, I have never bought shot so small. How I come to have them is a mystery. I am usually left with the remains of one of those rotary shot dispensers, with just its original complement of size 6 and 8 shot, sizes I never have found any use for. But in this newly discovered box, the <b>largest</b> shot is size 8. The other sizes are 9, 10 and 12. Size 12! How anyone, even the most skillful match angler could find any use for size 12 shot I have no idea. And how on earth could you close the split around a line? It needs a scanning electron microscope just to see the split, let alone try and slide a line into it, and close it. The match would be half over before I had lined the slot up with the line, and the "all out" long passed by the time I had secured it to the line. Am I doing something wrong? I rarely use anything smaller than a BB, and have never gone lower than a size 4. Am I missing out on a long list of captures I otherwise might have had? Incidentally I mentioned cheaper shot a few posts back. Well, here is what you might consider doing: buy two boxes of air rifle pellets. A .177 pellet is the same weight as a BB shot, and a .22 pellet equates to a AAA. They can either be drilled axially and threaded onto the line, aided by a float stop to position them, or, by using a similar method to that used with my twig rig, can be looped and clove hitched around their waist, and onto the line. A lot cheaper than buying Dinsmores. They seem to work well for me. A bit fiddly to drill maybe but during the adverts whilst watching TV.... Using drilled air rifle pellets removes the inevitable weak spot created by squeezing a split shot onto the line. Not as easy to tweak and adjust the shot load, but I cannot expect to have everything.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Since writing the above, two further weeks have passed, and I have ventured out onto a few stillwaters. The fish have been reluctant, but not entirely absent. A bream of about five pounds and a</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"> couple of tench near four pounds were extricated from one of the most shallow waters on any of my clubs' cards. I figured they would warm up quickly, and was, truth be told, trying to catch crucians. They were not interested in playing my sort of games. Sitting on a platform, fishing one morning, I saw a disturbance in the remains of last years rushes, and the newly sprouting reeds for this year. Something was heading my way, submerged and about twenty yards away to my right. Carp, thinks I. It came the whole way, still submerged, and stopped directly below my fishing platform. Looking carefully, I could see ripples were extending out from directly beneath my fishing stool. After a minute of so, it continued, exit stage left, again keeping near the bank, and stopped under the next platform. It did this three more times to the final three platforms, with occasional small fry scattering above it. Not wearing my polaroids, I did not actually see it, but I was wrong about the carp: it had to be mammalian, and I think it can only have been an otter. Its actions did not resemble any of the many mink I have seen over the years. I am sure it must have, on previous occasions, used the same platforms as rest halts. It is the only sign I have ever seen of an otter on a stillwater. And I have still only ever seen two individuals on distant rivers. They are not common in my area, but three were confirmed as definite sightings by a friend I trust, and on a local river, which suggests they are now finally here. The local barbel and carp anglers are not going to be amused of course.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">The frogs have been, spawned in my pond, and moved on. The crocus have bloomed in profusion </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">and faded. Snowdrops, just the long green leaves remain. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">The robins have a nest site in the garden, a nest box I hid in the ivy covering a garden wall, but I found a dropped egg on the patio, suggesting that their nest site has been raided by the jays or magpies. Long tailed tits seem to have taken up residence somewhere in the front garden, as they often attack their reflections in my front windows, occasionally clinging to the lead of the stained glass windows, although never long enough to focus the camera. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Salford Friendly Anglers are celebrating their 200th anniversary this year. They are thought to be the world's oldest angling club, and have a lot of fascinating archive material. They invited Ian Heaps, ex world match angling champion to give a demonstration this last weekend. As a teenager, I used to fish against him in Stockport Federation of Anglers' Wednesday evening match series, held on the Macclesfield Canal, back in the mid 60's. I have not seen him since then. I didn't recognize him, my excuse being that he <b>was </b>in camouflage, having shaved off his moustache some years ago, probably something he did specifically to confuse me. It was good to see him again, and we shared a <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifYYEIwStyb4SK97ZWz3H-pJG1a0ysEntsvItRV_e2Kml1-pr5e4gWeRgRS3qVlGwquiwNbKYacV_FPst_prbwQ4kEPVSsPWFPx4xhUoPBV2dbOx3dHEJWGaQJ4FNogTNb5zsOHIdBs_om/s1600/IMG_20170402_124055.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifYYEIwStyb4SK97ZWz3H-pJG1a0ysEntsvItRV_e2Kml1-pr5e4gWeRgRS3qVlGwquiwNbKYacV_FPst_prbwQ4kEPVSsPWFPx4xhUoPBV2dbOx3dHEJWGaQJ4FNogTNb5zsOHIdBs_om/s640/IMG_20170402_124055.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ian Heaps at Salford Friendly Anglers 200th Year Celebration.' </td></tr>
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few memories. A shame the fishing, on the chosen water, was not better, or else the spectators in the gallery might have learned rather more from watching him fish. Blanking should have been against the rules. Coincidental though, that the two venues at which we met were separated by 50 years, yet both are linked by the identical abbreviation SFA.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">A further week now passed, and I know I shall not have the time to add significantly to this for at least a fortnight. So I will publish and be damned.</span><br />
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-23359096304738935852017-02-16T09:59:00.002+00:002017-02-16T10:08:42.993+00:00Legering for Grayling, the Twig Rig and the Senses.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">'Legering for Grayling'? Some of you are probably now recoiling in horror. And I largely agree with you. It is not really the way of the enlightened, the path of the Ninja. One of my clubs actually bans legering in their river beats, and I agree entirely with their decision. But elsewhere there are many swims that simply cannot be fished with fly or float. Depths, varying, or too deep, snags, trees and everything else imaginable, can render civilized grayling fishing quite impossible. So what of those swims? Are they to be ignored? The grayling ( and other species) certainly do not ignore them. So we can either treat them as sanctuaries or in some cases, maybe they can be legered.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">But what is the problem with legering for grayling? Apart from the aesthetics of it, the grayling is a fish that can be very prone to taking the hookbait deep into its mouth, often so deep as to leave the hook out of sight. Float fishing and fly fishing tends to lead to the fish being lip hooked most of the time. Legering though, can result in 50% of fish, maybe more, being hooked in disgorger territory. Contrary to the strength of their wriggles, as you try to extract the hook, probing deeply into a grayling's digestive tract is fraught with danger to the fish. Even using a slammo disgorger is no guarantee that an unseen hook, deep down, can be extracted. The more caring angler would cut the line sooner rather than later, and pray that the barbless hook he <b>should</b> be using will be dealt with and disposed of naturally by the fish. I do not know how often fish actually dispose of hooks. I don't know how often they die as a consequence of deep hooking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">I do not wish to deep hook fish. and have usually avoided the leger for grayling. In the same way many years ago I stopped fishing for pike when the Jardine snap tackle was ubiquitous, and the advice was to 'strike on the second run'. I did not like the surgical operation needed to extract barbed trebles from deep inside a pike. And at the time no-one had invented the method of slipping the hand into the gill slit to aid and abet unhooking of the fish. Pike fishing is far more acceptable these days with modern methods now in place, and almost all of my pike these days are hooked such that the hook shank is visible outside of the jaw. My pike fishing has become a lot friendlier to the fish, and I enjoy it more. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">But could there also be a better method of fishing for grayling? ...and for chub, roach etc of course. In my youth I used to fish for big bream with a paternoster rig. Not the usual rig but a rather extreme version. From the T junction of the paternoster line, one arm was a couple of feet or more of line, with an Arlesey bomb attached to the end of it. Tied on, not sliding. The other T was only an inch or so long, and lead to the hook. This gave a very direct route from hook to bite indicator should a fish swim away from me. I had already concluded that there was nothing to gain from a sliding lead if a fish swam back towards me, the lead would move back towards me at half the speed of the fish, and could easily totally mask out any bite indication at the rod. It worked well for me. It was possibly even working as a bolt rig, something that had not been invented at the time. Hooks then were not nearly as sharp, so that bolt effect may not have been quite so frequently the case. Such a paternoster style was also completely tangle free, and certainly caught fish in stillwaters.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Would such a rig work for grayling, and why would it be an advantage? Well, the line between lead and rod is under a small amount of tension, and only that inch long hooklink is free to move, free to be sucked in by the fish. The tension in the main line to the lead would prevent any of the main line from being sucked into the mouth of the fish. So my theory was that the fish could therefore not take the bait any deeper than an inch into its mouth. Any fish hooked inside the mouth, at only an inch deep is no problem for a disgorger. But would it work, would it catch fish? Yes it did, and to date I have not hooked a single fish deeply when fishing in this way. Was it as efficient a way to catch fish? That I cannot answer easily, and so the conclusion is that it remains a definite maybe. The current and angle of the main line could easily lift the bait off the bottom, although that could be counteracted by a shot somewhere near the T. The method works for both up and downstream legering. I even used it fishing with a maggot feeder for chub, fishing downstream. My bait being a foot upstream of the feeder did not seem to concern the chub, the trail of maggots below the feeder attracted the chub sufficiently close, that they were then able to find my baited hook some distance above the feeder.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">A second problem is that the fish might prefer a long length of line, allowing the bait to flow and meander more freely up and down in the current. Clearly the paternoster method is <b>not</b> going to provide that. So here, for the first time in print, I will present to you the JayZS Twig Rig...the result of five minutes of idle thinking during a boring morning when few fish were feeding. Designed for downstream legering for grayling, allowing a longer flowing link and yet, in theory, still preventing deep hooking. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">The details:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Set up your leger rig, with your long flowing link, in any way you would normally prefer. Simple running lead, a link leger, or a couple of swan shot directly on the line two feet above the hook. It does not matter: the Twig Rig just redefines the last inch or two. Find, on the bank, a bit of thin twig. Cut it down to about an inch of so, and then remembering your DIB, DIB, DIB, or maybe your DOB, DOB, DOB, make a clove hitch in your line very near to the hook, and put the twig through its loops. Add an extra half hitch for security, and you now have a twiggy crossbar, an inch or so above the hook, sitting sideways across the line. The theory here is that the fish can engulf the bait, but the crossbar will prevent the bait from progressing very far down the throat of the fish. Its lips and limited mouth gape stop the crossbar from entering its mouth. My initial thoughts were that the twig would put the fish off, and I did not know whether I would catch anything at all by using it. But the twig is very natural, so why should a fish be suspicious of it? And does it work? Limited testing to date, due to recent bad river conditions that have not been ideal for a grayling hunt.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caught on a Twig Rig.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;"> But some fish have already taken a bait on this rig, including my best grayling of the winter so far: a nice male of 1-14. The jury is still out on the method, but they left the dock with smiles on their faces. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Both methods rely on being able to prevent a fish taking a bait down deep. Both seem to work, and I have not yet had a deep hooked fish on either method. Only a dozen or so fish into the experiments, but with ordinary legering techniques, several of those would have certainly been hooked deeply.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I bought a Berlingo van. For fishing. Something I had promised myself for many years, but four years ago, having had a Saxo written off, I flunked it, and bought a Ford Fusion instead. Worked just fine as a fishing car, but I was always worried that anything inside the car could be seen. So finally I splashed out on a van. Not had a van for many years. Had an HA Bedford ( MK 1 Viva) van and a couple of minivans many years ago, but they were very different. Smaller, and much easier to drive. The new van has no rear windows, and so for the first time I am dependent on the wing mirrors. Had it long enough now to be ignoring the interior mirror, but have no idea why one has been fitted to a vehicle with no rear windows, and which also has a bulkhead immediately behind the driver, doubly blocking the view. Mind you I was still more surprised by a transit van I followed last week. It too had no rear windows, but was fitted with a pair of rear screen wipers. They were both switched on....and it wasn't even raining. They have probably been cleaning the rear paintwork for years, with the driver completely unaware they were switched on. I also need to point out that my van is NOT white. So the "white van man" epithet will not work. I feel I am seated very high up driving it, and it seems huge, although only about 9 inches longer than the Fusion. </span><span style="background-color: white;">That said, it feels more secure for stowing the few bits of tackle that I am <i><b>not</b></i> carrying as I walk to my swim.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> Parking is a little more difficult to accomplish with style, without a functional rear view mirror, and some non </span><span style="background-color: white;">right-angle junctions can be difficult, there being limited views at 45 degrees to the rear and left of the van. Narrow roads, single track, just the sort of tracks I need to drive down to reach the river will also be problematic at times. Having to reverse, on meeting another vehicle, will be interesting for I cannot now see if there is another car close behind me. Thinking in advance has become more necessary. Maybe I need some sort of 6th sense, to alert me to problems behind me.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">But could I trust that 6th sense? Any more than the other senses can be trusted? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Take vision. When watching a stationary float on a lake, with a crosswind, and therefore ripples passing sideways in front of you, something very odd can happen when you look away. Look at vegetation on the bank and it seems to be moving, creeping towards the water, yet getting no closer to the lake. The brain must be filtering out some of the left to right, or right to left, ripple movement whilst watching the float. And it must be doing this by adding in a component of virtual movement automatically. The brain sets up this background moving picture, which it then adds to the real scene. Changing it for God only knows what reason. So, when you stop looking at the ripples, the added on bit of the scene, that generated by the brain, remains for a while, and seemingly causes stationery objects to appear as if moving, trees drifting down the bank. All very strange.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">But this added component is not confined to vision. Take hearing. I live a hundred yards or so from a main line railway. It runs in a deep cutting but that is not so deep as to be able to mask out the noise from a Manchester-London Virgin express train, nor even that from the local services. Yet I do not notice them at all, I hear nothing. Not unless I try specifically to hear them. The brain appears to be able to ignore these intermittent chunks of noise, selectively, in the background, only alerting me to them if I am specifically wanting to hear them. Amazing.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Next smell: Houses each have a particular smell. Go into someone else's house and it is often both apparent and detectable. This applies to your own home too. But you smell nothing when you enter it. Again the brain seems to filter out that which it expects. This, I guess, allows it to more readily determine any slight differences from the norm. Useful in this modern age where we have gas fires and the like, all of which might imply danger of some sort. ( I once came home from work and could smell gas in the house. So could the emergency gasman, although his sniffer device failed to find any signs of gas. It turned out that next door had had a visiting plumber, who had completed the job, and left the property, leaving an open gas pipe, and then turned the gas back on. Next door's house was a bomb, waiting for a spark before exploding. Smell saved my property, if not my life.) In the distant past a change of background smell</span><span style="background-color: white;"> probably also warned of danger or perhaps the nearness of food. Not really a sense we have had to rely on too much, or else evolution might have given us the same sensitivity to smell as it has given to dogs, bears fish and other creatures. Taste is very closely related to smell, and although I guess the brain can detect and ignore a "background" taste, I cannot recall any examples.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Touch, the fifth sense is also intriguing. Sit on a sofa or a chair and you have a large area in contact with the seating. Yet you can largely ignore it, it is not constantly firing messages at you, at least not once the nerves have transmitted those messages to the brain. They are once more ignored. Yet it only takes a minor disturbance to the norm, say, sitting on a sofa with a stray split shot on it, and it immediately tells you, and causes you grief until you remove the shot. Once more the background is being ignored. The unusual being amplified. And I suspect that, like vision, background 'feel' gets ignored by the brain, in that it creates a "negative" of what it feels, thus cancelling out everyday feeling. To support this I recall years when I spent a whole week on a punt, fishing for tench at the start of the coarse fish close season. Even with the punt lashed to some stakes, there was still a small amount of swell, with wave action constantly rocking the boat. It did not take long to ignore, to not notice this rocking motion. I believe that it was ignored by means of the brain generating the inverse of the motion, making the sum total of the rocking experienced by the conscious brain to be effectively zero. How do I justify this statement? Quite simple really. At the end of the week, tired, and fairly happy with my catches, I went home to sleep. And for several hours the bed seemed to be rocking with a wave action. This must have been the brain being quite slow to switch off its compensatory signals. The effect was very noticeable though. Quite astonishing what the unconscious brain is capable of: from diluting the senses, thus ignoring the irrelevant, to solving a sticky crossword clue in the background. Yet it has one hell of a time remembering where I have put my car keys, just moments earlier.</span><br />
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-66402695008989549082017-02-08T10:58:00.001+00:002020-12-22T19:43:26.345+00:00Disaster: A Grayling on the First Cast!<div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: red;">Indeed, a catastrophe on the first cast. I hooked a grayling with moments of the float hitting the water...and in a swim where bites are normally rare. But more of that later perhaps.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">When I am not fishing, I like to take moderately long walks. I stay local, usually. No point in going walking with the car when there is so much I have never seen within a few miles of home. If I remembered all I see I should by now have an encyclopedic knowledge of the local area. But my memory prevents that. I retain far less than I should like, and sometimes less than I need. I see it and move on. A fair bit of my walking is alongside the local rivers and streams, and it is not easy to forget the effect that floods can have on them. They are spate rivers, and about 3 weeks ago ( 3 weeks from when I first started to write this) we had rain, heavy rain overnight. Some parts of nearby towns were flooded. The rivers are spate rivers, but that flood was more of a flash flood than a spate, and viewing the EA water levels websites shows a truly astonishingly rapid increase and decrease of depth. I measured an increase of ten feet at one spot I visit. Not the highest I have seen it there, which was 13 feet. On that day I calculated, having made some rough estimates of flow speed, that the river was carrying about 100 times its usual flow rate. Visually it was terrifying. In any major flood the river carries a tremendous about of debris, from sand grains all the way up to fully grown trees. All are swept downstream with apparent ease. An astonishing amount of sand and gravel is transported at each flood, and the river changes its looks at some spots, every time we have such storms. Unfortunately, with the natural material transport, is carried a mass of human detritus too. From raw sewage as the local sewage farms fail to cope, to sanitary towels, old tyres, supermarket trolleys, plastic bags etc. On my last fishing trip I decided to count the sanitary towels caught up in the vegetation within 10 feet of me. The total was 34. It would have been higher had I been fishing near any of the bankside trees. I once caught 6 towels in 6 casts: a river record. So much rubbish is strewn along the banks that it really is probably pointless my taking my own litter home. But I will continue to do so, as I know I would feel guilty if I didn't. Luckily there is no club rule about cleaning up other peoples rubbish from the peg before fishing. It would just not be a practical proposition: far too much stuff.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grayling Swim ;-(</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMq-YjrOSPh1tI26gEUllE0oSed_rrUp0zTO9F6ZSbW7RnNETwhtyJxRbkNrRqTvOsviUVz4VZRGGLb_me7f8431SWY4KQGX7LFzFFGtKn2hOuyLAKHzpFClszmFgsCU8D9h6ywx8rrXRb/s1600/River+Rubbish.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMq-YjrOSPh1tI26gEUllE0oSed_rrUp0zTO9F6ZSbW7RnNETwhtyJxRbkNrRqTvOsviUVz4VZRGGLb_me7f8431SWY4KQGX7LFzFFGtKn2hOuyLAKHzpFClszmFgsCU8D9h6ywx8rrXRb/s400/River+Rubbish.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trout Swim ;-)</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">On the left, debris left after the flood in just one spot. </span><span style="background-color: white;">On the right, normal summer level a short distance further downstream. </span><span style="background-color: white;">You make think your rivers are bad, but I feel fairly confident that you have probably seen nothing compared to this. </span><span style="background-color: white;"> And there are</span><b> always</b><span style="background-color: white;"> footballs. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Rather like in another scenario, there are always carrots.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiim19N9ci3_rZfBSOnlgJxmt4icnKyd4S25N9aCJ32lT7mIAgm7vOXQfGDRmtqOeEnkCA4Cdw3cQ3CY3sYcQFIFVtuhcGVL69MiyrbO0aoX-XoK5NOMQqzCPn32rntodEzaoBuOVq2YwJR/s1600/IMG_20170207_133334.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiim19N9ci3_rZfBSOnlgJxmt4icnKyd4S25N9aCJ32lT7mIAgm7vOXQfGDRmtqOeEnkCA4Cdw3cQ3CY3sYcQFIFVtuhcGVL69MiyrbO0aoX-XoK5NOMQqzCPn32rntodEzaoBuOVq2YwJR/s400/IMG_20170207_133334.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Football Swim</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It is intensely annoying that, after the Herculean attempts of the EA and others to clean up the water quality, to allow the rivers to show some life again, that the locals continue to use the rivers as dumping grounds. Not just annoying, but disgusting. The unusually steep banks make any sort of access exceedingly dangerous, and so I know that this muck is never going to be cleaned up. The post industrial era has left another mark on the stream beds: they are extensively paved with bricks and other dressed stonework. The residue of riverside industrial era buildings, long abandoned and crumbling. That which has not already fallen into the rivers, is, or will be, swept into them as flood after flood courses through what remains of the archaeology. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">P.S. If you didn't understand carrots, think "pavement pizza", or the old schoolkid joke. "Mummy, Mummy, Johnny has been sick and Susie is getting all the big bits." I cannot tell you how long I have waited to re-use that joke. I love the term "pavement pizza". Although very much a slang term, it is so visually descriptive that it fully deserves an OED inclusion. Rather like "arse over tit", another great expression. There is much, good, entertaining slang, but also slang that I find intensely annoying. "Innit?", at the end of a sentence as a confirmatory expression, regardless of whether it should be "won't it?", or "can't I?" etc, drives me crazy. Even the better brought up kids merely tidy it up as "isn't it?" How did this usage become so pervasive? And so quickly?</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white; color: red;">Why, oh why, did I have to hook a grayling first cast. So annoying. T</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;">he world was against me,</span> Almost as annoying as the fact that I had nearly finished this blog entry when I must have hit the wrong key and deleted it all save for the letters "ybe". The letters are the latter part of the word "maybe" which I was typing at the time. Maybe I hit a wrong key, maybe not. It may be that the program just had a hiccup. Either way I lost all my input, photos included. Not happy! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">I had two or three trips to an area of another river, catching a few grayling as usual, the odd decent trout muscling in, out of season. A lady walking her dog has promised to talk to them daily, until mid-March to try and make them recognize and remember when they are to be caught, and when not. More pleasingly a few chub have been added to the mix, about a dozen, most between 2 and three pounds, short solid fish that fought better than I remember chub scrapping in the past. Best fish was 3-10, one of three that took simple float fished maggots trotted downstream. Some interesting birds: a dabchick that I spotted once before it did the usual dab disappearing chick trick. And one of the peregrines was doing the occasional fly past. Jays too in profusion, arguing the toss with the magpies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">One day last week, I chose to fish another swim, one in which I have never had any success. I once lost a good fish, probably a chub, unseen, but that was the sum total of my lack of success there. A difficult swim both to fish and to sit in. Amidst a bankload of freshly deposited sand, it was a little precarious to say the very least. I didn't slip in, but was worried a couple of times. The river was proving as<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo7xJ33s9BB4DOqWJeoCoWB9Yc_HZDVO4sUmh4AjTPMcKCpNxRWvVJyTkBRb8J1ReQLM5wCXPRY19SCw1iGUD0OhK5GX4zvSE9-TKGVcJYKT4pgpZLkWqCxNUm57F8MS7f4HyxWJ-iuTZY/s1600/DSC02907.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo7xJ33s9BB4DOqWJeoCoWB9Yc_HZDVO4sUmh4AjTPMcKCpNxRWvVJyTkBRb8J1ReQLM5wCXPRY19SCw1iGUD0OhK5GX4zvSE9-TKGVcJYKT4pgpZLkWqCxNUm57F8MS7f4HyxWJ-iuTZY/s320/DSC02907.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Surprisingly Hard Fighting Chub</td></tr>
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unproductive as ever, and 40 trots down I had seen not one bite. But the swim looked so good, and on the 41st ( approx) run down of the float, it disappeared. I was on a light trotting rod, fishing with 3 pound line, which for me is very light indeed. The fish fought magnificently, and from initially suspecting a good chub, my mind wandered through trout, and even a good bream kiting sideways in the current. The bream idea soon evaporated as the fish made its way upstream against a fairly heavy current, and passed me, still unseen, and by this time I was playing it very carefully indeed. It surfaced, a chub, and looked to be 5 pound plus, but once on the scales it made 4-8. A good fish for the river, and indeed one of only two chub , small or large, that I have had from the river in the last two years. They used to be somewhat more common, although never prolific. It was a while before the next fish, a couple of grayling, which were to complete the day's catch. But as I reeled in one of them, a massive swirl was immediately confirmed to be a fairly good Esox making an attack. A pike for the very few of you that might not know the term Esox. It missed the fish, and sat there lurking, a foot from my foot, looking up at me rather like a robin begging for maggots. An oddly, it had a little 1/2 inch red <i>something </i>on its head. Christmas decoration? I have no idea. I returned the grayling behind it, and told the pike that I would see it again the day after.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: red;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;">I don't know why I even took the grayling rod with me. In retrospect it was plain stupidity. I should never have cast in at all, but I had been seduced by that four and a half pound chub the day before. It was a plot, in which the characters, chub, grayling and pike were all in collusion.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;">Now I try to always keep my promises, and having told old Esox that I would return , I arrived the next day, determined to find out what the red thing was. In short, I intended to catch that pike. As I tackled up, 4 birds flew across the river. My immediate thought, looking at one of them was that it was a kestrel. But there were four, and the tail was too long and thin. They were parakeets I concluded, and probably green in colour had they not been seen in silhouette. The first such birds I have seen, apart from a large flock in London a few years ago. At about the same time a female mink stole along the far bank. I had seen a bankside disturbance a bit further downstream, but did not have the foresight to ready the camera. I still have no good shots of a mink.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"> The pike bait went in, and was ignored. After ten minutes I tackled up the float rod, intending to see if another chub might show itself. No of course, but a grayling did: <span style="color: red;">On that first cast I hooked a grayling. And that was the mistake that all the red text has been wittering on about. How could I have been so stupid? </span>For as I reeled the grayling in, the pike grabbed it, grabbed it when it was no more than 18 inches from my pike bait, which was a dead rudd, suspended and fluttering about in the current. After a short tug of war, the barbless hook came away. Although there might well be no such thing as a free lunch, a free breakfast is another thing entirely. And having stuffed himself with a foot long grayling at my expense, it was inevitable that the pike would not be interested in my 5 inch dead rudd. And it wasn't. So I gave the pike a couple of days to digest its hearty breakfast, and then went back with yet another rudd. There was a swirl within moments of my first cast, but the bait remained untaken. Two minutes later I provoked a second large swirl, but not a take. And that was it: no more interest from Mr Pike. But it had done just enough to thumb its nose at me, and confirm it was still there, sniggering at me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;"> <span style="font-size: x-large;">3 -nil to the pike.</span> </span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white;">But it all makes the chase that bit more interesting, and maybe in a week or so I shall be back, risking all on a 45 degree sloping sand pit. This story is NOT yet finished.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">But it is finished for the moment, the river being in a constant state of "a bit too much water for me".</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">And here endeth the blog entry. Taking far too much time to write, so I am publishing this regardless of it seeming, to me, to be incomplete.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">P.S. Diet still progressing well. A pound short of losing 4 stones to date. My stomach has changed from looking as if I was carrying one of those horrible bloated mirror carp under my T-shirt, to looking as if I only have a pound and a half chub flopping about in front of my belly. Those carrots help again. They add bulk and longevity in the gut, without adding greatly to the calorie intake.</span></div>
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-62244807514901808932016-12-13T16:50:00.001+00:002016-12-15T21:29:12.803+00:00Autumn<div style="text-align: justify;">
Autumn....probably winter by the time I get to publish this, and all the colours are muted to dull browns, greens and greys. But there is still great beauty to be see if you look for it. These fungi<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOp-ND6Nzt-pXPP45GqOn6qaphIO49w5_tmb0H0A5Z_WeH-PtkIIzKEwsUKaBeJskIcswN4rekeRbz-JUEoe1cydGGhkXC_D7P8BFvXhjrP_LTze7pLy9Kw7ZSBh_vAaRn2GknbQQkbscq/s1600/Fungi+%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOp-ND6Nzt-pXPP45GqOn6qaphIO49w5_tmb0H0A5Z_WeH-PtkIIzKEwsUKaBeJskIcswN4rekeRbz-JUEoe1cydGGhkXC_D7P8BFvXhjrP_LTze7pLy9Kw7ZSBh_vAaRn2GknbQQkbscq/s640/Fungi+%25281%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
caught my eye one damp morning. And there is always colour in my maple tree once it red shifts into autumn. The brilliant red on the tree does not last long, being at its best for no more than a couple of days. But the leaves then fall into my pond, providing an extension to the scarlet, not shrivelling up on the ground.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5gxhrO0UeN5SM9i4cX3dybqaCBKiXjTWRA9j4rCTIf6KCGro1StqjXuNmXjq4QYSNYhc0eqSNGSHjRzfhI19qtYLf1n0RNI7fk4HvHpPRGNCRb4s_BalV7cfHtWGgqydqTsljYSjwJcR/s1600/Red+Tree+%25284%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5gxhrO0UeN5SM9i4cX3dybqaCBKiXjTWRA9j4rCTIf6KCGro1StqjXuNmXjq4QYSNYhc0eqSNGSHjRzfhI19qtYLf1n0RNI7fk4HvHpPRGNCRb4s_BalV7cfHtWGgqydqTsljYSjwJcR/s320/Red+Tree+%25284%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I usually find that Autumnal fishing is not as rewarding as I might wish. The grayling continue to be co-operative of course, at least until the rain arrives and colours the water too much. Many fish, especially those in stillwaters, become lethargic, without the enthusiasm to feed. There are exceptions of course, predatory fish will still usually feed, and the clear waters of Autumn probably help them to see their lunch.</div>
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So I decided to try something new: drop shotting. From a boat. On a very large reservoir, supposedly noted for large predatory fish, perch of 2-3 pounds being common, and good pike present to keep the stocks of trout in check. Two days: on a boat with an outboard, on a huge reservoir. "Avoid the direct line out from the stone tower", I was told, and so I did, keeping a good ten yards away from that line. Forty feet of water and I jigged and dropped the whole of the first day to no effect, enticing just one trout which turned on the lure right at the surface, and which was missed. The second day went far better, a dozen perch taking the lure, in somewhat shallower water, maybe about 24 feet or so. None of the perch topped 3/4 of a pound, which ordinarily would not bother me too much. But drop shotting on a huge reservoir has to be about the most boring fishing I have ever done in my lifetime. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUa5EflbsGQFveC4fNa0ypbEE9gIGI9Zaz-khtnVhPLgjmOEGI1oHlxW2M7ojqt17zrTGAzWWWM7d20nAojiRrFJou6_tUlYq_s_hidycCoCVGk60NRPapVlfCay9MtFkbRvvJxaOEPGff/s1600/DSC02847.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUa5EflbsGQFveC4fNa0ypbEE9gIGI9Zaz-khtnVhPLgjmOEGI1oHlxW2M7ojqt17zrTGAzWWWM7d20nAojiRrFJou6_tUlYq_s_hidycCoCVGk60NRPapVlfCay9MtFkbRvvJxaOEPGff/s320/DSC02847.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Big Reservoir. Nothing to See Here at All. </td></tr>
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When the fish are not biting there is nothing of interest to look at. Another boat 100 yards away. The odd gull, and a solitary grebe that once ventured just about close enough to be seen. There was little to look at, nothing to see, and it made the days dreary beyond compare. The promised 2 or 3 pound perch would hardly have made up for the mind numbing sameness of the day. The most exciting time was when I came to lift up the anchor at the end of the first day. Ten yards was apparently not far enough away from the banned line. I was unable to lift the anchor up, it became progressively heavier as I hauled it nearer the surface. I had, I was told, hooked an underwater airline with the anchor fluke. Try as I might I could not dislodge it, and I figured that the only thing I could do was to leave the anchor where it was, and to rely on the attached float to show its position, so it could be retrieved later. Good plan, but one which failed, failed miserably. As the pipeline returned to the bottom, it had somehow tangled the line, causing the float to disappear as well. In theory the anchors had enough attached line to work in any swim on the reservoir, leaving the float on the surface. In practice the tangle thwarted that idea, and I could see the float some 8 or 10 feet below the surface. I am in no rush to get back there to see if the fishing improves.</div>
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So, after a few more grayling and a solitary canal pike of maybe eight or nine pounds, I headed for the River Severn, in order to try for the zander. A new venue for me, with zander as the target species, and so I decided to fish two days and nights. A poor choice of dates left me sitting on the bank during the two coldest nights of the year so far. But I was prepared. I don't have a bivvy, but a brolly with side panels would suffice, especially with a length of black cloth draped over the open front, leaving me just enough space to leap out at the first sign of a bite. The river was low and clear, slow and easy, and my legered rudd deadbaits remained where I cast them, with few drifting leaves to catch the line. Few fish to disturb them either. On the first night a missed run, a very finicky sort of run. Then nothing for a good while. A second similar run. I was fairly warm, having taken a butane gas heater into the encampment. I had found two lengths of the black cloth near the river a few days before, and the second length was draped over my legs. At the onset of the bite, I cast off the cloth and tottered out into the cold, my legs stiff from inactivity, clotted with pins and needles, and I was as unstable as hell. I came close to falling into some ten feet of cold Severn slack water. But I hit the fish and reeled it in. An eel of about two pounds. We never had eels near home when I was a young angler, and so my first experience of one was during a match on the Witham. The 15 inch bootlace wriggled and wrapped itself about the line, and I struggled to control it. Even putting my boot over its neck failed to subdue the thing, and eventually it wriggled into the grass backwards, taking my hook with it. The Severn fish was larger, maybe a couple of pounds of pure muscle. It did not want to be unhooked, and as I struggled with the fish, my stiff legs and the dark, I suddenly noticed how misty it was. It became apparent that the mist was at its most concentrated near to my brolly encampment. It was the flames and the smell of smoke that convinced me there was nothing misty about the scene at all. I had cast off the leg warming cloth rather too near to the gas heater, and it had caught fire. A few moments of panic later, the fire was out, and the eel was finally subdued and returned. Eels! And I had two more of the damn things the next night. The daytime was a little better, three or four small chub, a daddy ruffe and a perch were landed, before something else took the rudd. A pike, long and slim, tending towards thin.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdOJ1efSlRdtHfi2JYZcHqY5LjpnEd3OmI9f9oZ87pt92an4j3HygD1yi8NhQZ0sOKo4PyBHQ3t4-yNN3vIabOXLrgkA6Nru-8oLZ1iJdDOBsBiT09-gvNE9row3yOfXWOokGvRwB-xzr/s1600/Severn+Pike+10-2+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdOJ1efSlRdtHfi2JYZcHqY5LjpnEd3OmI9f9oZ87pt92an4j3HygD1yi8NhQZ0sOKo4PyBHQ3t4-yNN3vIabOXLrgkA6Nru-8oLZ1iJdDOBsBiT09-gvNE9row3yOfXWOokGvRwB-xzr/s320/Severn+Pike+10-2+%25282%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">River Severn Pike</td></tr>
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But a scrapper that just dragged the scales past the ten pound mark. Nicely hooked in the scissors with the single hook. Once fit and fat I might have expected this fish to weigh a good three pounds more. I concluded though, that the fish in general, and the zander in particular were doing no more than they needed to remain in the river and alive. Cold-bloodedness can be advantageous, especially when you do not want to get caught by a passing angler. The fish were not wasting calories by chasing about the swim, and were thus able to be economical with the tooth. (Sorry!...Am I really sorry?...Of course not...you can all suffer that one.). In stillwater fish can be very static, moving about very little. Pond keepers are actually advised not to feed their fish during the colder months, and so fish <b>can </b>survive in stillwater for months without feeding at all. In rivers they might have to flick the odd fin, and so need a little more sustenance, but a fish is a very efficient machine and can get by, eating very little.<br />
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These river fish were using just enough calories to exist, to remain alive. And it reminded me that I too, am on (yet another) diet. So this next section is about dieting, and is neither compulsory, nor compulsive reading. It doesn't quite qualify as a rant. So feel free to take a tea break here. Not too many biscuits though! It is intended to remind me to keep the weight reduction going, and to allow myself to throw stones and jeer if I fail to get down to the weight I want to be. Feel free to join in if I fail. </div>
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I had been finding some fishing trips quite heavy going of late, especially those involving climbing back up the steep valley sides after fishing the river. But as of about 14 weeks ago I had lost two stones: 28 pounds, following a series of successes and failures spread across two years. Another stone or so has gone in the last 3 months. I told my wife I was worried about getting a six pack, and have no idea why she laughed. To succeed I find I need targets, and I need to keep it interesting, as my aim, should I hit that target, is to shed a further three stones, getting me back to the weight I was whilst frittering away my time at university. Looking down at my trimmer figure, I cannot see where the extra is going to come from. Losing weight is not easy.</div>
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So firstly, I needed some information. As ever, the internet provides it in abundance. Someone my age, height and weight needs 1650 calories a day... 1650 just to survive and remain at a constant weight. Moving about, getting out of bed, and other inadvisable activities add to that total. For a moderately active person, of similar build to myself, add on 600 calories per day, for a total of 2250. At this point the scientist in me reminds you that one food calorie is equivalent to 1000 real scientific calories. I guess chefs, and dietitians are none too good with big numbers and someone simplified it all for them. I really need 2,250,000 calories per day, but I won't dwell on that too much.</div>
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So: to lose weight there are two choices 1) exercise more or 2) eat less. I decided to go for option 3), which is a bit of both.</div>
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Using another bit of internet data, a pound of human fat, as eaten by your nearest cannibal, contains 3500 calories. Enough to feed him and one small kid for a day. But it allows a calculation: eat 500 calories each day less than that 2250, and I should lose a pound a week. Astonishingly, to me at least, that formula seems to be pretty accurate. I have, to add some of that necessary interest, been totalling up my calorie deficit over the last couple of months or three, and my predicted loss is matching the theoretical loss very very closely. There are blips in the process, such as one period of two weeks, during which my weight stayed absolutely constant, despite sticking rigidly to the "rules". I cannot explain that at the moment. </div>
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So what of exercise? Another schoolboy physics calculation produced the figure of 6.5 calories used, if I run up to the top room in my house, some 30 steps up, ( allowing for the accepted figure, one that we all know of course: that the body is about 20% efficient). So twice up all those stairs, 60 steps, should use and lose the calorific equivalent of one Trebor mint. It says on the packet that one mint = 13 calories. So there is a way of having a sweet treat. A reward without the guilt. Run up and down twice and have a sweet. Of course a more relevant bit of data, is the number of times it would take, running up those stairs, to lose a pound in weight. The keener types amongst you will no doubt have already worked that out in your head as being 538.46 times, leaving me exhausted one step below the first floor. This is totally ridiculous, and so any form of extreme exercise has been banished from the weight loss program. Even walking uses very little. About 25 miles to lose a pound. And then I would have to walk back again. So short walks, a few miles on those days I do not go fishing, is as much exercise as I shall include. 25 miles! Looking up the calorific value of petrol, enabled me to make yet another daft calculation. Were I able to run on petrol, I would be getting about 220 miles per gallon. I think. I did that calculation a few days ago and have forgotten the exact result.</div>
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So food has become different. I find myself looking at the calorie count of food on the supermarket shelves. There is not much labelled as being specifically for the dieter. A few weight watchers bits and pieces. Now I must say, here and now, that Heinz weight watchers soups are not for the faint hearted, nor for the weak of stomach. They have all the attractive looks and taste of a bush tucker trial. Look it up! I never thought that anything could have all the look, smell, taste and texture as the remnants in my sink, just after doing the washing up following a vegetarian party. Oh my God, if that soup were the only option, I would have given up ages ago. I had bought four cans. I hope the recycling plant doesn't want all the tins to be empty. There are a few meals rated at about 350 calories. So in theory I could actually eat six of them in a day without weight gain! Three therefore should see the pounds fall off. </div>
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The reduction in food intake, especially with exercise, does occasionally lead to a lack of energy. But my son, now a doctor, has banned me from drinking Red Bull: not good for me, he says, I know it is good for me when those two blondes drive a huge can of it past as I walk down the road though. But all is not lost: there are diet energy drinks out there now. But read the labels on them. How can a can of diet, berry flavoured, energy drink, actually give anyone a boost, when it clearly states on the label that a full can contains only 17 calories? Barely enough in a can to get me to the top of our stairs. Advertising standards really need to look at this. </div>
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Whilst talking about advertising, I returned one of those "bags for life" to Sainsbury's yesterday. It had become badly damaged, and my "only 311 calories" ASDA meals were falling out of it. They were reluctant at first to swap it for me. Then I pointed out to them that they were getting all this free advertising from me, a walking billboard, every time I went shopping with it at Tesco or Aldi. That worked and they swapped it. I chuckled to myself as I left the store. They obviously had completely missed that I was having a major laugh at their expense (and I really mean their expense) with that reasoning. It will come to them in a couple of days. Maybe.</div>
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P.S. I lost another three pounds whilst writing this. Going for a curry. Bye.</div>
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-72191613093847503692016-10-11T17:49:00.001+01:002020-12-22T20:16:30.145+00:00Whatever Floats Your Float...and Why Your Scales Always Lie.<div style="text-align: justify;">
I wasn't sure today, whether to write about the increasingly ridiculous new "record" 70 pound carp situation or about float fishing. Both offer the opportunity to indulge in a bit of prolixity, but although dealing with the carp might have been fun, I'll leave that to others for the moment, and instead I'll add a sunrise photo I took last week just as I reached the lake. The photo has absolutely no relevance to the blog content that follows, but I rather like it, and it is straight as it came out of the camera, not tweaked in any way. I just stopped, enthralled, and watched the scene develop and fade.<br />
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Regular readers may remember that I once, as a teenager, took Billy Lane, world match angling champion to task, about a statement he had made about floats in "Fishing" magazine. The only significant advance he could envisage in float design would be a float the size of a matchstick that could carry two or three swan shot. I forget his exact words but that was the gist of it More recently another angler I have a lot of respect for was fishing in a match, using a sliding float in about twenty five feet of water. I was watching him fish, picking up tips, and he was using a large sliding float, one carrying 3 or 4 SSG shot set some distance from the bait, in order to make casting easy. The float had a long thin antenna at the top, and he said that the single number 8 shot, placed near to the hook would provide a tell-tale and the float would rise several inches when the fish lifted the tell tale. Which was indeed completely true....BUT... well, I'll deal with that "BUT" later. I invoked good old Archimedes when rebuffing the Billy Lane statement. Billy was a truly great match angler but certainly no scientist. Archimedes's principle has much to impact on float design and their use, and it will feature in what follows. Now there will, of course, be some of you who will say "Screw Archimedes, I have been float fishing for years." And so you have. What follows is not mandatory reading, but I hope some of it may make you think, or actually be of use. However if you are reading this in the bath I ask you to stop now. I will not be held responsible should you be caught running damp and naked down the street, a laptop in one hand, a slippery bar of soap in the other, shrieking "Eureka" at all and sundry. </div>
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I'll try not to get TOO technical, but will, as I have said, invoke Archimedian principles, together with a bit of Newton, in order to try and explain how floats really work. There should be nothing that should overtax anyone who has studied GCSE science or physics, regardless of whether they passed or failed the subject. But I will be going into some detail. I shall try to be precise about word usage, but may occasionally slip up, at times intentionally. <br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Why Your Scales Always Lie</span></u></b><br />
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The words mass and weight are easily confused, but the difference between them is important. Consider a carp with a mass of <b>exactly</b> 20 pounds. Your scales will record a weight of 20 pounds...or will they? No! They will actually record a weight of fractionally less than 20 pounds. Things can float in air. Balloons can float and actually rise up in air. This is because the air is pushing them upwards. Balloons filled with helium are lighter than air, and so the air can push them skywards. If you made a balloon the same size and shape as your carp, then the air would push up on your carp with the same force as on your carp shaped balloon. So the air is pushing upwards on that carp, causing the scales to record a weight ever so slightly less than that 20 pounds. If whilst dangling that carp from your scales, you were to lower the carp into the lake, then the scales will record a smaller weight, a weight that will become zero once the carp is fully submerged. The carp still has a mass of twenty pounds, but its weight has been precisely balanced by the force with which water is pushing upwards on the carp. Does it therefore weigh zero? No. It still weighs 20 pounds, because weight is defined as the force acting on the carp due to gravity. Gravity is pulling down on that carp, with a force of twenty pounds, if its mass is twenty pounds. Your scales are recorded the force of gravity on the carp, minus the force pushing upwards due to whatever the carp is submerged in...be it submerged in water...or in air.<br />
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The weight recorded by your scales can never be completely accurate, unless you are weighing the carp in a vacuum, which will be rather less healthy for the carp than your average pond. But there is an upside: In air the weight recorded will always be a teensy bit too low. So if you catch that special fish and the scales show 49 pounds 15 ounces and 15 drams, then it probably actually tops 50. To get an accurate value, you really need to account for the force exerted by the air on your fish, and add that on. You can calculate this extra amount quite easily, but I am not going to tell you how. Work it out for yourself the next time you catch a carp of 49-15-15. <br />
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I do not intend to make much comment about river fishing, the odd line or two, but most of this analysis is directed at stillwater fishing with a float. Such can be conveniently divided into four distinct categories:</div>
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1) Surface fishing</div>
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2) Midwater fishing</div>
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3) Bottom fishing</div>
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4) Fishing on the drop.</div>
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In surface fishing, although the float <b>may</b> be used to spot the bites, its main use is as a weight to aid casting, in order to achieve the distance and improve accuracy. There is little more I would wish to add, save that a float made of very light materials might be appropriate, because it will tend to land quite gently on the surface with far less of a splash than a much heavier one.</div>
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Like wise I will not mumble much about 'on the drop' fishing or midwater techniques. </div>
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No: instead I intend to concentrate on bottom fishing, although some of what is said may well apply to others of the four categories listed above. Further, to enable me to discuss in the most detail, I choose to concentrate on the lift method, a method that is probably the hardest to set up and use properly. I have seen it written that Fred J Taylor was the person who first described lift method fishing. I cannot verify that, but have no reason to doubt it, Fred was, after all, a damned good angler. But even before his time anglers would have seen lifted or flat float bites at times. What Fred did was to intentionally set up a rig<b> designed</b> to produce such bites more often. <br />
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<u><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><b>Buoyancy</b></span></u><br />
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Why did I spout all that garbage about scales that lie? Well, it all comes down to buoyancy. What is a float? Merely a device to provide some buoyancy in water. Floats have weight, drop one and it falls to the ground. Drop one in water and it rises to the surface, because it has buoyancy. The reason it rises is because the water is pushing the float upwards with a force greater than the weight of the float. Water pushes upwards onto anything placed into it, even onto objects that sink, like say the Titanic. And the force that pushes upwards can be easily calculated. If an object occupies 10 cubic centimetres and is fully submerged, then there will be a force exerted by the water which is equal to the weight of 10 ccs of water. Water, rather conveniently weighs one gram per cc. ( or millilitre). So the upward force would be 10 grams. Incidentally, you probably know that one cubic centimeter is the same volume as one millilitre. The only difference is that millilitres are suitable to measuring the volumes of liquids, whereas ccs are more useful for solids. <br />
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Why did the Titanic sink? It sank because the weight of the ship and its contents overcame the ships buoyancy. Its mass increased as water replaced the air inside it, and eventually the sea was not able to push the ship up with sufficient force to keep it afloat. Even though, as it sank deeper, the sea tried its level best to keep pushing up with more and more force. So it sank. Nothing to do with icebergs at all.<br />
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So lets say that your float has a volume of 10ccs but weighs 5 grams. It will float, because it weighs less than 10 grams, i.e. less than the weight of 10 ccs of water. But also when floating, it is stationary, neither rising nor falling. So the forces on it must cancel out. The water therefore must be giving an upthrust of 5 grams. And the float will be half submerged. The float therefore has 5 grams of unused "spare buoyancy". So it will carry 5 grams of lead shot, which will sink it to its tip. ( It will actually be able to carry very slightly more, because the water will also be exerting a small upward force on the lead shot you have added. This effect is small, and the volume of the shot and the upthrust on it can, and will be, largely ignored in what follows. The weight of the shot is what is important.)<br />
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What can we do with buoyancy, how can we use it to our advantage?<br />
We can move it, we can reposition the main source of buoyancy within the float. We can have a float with most of its volume at the top end. We could have the most buoyant part in the middle of the float, or low down. I cannot think of a good reason to have most of the buoyancy in the middle of a float.<br />
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We can also vary its magnitude and have floats with more buoyancy, or with less. This can be achieved by simply changing the size of the float. Changing the materials of which the float is made does not affect its buoyancy, but does alter how much shot it can carry. The heavier the materials used, the less shot a float of a specific size and shape will be able to carry. Simples.<br />
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<u><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">The Lift Method</span></u><br />
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So what is the lift method? and when might it be best used? Its primary use is to detect bites that might otherwise not be seen with a more conventional float set up. Shy bites. But it can also be used just for fun, for there is no doubt that to see a float lift two or three inches, or to lay completely flat is quite dramatic. Fishing for early season tench, where bites are usually very positive is perhaps better suited to a laying on approach.<br />
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I looked up a couple of articles, to see how others described the lift method, and was surprised to see wide variations in the descriptions given, with some descriptions being plain wrong, and others restricted, or far from complete. One wrote about there needing to be two SSGs, and a swivel with three to twelve inches of hooklength. Twelve inches between the hook and shot is an excellent way of avoiding lift bites! An Angling Times article said it was essential to shot the float down to within a midge's of disappearing completely. I shall comment on that later. Elsewhere it is claimed to be a method for the margins alone. Once again: wrong!<br />
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Whilst all of these methods can give rise to lift bites, none are an accurate description of how I would define the lift method, and how it used to appear in articles many years ago. the simplest implementation is probably a single SSG set a couple of inches from the hook, below a length of peacock quill with the depth set very accurately. I have caught early season tench like this, a short float usually laying flat when the bites came. Fish over depth and you are laying on, and with lift method there is no need to use large shot, and no need for ALL the shot to be down near the hook. Using more shot higher up allows you to fish at greater distances, whilst retaining full sensitivity to lift bites.<br />
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The crux of lift method, its central feature, is that you use tell-tale shot or shots, just touching the bottom, and close to the hook. But as much of the weight of that shot as possible should still be supported by the float. This means that the line between float and shot will be completely vertical. The original descriptions of lift method depicted a fish swimming along, seeing the bait, and dipping down to take it. It then returned to an even keel, and as it did so, it lifted the shot off the bottom. You will see some explanations that say the fish lifted the float...incorrect. The float lifted because it was no longer supporting as much shot. It lifts until it once more is in equilibrium with the remaining shot ( if any). This makes it ideal for catching crucian carp, whose deep body necessitates then "bending down" to take the bait, thus lifting the shot as they return to the horizontal. I don't think crucians are shy biters, just lazy fish, that usually cannot be bothered to swim off with a bait. <br />
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At this point we might discuss suitable floats. Whilst self cocking floats could be used, they are far<br />
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from ideal, and would never lie flat. A float with most of its buoyancy near the top, one that is quite wide bodied at the water surface is ideal for rivers and trotting. The river has swirling currents, is a very dynamic environment, changing yard by yard, and the effect is that the "pull" of the line on the float is variable. A wide topped float is able to override these effects, not dipping or rising very much, and also remain visible at long distances. Adding an extra small shot would make little difference to how such a float sits in the stream. On the other hand a thin tip to a float in a river would be constantly misbehaving, dipping, going under, dipping and rising, and would prevent easy detection of a true bite. The photo shows one of "Purple Peanut"'s hand made stick floats which I used to catch some grayling last week. It has a metal stem, which helps stability and a broad top, ideal for river fishing.<br />
A fine tipped float is, however, perfect for a lift method float.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kitchen Sink Experiment</td></tr>
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I have added a table below, which can be used to show how much shot a float might carry. The table shows the weights of some common shot sizes, and by how much the addition of such shot will sink or lift an antenna float ( the main body of the float remaining sub surface ). The values in <b>bold</b> were measured using a simple kitchen sink experiment. Values are therefore approximate. The non-bold values were interpolated from the measured results, but some I couldn't be bothered with doing at all and remain blank. You can see though that a No 4 shot, which weighs 0.2 grams could sink a float having a 2mm wide antenna by 8cms (or rather more than three inches). The last column shows shot added to a Peanut stick float, demonstrating that it sits very stable, and is not easily messed with by the current..<br />
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When in actual use for lift method, these values should be considered as the maximums... reason: some of the shot's weight will be resting on the bottom of the lake. But it can be seen that a fish lifting even a single shot of these sizes, with a suitable float, can give quite a significant bite "length".<br />
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A long fine antenna float has a number of other advantages. Its main body will be some distance below the surface, well away from being significantly disturbed by waves, and being thin, the wind will not have too great an effect on it either. The other advantage is far more subtle. One problem you may envisage is that it can be difficult to establish the depth very accurately, mainly because the bottom of most waters will vary somewhat in depth. Make your next cast 6 inches away and the depth could be an inch or so deeper, or shallower. The long thin antenna float can compensate significantly for this depth variation, in that the shot will pull it down until it just hits bottom. This could leave you with either a half inch of float protruding, or two inches, perhaps even more. But because that shot, let's say the BB on a 2 mm antenna, will pull the float down up to 16 centimetres, you will still have an effective lift set up, just one with a little more float sticking above the water. Still plenty to play with. And if you don't want it so high, just reel in a fraction. A point to note is that the material from which the antenna is made, has no effect on the values in this table. It is only the volume (or cross section area) that matters. Steel or balsa, it will make no difference if the dimensions are the same.<br />
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An important point that you may have missed is that, using a lift method, you can use quite a large float, with a fair shot load, enabling you to cast and fish at distance, yet, because the fish only feels the tell-tale, you can still fish very sensitively.<br />
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<b>Shot Weight 1 mm wide antenna 2 mm wide antenna </b> P<b>eanut Stick Float</b><br />
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SSG 1.6 grams - - <b>4 cm</b><br />
AAA 0.8 grams - 32 cm <b>2 cm</b><br />
BB 0.4 grams 64 cm <b> 16 cm 1 cm</b><br />
No 4 0.2 grams <b>32 cm 8 cm </b>5 mm<br />
No 6 0.1 grams <b>16 cm 4 cm </b>2.5 mm<b> </b><br />
No 8 0.06 grams 9 cm 2.3 cm -<br />
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><u>That "BUT".</u></span></b><br />
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We have to not only consider Archimedes, and we have, but also Newton. So let's go back to that slider float, carrying 4 SSG and a single tell-tale number 8 shot. If we assume the float had a one millimetre antenna, then a fish lifting that shot would cause the float to lift by as much as 9 centimetres, a bit over three inches. We don't only have to consider how much the float will lift, but how fast it will rise, how long it will take for the bite to be seen. Once that shot has been lifted, the float, shot and line are acted upon by the "spare buoyancy" that the float now has. That is in effect a force of 0.06 grams, not very much at all. If we assume the float weighs a couple of grams, then once we add in the weight of those SSGs, that small force has to act on a total of 8.4 grams. Newton's equation states that force = mass x acceleration. I am not going to go into the calculations now, but the float is going to accelerate upwards very slowly. It will also be hindered by the drag caused by the water on the line, shot and float, slowing its rise yet more. In the first second or so it will have lifted far less than one centimetre, let alone nine. The tell-tale shot size needs to be matched to the total size if the tackle ( in practice matched to the total volume of the float, which defines how big the total weight of float and shot will be). So Phil, ditch that number 8 shot and replace it with a BB! ;-) Only if I fish a <b>very</b> small antenna float would I personally use a shot smaller than a BB.<br />
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Whilst on the subject of split shot, isn't is completely disgraceful how much they cost these days? Buy one of those multi-compartmentalized circular dispensers and I get a lot of sizes I never use, and very few of the sizes I do use: SSG, AAA and BB. The Chairman Mao little red boxes contain so few that it almost breaks the bank to buy one. I had just 7 SSG in one box. The guy with 4 SSG suspended below his slider has to be one of the super rich. I have been returning shot to the boxes after use, but they only last so long before they fail to grip, although I usually drop them into long grass well before they become useless. I have only found one source for bulk lead shot, in China. They were so hard that it took pliers to close the split, almost a vice. they were causing far too much damage to the line. But I think I have a solution, as to how I might reduce the costs of my most usual sizes, AAA and BB by a factor of about twenty. I'll trial it this next week and see how it goes before mentioning it further in here. If it fails I shall keep quiet and go away and hide.<br />
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<u><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-size: large;">Taking it From the Theoretical to the Lakeside.</span></u><br />
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Last week I took all this theory to a practical extreme: the float in the photograph is fully 15 inches long, with a one millimetre wide tip, definitely an antenna float and then some. It took five BBs to just sink it, so I attached the float by a JayZS rig, otherwise setting up the lift method exactly as described above, putting two BBs just a couple of inches from the hook (at times I go as close as an inch), the other three shot being a good foot higher up. The float sat with great stability in the swim, 10 or 12 yards out, with either an inch or two of the antenna visible, reflecting the slight depth differences it encountered from one cast to the next.<br />
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Antenna nicely visible, as are a number of bubbles from feeding fish. A few seconds later the float lifted a good four inches as a fish lifted the two tell-tale shot. It was still lifting as I struck into the fish.<br />
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And a good crucian is drawn towards the net following a spirited fight. Note the two shot, set very close to the hook, no more than two inches away.<br />
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The result: a crucian of over two pounds, one of several, all over two pounds, to be taken during the session. Note that the float is longer than any of the fish.<br />
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Another crucian is safely returned to the water.<br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><u>Micro Dotting Your Float...Or Not?</u></span><br />
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One thing that has always intrigued me is why some anglers, and certainly most pole anglers, always shot their floats down, such that only the merest pin prick shows above the surface. Sensitivity I hear you all shout, and indeed such a float, shotted down to within a millimetre of being drowned, will pick up the minutest touch, whether from a bite, or from the close passage of a fish, waving the odd fin as it slips past. But is it necessary to seek such a delicate presentation? My answer would be that it is neither necessary, nor desirable. Such floats are invariably small, with a tiny diameter antenna at the top. Those of you who have kept up with the above will see that, a small diameter antenna, has very little volume in its tip, and therefore very little buoyancy, and therefore it takes very little effort to sink it...even if it protrudes above the surface by a full inch or so. If the reflections on the water surface are such ( and they usually are) that you cannot see the section of float underneath the water, then with a micro dotted float, you have no idea what is happening after the float has moved that first millimetre downwards. The float has simply vanished. With an inch, or even half an inch sticking up, you are much better able to judge the progress of a bite and therefore whether to strike at it. And the fish will almost certainly not feel any difference. All IMHO of course.<br />
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<u><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Sight Bobs.</span></u><br />
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Antennae floats have one significant problem. Visibility. A very thin sliver of material can be very difficult to see at distance, regardless of how you might colour it. One solution is to add a sight bob to the tip. If the bob is made of light material, it will not significantly add to the total weight of the float. It will add marginally to the total buoyancy, but when still above the water a small bob will have little effect upon how the float performs, although it will sit a mite lower for the same shot load, and will be somewhat more affected by the wind than would a pure antenna. If you have an inch of your antenna protruding above the surface, with the sight bob above that, then the performance of the float will be otherwise little changed. A fish lifting that one tell-tale shot will cause the float to lift by <b>exactly</b> the same amount as if the bob were not there. The only difference will be that the float is ever so slightly heavier, and so will accelerate upwards a teensy bit more slowly. So the lighter the bob material the better. A simple bob can be made from a cotton bud at almost zero cost. It comes with a ready made tube attached, which can be cut to length and slid over the antenna, and it is lightweight. It just needs colouring and/or a varnish spray to suit. If the tube is a little too large in diameter it can be part filled with anything that comes to hand, a bit of line, grass stem, whatever, such that it successfully jams atop the antenna. Alternatively a kink made in the tube might allow it to grip on its own. Or use glue for a more permanent bob. There is very little to lose by adding a sight bob, and it should enable you to fish very sensitively at much greater distance.<br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><u>One? Two? A Couple of Hundred?</u></span><br />
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Lastly, how many floats do you own? If you have done any amount of float fishing at all, the answer is probably far, far too many. A float has to be learned, so study how it reacts in still, calm water, in rougher, choppier surfaces, in winds. Be at one with your float. To do this you really need to restrict how many different types of floats you use. Let's face it, most of those in your tackle box have never yet seen water. So next time you see that ten year old kid, his one and only float stuck high above his head in that hawthorn tree, give him a few of yours...and then, next time you are on the water check the tree again to see how many more he has lost. But losing floats is not something just the kids do. We lose some too. That bad cast, that risky chuck too near to that overhanging tree, the fish that sheds the hook under tension, causing your float, shot and hook to rocket up into that oak tree directly above your head, lost forever, or at least until the autumnal leaf fall. So buy several of each type that you use regularly, in maybe a couple of different sizes. It is unlikely that you have need for more than a dozen different float styles. So have a few of each pattern, and then a loss of one will not leave you needing to fish differently, just dip into your tackle bag, and there, lo and behold, is an identical float. </div>
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<br />By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-42707010923266522902016-09-13T17:07:00.001+01:002020-12-22T20:10:04.364+00:00Selling My Soul...and Size Thirteen Hooks.<div style="text-align: justify;">
Warning! This blog entry contains a bait review, and I know some people do not like to bother reading reviews....but I hope there is sufficient other content to remain interesting. Am I selling my soul?</div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">I was surprised a short while ago, yet pleased, that someone asked me whether I might write the occasional review of a product or two in my blog. I admit that I was initially unsure. A lot of anglers these days seem to endorse products, especially baits. I don't read the angling comics much, never buy them, but might be seen browsing their front pages occasionally in a newsagents or in Tesco's magazine racks, Articles in these papers are, in the main, written by the editorial team, well known anglers ( or their ghost writers) , and often seem to ram home the trade names in every other sentence. I do sometimes wonder whether there is any financial relationship between big tackle and bait companies, and the number of times their logo or name appears in an article. I see many a news item that spends a deal of time describing bait and tackle, naming the manufacturer etc etc. Often as much attention seems to be given to the manufacturer's named product as to the fish and the capture itself.</span><br />
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"I caught my magnificent eight and a half ounce bottlenosed gudgeon on two Qualitex elephant dung boilies, using FFS fortified cat litter groundbait and a size 13 specialist octobarbed, colour coded hook from Stickemup Tackle Co"...Ltd.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghn5XmECv_ktkr18vx8g3UQ2Vl9cLK30n7tqtk4DNAWZzcF1i07VvuvjLQgtevOmDibBVpq56DsgzpocLbWqSW-hJceHm5hGIaKM4hAgTT27BVdOtVw2FZpxavghkuaIGj2E4hACuNSEAZ/s1600/size+13.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghn5XmECv_ktkr18vx8g3UQ2Vl9cLK30n7tqtk4DNAWZzcF1i07VvuvjLQgtevOmDibBVpq56DsgzpocLbWqSW-hJceHm5hGIaKM4hAgTT27BVdOtVw2FZpxavghkuaIGj2E4hACuNSEAZ/s320/size+13.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Size 13 Hooks</td></tr>
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I actually have a packet of size 13 hooks, (not octobarbed and colour coded), but for those who might have spent an eternity looking for a hook mid-way, between 12 and 14, I am sorry to disappoint you. We all know that hook sizes vary a little from one manufacturer, and one model, to the next, but surely <b>this</b> divergence is going a little too far from the agreed standard? But I will certainly use one the next time I target bottle nosed gudgeon.</div>
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I don't ever have my catches published in the angling papers, and never did in the past when far more of my fish could have made those pages. I see so many anglers who want to get their names in the papers as often as possible. Some have admitted to actively seeking to become a sponsored angler. I assume it is for the free bait that some of them consequentially get. Sponsored anglers HAVE to perform of course. They need to justify sponsorship, and to product place the name of whatever it is they are using as often as they may. They have to be seen to be using their sponsored items, and to be using them successfully to catch a succession of good fish. So <strong>that</strong>, in itself, dictates where they must fish where: mainly recent big fish capture sites and commercials. Commercials give them more or less a guarantee that they are near a "saleable" fish capture. I would worry as a sponsored angler that I should really be fishing<strong> their</strong> way. I still like to do my own thing. I like to decide <strong>where</strong> I fish, <strong>when</strong> I fish, <strong>how</strong> I fish, <strong>which</strong> bait I use, and <strong>what</strong> I fish for. When I finally figure out <strong>WHY</strong> I go fishing then it too will have been for my own reasons.<br />
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So when offered a pack of carp bait to "test", at a time when I did not want to fish for carp (something I seldom do), I replied that I rarely sought carp these days, but would be prepared to give the bait a go for other species, and fully expected that they would decline. But no, they accepted. And I had nothing to lose, and maybe the bait would indeed be brilliant. For, if you think about it, why would anyone risk having a bait reviewed if it were not very good? Obviously I would truthfully tell it as it is with respect to results. For unlike a sponsored angler, I have no need to maintain any status. If my words exclude me from further products to try out, then so be it. I would probably never have bought the bait myself, for, never reading any of those angling publications, I am not personally and constantly bombarded with "buy me", "get this" , "use that", and other such adverts. Therein lie advantages, but also disadvantages: I might never get to try a really superb new bait, and not even know of its existence.</div>
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So a pack of bait from "Sticky Baits" arrived on my doorstep, supplied by <span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 20.8267px; text-align: start;">Keen’s Tackle and Guns</span>. It contained products from their "Manilla" range. Which was quite a coincidence because my wife was taking a flight to Manila later that same day. I have two free months in which to play and make the house untidy. Reading the blurb on the Manilla packets, it has a peanut extract base. This of course sent me off into imagination mode. I visualized myself throwing in a handful of bait, and then moments later seeing half the lake's fish population gasping for breath and calling out for ambulances as they suffered <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "merriweather" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 24px;">anaphylaxis due to a peanut allergy. Coming back to reality I did wonder whether <strong>any</strong> other species, apart from Homo sapiens, would be vulnerable to a peanut allergy. And might some of those be fish?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "merriweather" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 24px;">And why has the line spacing in this blog article suddenly changed? I have no idea. More inexplicable reaction to the peanut word? Bugger it, I am not messing about changing it back.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "merriweather" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 24px;">So what did happen when I threw in my first handful of the bait? Nothing. Nothing for a full five minutes, at which time a good crucian carp splashed over the groundbait. More were to splash in the area. None were splashing anywhere else in the lake. It would be unrealistic not to have associated the fish activity with the bait I had chucked in. On a second trip a crucian splashed within a minute of throwing in the bait. I did catch a few fish too. Mainly crucians, but a late evening tench took the bait on both days. The first I lost, after a good scrap. It dived bankside a couple of yards to my right and became solidly snagged. There was nothing I could do on my crucian tackle. Even with heavier line, I might still have lost the fish, for no-one has yet invented a line that allows me to push a fish further out. All I can do is to pull it nearer, or at best try to make it deviate a little from its intended course. Knowing the snag was there on day one might not have helped me much at all. All these tackle dealers, and manufacturers, and not a single one has come up with a push me/pull me line! Nor even a conductive line, allowing the angler to Taser an uncooperative fish were it to get too close to known snags. But perhaps that would be cheating? The tench on the second day swam into the same snag. But it was myself with the lucky break this time, and a tench of about five pounds was duly landed. One good factor, which I liked, was that I was still able to catch fish in the swim, using baits unrelated to the groundbait. This is important to me, I don't like to see fish that will only take one specific type of bait.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "merriweather" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 24px;">As a scientific thinker, I should have to say that two instances are hardly statistical proof of how effective a bait is, but as an angler I cannot ignore what seems to be an indisputable fact: the bait stirred some fish into action, and did it very quickly. It seems highly likely that they were feeding on the free bait I threw in almost immediately. Back into scientific mode and I have to ask: "Would any other brand of bait have had the same effect on those mornings?" Answer: I don't know. In angling it is almost impossible to make any direct comparison between products. Far too many other factors involved: factors that cannot be excluded. In the laboratory, such tests are easy to set up, where only one factor can possibly have any effect, anything else being systematically excluded. Get two anglers in adjacent swims, one catching, the other not, and there are a myriad of variations to consider. Starting with skill levels at one end of the rod, down to whether or not </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "merriweather" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 24px;">a pike was idling away its time a foot from one angler's bait at the other end of the line. Impossible to make a viable comparison. So it comes down to: Will I buy some more of this bait, when my supply runs out? I would have to say yes, even though to me it smells very much like the popcorn that people inexplicably must eat in cinemas, the smell of which I quite detest. I might have to just use this bait downwind.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times";">The splashing crucians are worth another mention. The splashing certainly seems to be related to feeding. They seem to dash straight up, vertically, to the surface, and then descend equally vertically. This is certainly the case in deeper water, as it is possible to see the expelled bubbles rise up to the surface, betraying the path the fish has taken on its way back to the lake bed. In shallower swims the fish may have dashed back down, and then swam along the bottom, still expelling air. Why they do it remains a mystery to me. Another endearing quirk of the crucian carp.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "merriweather" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 24px;">I had intended to take a friend after grayling the other day. He has never caught one. Damned line spacing has jumped again!! But rain made the river unsuitable for the capture of that species. So to while away some time I headed for a little local pond, and cast in with the crucian set up, light line that was still threaded through the rod rings. I had some of the bait left, so cast in the float, and laid the rod on the ground whilst I put the lid back onto the bait. Mistake! I nearly lost the rod, together with my favourite centrepin, as a carp grabbed the bait almost before the float settled. The rod was headed pondwise at speed. I lunged and saved the rod, but too late: the carp was already deeply buried in a rather impenetrable grangly type of floating weed. Superb for crucians, the size 12 hook proved unsuitable for a snagged carp, and came back straightened. That is as much as I can say about how suitable the bait is for carp. One unexpected carp was rather overenthusiastic about it. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times";">In short, I should have liked to have been able to be more scientific about how good the bait was. The practicality is though, that a single angler could never give a statistically valid analysis. Too many variables, too little time to experiment. So I have had to fall back on a less rigorous approach and just say that it worked for me, on those days I used it. Hmmm...the peanuts appear to have forgiven me and allowed my usual line spacing to return. Weird. And the text size in the published article is different from that in this draft. There is another odd thing about this blogging site. I still have occasional troubles where I have to enter into physical combat with the blog, in order to persuade it NOT to rotate one of my photographs through 90 degrees. It can take me several attempts, messing about with the detail, to get the photograph aligned as I wish it.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cKGE75I9_xLps0YF3ulgqNpqzrEo2nTCHwuirEuH805KZLEY4Cru2xBOs25cWertrEz53IB2mF763K5LNOOjLEfqYc014OMFB5uMS7kKya5I1FNPlyzDcNZOpByu00rvONgxEAWyGCw8/s1600/DSC02682.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cKGE75I9_xLps0YF3ulgqNpqzrEo2nTCHwuirEuH805KZLEY4Cru2xBOs25cWertrEz53IB2mF763K5LNOOjLEfqYc014OMFB5uMS7kKya5I1FNPlyzDcNZOpByu00rvONgxEAWyGCw8/s320/DSC02682.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Half Tail Crucian</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times";">Returning to recent pond trips, and coincidences. One crucian had a half tail, somewhat spoiling its looks. Two days later, on the same water, but well over a hundred yards away in another swim, I caught the same fish. I compared the tail, and various blemishes in the scale patterns and it was very definitely the same fish. It had also gained 2 ounces, just scraping over two pounds on the second capture. Probably the difference between a full stomach and an empty one, rather than any real growth. I had another half tail crucian on a different water much earlier in the year. It came from a water in which I have only caught two crucians, the first being two years earlier, and from the same swim. Both of those had half a tail, and I suspect they also were the same fish. I must re-examine the photographs. If I can be bothered. The second capture had also gained two ounces, up from 2-7 to 2-9! Coincidence again? </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times";">But the coincidences kept coming. A couple of years ago a certain big fish angler made contact with me through facebook. He mention that a friend of his knew and respected me as an angler from way back. We discussed various things, before, after about six months of chatting, we realized that our sons knew each other well, both being brilliant jugglers, and having met frequently at juggling conventions. Back now to the pond where I nearly lost the rod. I was fishing it for only the second time in about four years. As evening approached, it was beginning to drizzle. I was getting no bites from the target crucians, the intensity of rain was slowly increasing, and I was travelling light, minus brolly, so I was considering packing up. As that thought entered my head, a couple strolled onto the pond. The guy engaged me in conversation and we discussed initially crucian carp, and then we moved onto angling history. He spoke of many of those anglers I knew well in the past. After about thirty minutes he suddenly asked me my name, and we realized that he and I had both served on the NASG (National Association of Specimen Groups) committee nearly 50 years ago. He was up from the Midlands visiting his ladyfriend. And I then twigged that I knew her too: my usual B&Q checkout lady. Meantime the rain increased yet more, and all three of us became Rattus wettus. Veryus Rattus wettus. A long way past damp, we soared past wet and substantially got well into drenched. I remained on the water a few minutes after the two of them had departed. Just long enough to be sure he didn't see me abandoning my post because of the rain, and I left with my reputation intact....my reputation as an idiot? Coincidences abounded. And a few days later I discovered that he was also the very friend that my facebook contact had talked of two years ago! I feel I dare not leave the house now in case I bump into my old grammar school English teacher in the street. I detested him and would probably still do so. He probably still carries that cane. Coincidences happen to everyone in life. Some people inexplicably call them miracles. Others accept them as an occasional fact of life. I am getting more than my fair share of them recently. But the statistical "rules" of coincidence do say that some people will have far more than their fair share. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times";">I had a two day trip to the Trent recently, ostensibly chasing a barbel or two. A couple of factors were against that stated intent. Firstly the river was quite low and very clear. Otherwise not too much weed flowing down so as to snag and drag the end tackle. But low water was against me catching a barbel. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times";">Then, the locals told me that the stretch has relatively few barbel in any case, being in the upper river. I have not fished the upper stretches much at all, but am informed the fish live in very small shoals, shoals of maybe 4 or 5 fish, often separated by long distances to the next shoal. Makes it all a bit hit and miss, but I was not really set up for a roving approach on the day. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO76Q0GkaNS1PGvqy16-QSwNAMQlzKh7gaiaU45CYVowxVLFl9Mm_wk2Qewb30RuGUlNUrjT6Q1pl-qmrDjymOYKXEKXzrNiZIg3_djt9yS2joiiVo50pAnI-Z6_VRNKvwTwH1tTKolZFL/s1600/DSC02714.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO76Q0GkaNS1PGvqy16-QSwNAMQlzKh7gaiaU45CYVowxVLFl9Mm_wk2Qewb30RuGUlNUrjT6Q1pl-qmrDjymOYKXEKXzrNiZIg3_djt9yS2joiiVo50pAnI-Z6_VRNKvwTwH1tTKolZFL/s640/DSC02714.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Long Lean Four Pound Chub<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times"; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times";"> I'll know a little better next time. I did net a few chub, best about four pounds, a long lean fish, that at other times of the year must weigh far more. I hit all the good bites, but on the last morning noticed a few chub plucks. Failed when trying to hook them, but had I held the rod more and tried to hit those for the full duration of the session, I may have had far more chub. Holding the rod constantly though, on a two day session? I chose just to hit the good bites. I also spent some time chasing<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1bCX6rnPPM1e0QeJEA30C6bXdy8zZnu-dbN4T4-XiXcxNRrkC6KtXilOnoeQoNNHwLcK1L5_40-764c-M21cddbqXKqVx20RLm3yqjiZKLHAMmZYDQbk1I7dRLYs6dBNp57bleKl2lCv/s1600/DSC02698.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1bCX6rnPPM1e0QeJEA30C6bXdy8zZnu-dbN4T4-XiXcxNRrkC6KtXilOnoeQoNNHwLcK1L5_40-764c-M21cddbqXKqVx20RLm3yqjiZKLHAMmZYDQbk1I7dRLYs6dBNp57bleKl2lCv/s320/DSC02698.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trent Perch</td></tr>
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perch, and in one, three hour spell had about fifteen. No monsters though, with the largest about a pound and a quarter. I am sure bigger are present. More reasons to be mobile I guess. I did see an otter: crossing the river until it dived. It was some 80 or 90 yards downstream of me, and as it dived it silhouetted a good foot or so of tail against the bright water, leaving just a ring of ripples in its wake. Only the second wild otter I have seen in the UK, the first encounter with one being far, far better, one of those to treasure forever. This Trent otter, on reaching the near bank disturbed a moorhen, which scuttered its way across to the far bank in an evident state of panic. I still have no confirmed, or rather, </span><strong style="color: #222222; font-family: times;">trusted,</strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times";"> reports of otters near to my home. Rumours of the odd one supposedly sighted about 15 miles away in a couple of different directions. But so many people misidentify mink, that I cannot yet take any report as being true. I wouldn't mind the presence of an odd local otter or two.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIbYNMeaygam4dLWfASa7kMh2rPTDQM3fMLD39T1Mn05h25AWeSbNZtbFqhhUgftHp5zECwQwEFu6VCFWFe9Qt3ToWaMrcZtlDMYpuKYI1vxDv7qYLi_hBgYkJ1jhVtC16GbGjYGAocanh/s1600/DSC02718.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIbYNMeaygam4dLWfASa7kMh2rPTDQM3fMLD39T1Mn05h25AWeSbNZtbFqhhUgftHp5zECwQwEFu6VCFWFe9Qt3ToWaMrcZtlDMYpuKYI1vxDv7qYLi_hBgYkJ1jhVtC16GbGjYGAocanh/s640/DSC02718.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trent Sunset</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times";">En route back from the Trent, I hit on another club water, one previously unseen, never mind unfished. Suggestions of there being crucians present, and an unwillingness to return home during the rush hour, caused me to stop and fish. And there were indeed some crucians. Three over a pound and a half being landed, amongst a ruck of tench to five and the odd little roach rudd and perch. This has been a good crucian season for me, but the lack of small ones in all waters, save one which I may mention in the next post, is rather worrying. Crucians do not do well in the presence of predators, especially pike, and my only catching larger individuals suggests strongly that the crucian potential of these waters is one of a limited lifespan. I think that angling clubs have almost a duty to try to encourage the species. A great species for kids to catch, and as I tend to be a big kid myself at times....</span><br />
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<br />By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-4033740553845160282016-08-17T10:52:00.004+01:002016-08-22T14:19:45.008+01:00The Crucian Finale...Probably.<div style="text-align: justify;">
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I felt like I needed a couple more sessions after those crucians. Even following recent successes, I was not fully satisfied with my performance and so returned to the jinx lake. The idea was to make a last trip, or maybe two before veering off to seek another species entirely. I was better prepared this time, all my old schoolboy crucian knowledge was back, and very much to the fore in the tactical plan. The weather forecast was not at all bad, very cloudy, prospect of a little rain, but not so much as to make life on the bankside unpleasant. And as is more and more often the case these days, the forecast proved to be spot on. No longer is it more accurate to simply say " Today's weather will be similar to that of yesterday". Even weather forecasts are no fun any more.<br />
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My first cast hit the water not long after dawn. I had decided to ignore other anglers' suggestions that I fish just three or four feet out from the reeds. They, and the bailiffs, all recommend this, and say most of the crucians come from very close in. It had crossed my mind though, that cause and effect may have become confused here. If everyone fishes close in ( and they seem to do so) then it is inevitable that all the crucians will be taken close in. So the advice may be self fulfilling. I decided to fish a fair bit further out, 6 or 7 yards, and would see what happened.<br />
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Nothing for quite a while, but after the obligatory couple of small roach, a fish that was better. The rod stopped dead as the line tightened to the fish. That is always quite a pleasurable moment, when on the strike, the rod stops suddenly and the fish holds solid. It didn't initially move much, very typical of one species. Crucian thinks I. But it soon became apparent that it was not a crucian, the fight, once it got under way, bored too consistently deep, and was lasting too long. The fish nearly had me in trouble in the branches of a part dead alder that drooped into the water, and on light crucian gear it was heart in mouth stuff as the tension in the line was necessarily increased to a fairly unsafe value, one getting very near to the breaking strain of the hooklink. But all was to be well and a scrapper of a tench about three and a half was landed. <br />
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The mass of house martins that had spent the early part of the day milling around over the pond had now departed, leaving just a few swallows whose presence I had not noted earlier in amongst the general melee of birds. A couple of swifts also paid a short visit, but the dozen or so of swallows were to remain throughout the day. I didn't have too much time to look at them, for the float once again lifted and the "rod stopped dead" situation was repeated. But this fish was different, it didn't charge about the swim madly, as had the tench. It set off for the other side of the lake, at a fairly steady and slow pace, largely unaffected by the best I could do on my three pound hook link. It managed a more or less perfectly straight line swimming away from me at right angles to the bank. I was not worried, for I was not expecting there to be any snags out there, and fully expected to land the fish in due course. I should have worried though, for, when some 15 or 20 yards out and counting, the hook pulled. I will never know what the fish was of course. I suspect a much bigger tench, although a carp could have been responsible. I do doubt that, for I suspect a carp would have been travelling at a far greater speed. Far too many hook pulls this season for my liking.<br />
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The voles were back, sneaking bits of food. I am told by a birdwatching friend that this has been an excellent year for voles. He appears to be right. It should, in consequence, have been a great year for owls too. But the wet summer has restricted their hunting, and so owls have not fared well at all. Breeding successes have been limited by unsuitable weather. I am not too impressed by the blackberries this year either. There have been trips in other years when the blackberry brambles near my swim have provided much of my food and drink for the day. Ripened and ripening berries seem rarer this year, although the few I have picked and eaten were wonderfully tarty. A week in nature can be a long time though, and I hope the fruits may become more prolific soon.<br />
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Some days the warblers have constantly given voice, both in the rushes and the nearby trees. Warblers tend to be amongst what most average birdwatchers call LBJs. LBJ stands for Little Brown Job or in English, unidentified small bird. In summer the presence of young birds, often not in full adult plumage, serves to confuse the issue still more. Some can be so similar that only the most advanced and experienced twitcher can be sure...or risk saying that they are sure. All very reminiscent of our own trout/sea trout problems. FSSF. Fair Sized Spotty Fish? But I managed to photograph one bird that repeatedly came quite near. So this is a photograph of an LBJ. What is it? You tell me. I am guessing reed warbler in a (pear?) tree.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhJsBgc8URH77jiYCFtkxvwp5b_kxY4fy0_zNK-Lel4VTaq-LtBKIj-PKb6Ci-TTBmq2P9aLLslsyBTICC70zii4_bHoYSy0ehQpNC2Gg8HCQolMqKx-0xgOkdXXeYb1VeVyUWPg-NH5Vq/s1600/birds+Tattenhall+py+%25287%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhJsBgc8URH77jiYCFtkxvwp5b_kxY4fy0_zNK-Lel4VTaq-LtBKIj-PKb6Ci-TTBmq2P9aLLslsyBTICC70zii4_bHoYSy0ehQpNC2Gg8HCQolMqKx-0xgOkdXXeYb1VeVyUWPg-NH5Vq/s640/birds+Tattenhall+py+%25287%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">LBJ</td></tr>
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But to return to the crucian carp. The dull day seemed to have stimulated them, and having returned to the tactics of my youth, that is to fish lift method very sensitively, they decided to play the game, and although the bites were not 100% hittable, by some wide margin, plenty of bites came, and quite a few were hooked. Of those 13 were landed, with no less than eight weighing over two pounds. But 6 or 7 were either pricked or lost to a hook pull. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-oZihXHjJWDQSB_t_3Z5mveswEwo9qH0GCljIY-8efLhckPifdEYj3TzhhF8hm2ffpQ8tN9GkQnsowNBRxu3d3kSm_nR5Togt3JWd-_eK1-xEAIzNv9VPNR0pL2QTJUbF_fko8bpeY-B/s1600/4+crucians.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-oZihXHjJWDQSB_t_3Z5mveswEwo9qH0GCljIY-8efLhckPifdEYj3TzhhF8hm2ffpQ8tN9GkQnsowNBRxu3d3kSm_nR5Togt3JWd-_eK1-xEAIzNv9VPNR0pL2QTJUbF_fko8bpeY-B/s640/4+crucians.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Four Two Pound Plus Crucians<br />
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Again, the fish were very much of a size, the smallest differing from the largest by just a pound. The light and precarious hook holds must be fuelled by the way the species toys with its food. I have only had one crucian that I remember needed the use of a disgorger, and that hookhold was only just out of reach of my fingers. I can say the same about barbel, rarely do they seem to be hooked anywhere other than in the lips. The difference of course is that once hooked, barbel rarely manage to get rid of the hook.<br />
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I do wonder for the future of crucians in this water. Are the pike, of which there seem to be quite a lot, removing all the smaller crucians, leaving an ageing population with no younger fish to back up for the future? Or are we, for some unknown reason, simply <strong>never</strong> catching the smaller fish? Should the club consider a stocking programme? The fish though, do look young, and so maybe there are quite a few years yet before we need to worry. I saw an interesting note from someone who has his own carp lake, but added some crucians about 7 years ago. These are now of a very good size indeed, with some approaching 4 pounds...at only seven years old! I don't know what he has been feeding them, but if details he has given are accurate, it is a food I suspect would ruin my own dieting plan. So how old might the fish I am catching be? And how long might they live? Peter Rolfe suggests that some top 20 years. I don't know how many of those that remain healthy and avoid predation will actually reach that sort of age. The average is probably considerably less. 10 years? 12 years? I will probably not have many, if any, more sessions for crucians, on this lake this year. But it would seem a good insurance policy to add them to next season's target species. Who knows how long a good thing will last?<br />
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Late in the evening , the kingfishers which had performed several fly-pasts directly over my float during the day, appeared again. One of them did three straight line typical low flights across, and then along, the full length of the lake. As it did so though, it was pursued by a swallow, which appeared to be chasing it, its zig-zagging flightpath contrasting with the ruler straight path of the kingfisher, yet keeping in close if variable formation. The swallows had earlier been chasing each other, and I can only imagine that the kingfisher was seen as adding a brightly coloured extension to the game. I don't imagine there was any other reason for the swallow's behaviour. Intriguing though: there may be more to a birdbrain than many think.<br />
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One of the swallows came to watch me fish. I think this is one of this year's youngsters. Probably exhausted from chasing after the kingfisher. The photo is not the greatest, but chances to get a swallow in the picture are quite rare. When using my small "fishing" camera, although it does have auto focus, it is none too bright at picking exactly what to focus on. There is no manual focus ring. I usually end up focussing on something I think is equidistant from me, and then swinging the camera around, with the shutter half pressed. Not ideal.<br />
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During the day I had other visitors, dragonflies were constantly passing. This one stopped to lay an egg or two.<br />
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And of course the young moorhen that was in constant attendance.<br />
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Although welcome, I wish they would all time their visits to the quiet periods between bites. <br />
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-24262738219610439272016-08-08T12:44:00.001+01:002016-09-10T23:37:06.576+01:00Frustration Bubbling Up.<div style="text-align: justify;">
I like to vary my angling, if not on a day to day basis, then certainly before a week is out I am usually somewhere else, or doing something different. I had chosen to try a club water for tench, one I had not fished before. None too distant, and I was not expecting huge fish, a five pounder would have been very well received indeed. Not that I knew too much about the water in any case, save what the club's brief, and very much out of date, description said. The location of the large pond, or perhaps small lake was in a <strong>very</strong> out of the way place, and so the SatNav. was duly programmed, bait sorted, car loaded, and I was on my way.<br />
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I quite enjoy telling the TomTom to find the shortest route. It often leads me into some fascinating spots, places where the hand of man has rarely set foot ( my apologies to whoever I stole that phrase from), but for this trip it was set to find the quickest route. So I was soon on the motorways, and not much later leaving them for the last ten miles or so. It was at this point that the Sat Nav decided to fail. I concluded that the lady sitting inside it had finally got too annoyed with my shouting "You silly *****!" at her, and that she had taken retaliatory action. Whatever action it was that she took, it was permanent, and I had to replace the unit a couple of days later. But I was now more than a little lost, and not having brought the club's maps with me, reliance on the unit was proving disastrous, and it was over an hour later that I arrived at the water. I chose a swim, set up with a Mike Cootes "Tinca Stick Mk 2", baited up the spot and waited. After a while a smallish roach took the bait, but otherwise all was quiet...until...splash! A yard or two from my float there was quite a splash, and I glimpsed what I thought was a good sized crucian carp. A few minutes later a second splash, also in the swim, and unmistakeably a crucian carp.<br />
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During the half day session, starting at about 6pm, there were to be about sixteen or twenty such splashy rises, and all, save two or three, were within a five yard radius of the float. Elsewhere on the lake, little of any size moved. It was amusing to watch them rise. It was almost as if they came up quite slowly, for whatever reasons they might have had, but on first sensing the air, thought "Oh my God, that's not water", and then panicking, with a tail slap of which a small Wels catfish would be proud, darted back down to the bottom. There was only one logical conclusion to draw from the distribution and timing of these splashes. My baiting of the swim had drawn the fish into activity, and it seemed logical they were feeding well on my loose feed. Now I like crucian carp, close up there with my favourite fish, and so far this year I had only caught one, an old looking fish of a little over two and a half pounds. It came from a local pond, near home, probably a survivor from when the pond was last in the hands of a fishing club, many years ago. But there was also, in progress, a photographic contest based upon crucians and crucian fishing. If I caught a crucian, I could enter its photograph. So I forgot the tench, and tweaked the tackle so as to be more suitable for these delightful little carp. As the evening wore on, I became less likely to have referred to them as delightful. Despite the rises, I was unable to tempt one, not a single bite, save for the odd small roach, and one tiny rudd. It was most frustrating. I knew they were there, my tactics had succeeded before on other crucian waters. And to make matters worse, they all looked to be of a good size, with some that might reach a couple of pounds. As darkness approached, the only things to lighten the mood were the swallows, and a couple of grey lag geese. When the first bats started to flash past my head, I packed up, defeated for the moment. I drove home, successfully using the last light of the recently set sun to provide a rough compass bearing, until I reached a suitable signpost. As I drove I knew it would not be my last visit to the lake.<br />
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A couple of mornings later, new Sat Nav installed, and consequentially a few quid lighter, I arrived early at the lake. It did not take long before the first crucian splashed near my float. But also there were a lot of fish bubbling, a couple of yards away. These bubbles were of the typical pinhead variety, much talked about by the likes of Fred J Taylor and his pals many years ago. So I was convinced that the swim was also full of tench. I once watched a tench swimming above a bed of Canadian pondweed. It stopped to dive down into the weed a couple of times, releasing a mass of pinhead bubbles. I assumed these were aeration bubbles released by the plants' leaves, upon being disturbed by the fish. But it showed that tench <strong>can</strong> and do produce pin head bubbles. But the swim I was fishing was weed free, and so a different mechanism was in place as I fished. Maybe they were digging into the silt. But tench they were, and over the course of the half day, I lost one to a hook pull, and landed a male of about three and three quarters. A very hard fighting fish, which, on the crucian tackle took a major diversion into the lake edge rushes. Just the two tench hooked though. Crucians once again splashed, a dozen or so, and the tench bubbled continuously and ignored me. It was as if the tench had now combined with the crucians to take the Mickey out of me. I could not understand why I had caught no crucians, nor, with so much bubbling, why more tench had not taken the bait. Lunchtime, bright sunlight, and I headed home.<br />
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On the third trip, the tench had gone, fewer crucians splashed, but the perch had joined in the fun. Twice I had superb lift bites on a static piece of luncheon meat. Twice it was a small perch that had taken the bait. I had never considered perch to be spam before, but they were certainly not the<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyVFCZDJoE1PzaLZj_YZ0Rwi1Dy9D2nlzcQtpjvqKgCPAIo_9JFraELDur64RHdJxP1x5QIBewIBgp7h8ZwAJMbb7JzBYieX3wFROSg4GyRA8fXpxo7S4c3pHyFoCuEFNiGSmlzT7O9jgY/s1600/DSC02485.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyVFCZDJoE1PzaLZj_YZ0Rwi1Dy9D2nlzcQtpjvqKgCPAIo_9JFraELDur64RHdJxP1x5QIBewIBgp7h8ZwAJMbb7JzBYieX3wFROSg4GyRA8fXpxo7S4c3pHyFoCuEFNiGSmlzT7O9jgY/s640/DSC02485.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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wanted result from hitting those two lift bites. There were now three grey lag geese, two full adults and a sub adult. The younger bird kept taking a short flight around the lake. The sort of "circuits and bumps" training that most light aeroplane pilots practise. Half a dozen times a day, a single circuit around the lake and back to see how impressed mummy and daddy were. A kingfisher landed on my rod, ever so briefly. I may have twitched a little as it landed, or it may simply have seen me. Either way I was not the sort of company it wanted to keep. In all those half a dozen, half day trips I did not see one robin. It is rare not to have a robin begging cheekily for food. But the robins had sent in<br />
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substitutes, because in every swim I fished, two or three very friendly voles kept stealing morsels of bait. They were happy to walk over my fingers to get to that bait. Pretty little creatures with chestnut coloured fur. And so it continued, three more half days spent watching cavorting crucians and bubbling tench, and all for no fish. The last date for entry into the crucian contest had now passed, and all I had entered was a picture of my float, stationary by some lily pads. Apart from a few small roach, rudd and perch, nothing was caught, my landing net the driest it has been for a long time. Were I superstitious I would now be calling this my jinx water. Maybe I will do so in any case, if only to label it. But my confidence that I could catch in this water remained high.<br />
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Time for a change, so I dropped by to reconnoitre another club water as I drove home . I had heard rumours of the odd crucian being taken there, but as ever, I was suspicious of possible hybrids. "Fish any of those swims near that tree." said the local. "That is where the crucians always get caught". A couple of days later I arrived just after first light, the sun casting my shadow at great length across the field, and chose one of the recommended swims. I didn't feel comfortable there, it did not look right, and after 4 hours biteless, save for a couple of miniscule bream, I decided to move, and headed for a swim in which I could see some surface weed. Within minutes of introducing bait, there were those tench bubbles again. Lots of them. The bubbles were to continue throughout much of the day. My tackle was unchanged, as I had not removed the float and hook after the last trip to the jinx water,, merely splitting the rod into two sections for the trip home. The float depth was adjusted, because the swim in the new lake was a deal shallower. It was not long before a flat float bite brought a roach. And not very much later that a better fish was on. A good crucian. I considered that my luck had returned, a crucian from a lake I had no previous experience of, from a swim the locals did not fancy. Over the next two hours two more crucians fiddled a bit with the bait, and then lifted the shot from the bottom, allowing the float to rise. There was a degree of disappointment, for, although the smallest of the three fish was about a pound and a half, their fights were lacklustre, no attempts to reach the nearby weed, and if anything, it might almost be said that they gave themselves up. These were shiny golden fish, which looked old, and as if they had had a hard life. Maybe they had, for one or two had some minor mouth damage. I was certainly not the first to catch some of these fish. The rain fell relentlessly, if not actually torrentially and bites stopped coming. Around six o'clock a long bite free spell ended, the swim became very much alive, lots of bubbling, and it soon became apparent that crucians, as well as tench are able to produce pinhead bubbles. Maybe the bubbles in the jinx water were crucians? I had intentionally fished at least a yard away from those bubbles, for, although I like tench a lot, I did not want a testosterone fuelled male tench churning up a swim in which I sought crucian carp. Maybe I had made a huge mistake? Had I also been unintentionally avoiding the crucians? Were <strong><em>any</em></strong> of the bubbles actually from tench?<br />
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By 9pm I had twenty crucians in the net on the second lake. I don't really know why, but I had taken<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRRlsX6-ojAFb8SvG3BorAqYjDf-wD3Cl8lB4LvAcnH6hvtXoB8U5v1RDHFkIat7hmuDTQV3d528FtA5gG53_gQPn0qECPTuQrTcO851niChC-GW9Zd-gvMtJ7wB2CMXTMQbrMAn9gWiHz/s1600/Twenty+crucians+%252812%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRRlsX6-ojAFb8SvG3BorAqYjDf-wD3Cl8lB4LvAcnH6hvtXoB8U5v1RDHFkIat7hmuDTQV3d528FtA5gG53_gQPn0qECPTuQrTcO851niChC-GW9Zd-gvMtJ7wB2CMXTMQbrMAn9gWiHz/s640/Twenty+crucians+%252812%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Only Time I Have Used a Keepnet Since 1973<br />
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a keepnet with me for the first time since about 1973. I doubt it will see much use in the future. <br />
All the fish fought poorly, save one. They all fought at midwater, save one, one which ploughed several times into the lake bottom, disturbing mud and bubbles. It was no crucian, far too powerful a fish, but the hook pulled with the fish still unseen. Tench? Carp? F1? I also had hook pulls on another 5 or 6 crucian carp, and several of those landed were hooked very lightly, the bend of the hook encircling the merest sliver of flesh. Perhaps when fishing for crucians I need to play the fish more gently, as their delicate bites seem to lead to some tenuous hook holds? But then, what about those nearby lilies? Ho hum! <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old, Haggard Poor Fighting Crucian</td></tr>
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Two days later, back to face down the jinx. As I drove along the motorway, mist was lying across the fields, in a low blanket, and as the sun rose behind me, the combination of mist and sun turned the whole rear view into a huge yellow horizon. I was glad not to be going the other way, for I would have risked a summer version of snow blindness. When I reached the lake I was greeted by at least sixty house martins, twisting and turning above the lake and drinking from its surface. Twenty minutes later and they had all gone, replaced by a small handful of swallows. But the jinx, had if ever existed, was now lifted, and four beautiful crucians were hooked, all near to the bubbles. A fifth shed the hook, possibly because I had not played it sufficiently cautiously. These were similar in size to the fish from the second lake, with a couple of fish topping the two pounds mark. But they were very different fish indeed. More orange than gold, very high backed fish, and fish which put up excellent scraps. I have never noticed such a major difference in the way similar sized fish, of the same species, can fight in two different waters. These jinx fish looked as crucians should look, and fought as they should fight. I had a couple more the next day, so am justified in being happy and confident in the way I was fishing. End of frustrations. To further lift the day, the Red Arrows, ten jets in total, flew across the pond as I fished. I guess they thought it was my birthday, but they were not flying in formation, yet were quite low down. They passed by rather too quickly for me to grab the camera.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young and Pretty Crucian Scrapper<br />
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Driving home, a moment of amusement. I don't intentionally look at car number plates, but it is odd how certain plates seem to catch the eye. Maybe it is a similar mechanism to that which causes spelling mistakes (in the writings of anyone but myself) to leap out of the pages at me and shout "Here I am, look at me!"</div>
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This plate was on a 12 seater Ford transit based minibus. It read BU52HOL. Quite appropriate. But when I stopped behind it at some traffic lights I was able to read the small sticker in the rear window:</div>
"No passengers are left in this vehicle overnight". Nice, and witty.<br />
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When I got home, another surprise. The photo I took of my stationary float near some lily pads had won a section prize. £100 of fishing tackle vouchers from Angling Direct, and a copy of Peter Rolfe's book about crucian carp: "Crock of Gold" are on their way to me. I had intended to suggest my son buys me that particular book for my next birthday, so I am very well pleased, and look forward to reading the book. It gets highly rated by those who read it.<br />
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Stop Press: the book arrived today, and in the introduction it mentions ....crucian carp bubbling when feeding! And also quite coincidentally, one of those spelling mistakes leapt out of the book at me.<br />
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Stop Press again. A large bucket of bait arrived: another prize from Bait-tech from the competition. My thanks to them also.By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-57473346896443073302016-07-22T14:41:00.000+01:002016-07-22T14:48:20.577+01:00A Leopard Cannot Change its Spots....But<div abp="2083" style="text-align: justify;">
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The last time I fished the river my car was broken into, the window smashed, leaving me with a bill for over £300. I had fished from 4am until 8am, and was not expecting trouble during those hours, but the area must have had round the clock vandalism. Yobbos who get up early! Whatever next? I had not been back to this inner city river since then, but the time had now come, I had learned of a new parking spot, and after some truly devastating floods of the winter I needed to see whether the fish were still present. I travelled light, arrived early and parked...although the car park looked quite desolate, next to a crumbling shopping parade. A feeling of post Armageddon remained, and I once again worried about the safety aspect of leaving the car there, but crossing fingers I grabbed my gear, abandoned the car to what I thought was its probable fate and wandered down to the river. The river has been extensively tailored for flood control, but now is largely neglected. It is full of the varied debris cast in by uncaring locals, and luxuriant growths of giant hogweed suggest that the local council also cares not too much for the watercourse either. The river was low, and clear, revealing that, at the bottom of the floodbanks, the river bed is that of a spate river, rocky and having extremely variable depths and flows.</div>
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I was seeking a chub, and spotting a deeper looking area, some eight yards by four, I lobbed a large lump of breadflake, on a light leger, to the far edge of the deeper water, into which it sank from sight. Three feet, maybe four feet of water. Less than two minutes has passed before a vicious bite pulled the rod tip around, and a good solid thumping passed its way up the carbon fibre. In the heavier current closer in, it was difficult to control, and it used its deep profile to good effect in the current, for it was no chub, but a bream. A male, something over five pounds, in excellent condition, with only faint traces of spawning tubercles remaining on its head. My first bream from one of the more rapid sections of the river. A significant fish, because I felt that, if a bream could survive the winter's major flood, then everything else could do so too. Although, having seen the river at the time, God only knows how they survived.</div>
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A Very Healthy River Bream.</div>
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A fish, in broad daylight, within minutes. So I was convinced that , bream being shoal fish, the spot would give up some more of the species. It didn't. But a cast into some faster, streamier water produced another bite, and another fish. This time a brown trout of maybe twelve ounces. It surged upstream powerfully, and when landed, displayed that gorgeous greenish brown colour, speckled with red and black spots. A good looking truly wild fish. I was far less surprised to catch the trout than I was the bream. The swim went dead, with no more signs of life, other than about a hundred Canada geese, a few swallows, swifts, house martins, sandmartins, mallards and goosanders, two herons. All were appreciative of the river. A flotilla of twenty goosanders moved upstream. </div>
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They dived down together, like a squadron of U-boats, bent on sinking every small fish they found. These may well be just one female with its young. I don't know the maximum egg count that a goosander might lay, but I certainly saw one female on another local stream with 15 very young chicks in tow. These must have been from a single clutch of eggs, so nineteen seems possible too. These nineteen were all pretty much full grown, and so the stretch of river has provided enough food, enough small fish for twenty birds. Yet I see very few small fish at all. Do they <strong abp="2837"><em abp="2838">only</em></strong> eat fish?</div>
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I moved a few hundred yards upstream. The new swim, on another river, would have screamed grayling at me, but there are no grayling here and so chub were still on the menu, chef''s speciality of the day. But when the bite came, it was once more no chub. Another bream: and from quite fast water. And larger than the first. Over the next few hours three more decent bream were landed, the largest being a very plump fish of a bit over seven pounds. Four others shed the hook, which in retrospect, may have been a little too small. Back in the late sixties, early seventies, bream of this size were rare, rare enough to be included in a photograph in the later editions of Walker's Still Water Angling. There is a lot of suggestion that today's far bigger fish are the exclusive result of the use of large amounts of high protein bait. But this river is rarely fished, and is not subject to much bait being input at all. I have to therefore advance the theory that the mild winters of the last decade or two, have also made a major contribution to the growth rates of our fish species. So many waters produce so many big fish these days that it surely cannot be otherwise?</div>
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The final fish of the day also powered its way upstream when hooked, and gave a very good scrap indeed, one totally different from the breams' fights, which had utilised the currents on their flanks to make landing them difficult. This last fish proved to be a trout. And a good one at 2-11. But this fish did not have the characteristic features of the earlier brownie, it was silver, with black star shaped spotting, all the spots being black, with a white underbelly. </div>
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These were all the signs I had been told to look out for in a sea trout. But I still have little confidence in my abilities to correctly identify a sea trout so asked around. And as is usual, those I asked were split in their opinions, some said brownie, some said sea trout, and slob trout was mentioned as well. One angler, for whom I have the greatest respect suggested that it was a brownie because sea trout have slate grey fins. All in all it is hard not to come to the conclusion that no-one really knows, and that unless a fish is caught actually in the sea, or very near to the sea, no one seems to be sure. The problem is compounded by the simple fact that brown and sea trout are the same species, some fish choosing to migrate downstream from the rivers, others deciding to remain. </div>
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Whilst in the river as parr, very young trout, I have to assume that all the fish look pretty much identical, all therefore having some red and some black spots amongst those lilac coloured parr marking stripes. Then some head for the sea, pausing in the estuary to acclimatize to the changed conditions, adjusting to the salt content. I would expect there to be some internal body changes, if only to the chemistry dealing with salt. But once in the sea it would seem that, unlike leopards, trout can change their spots, and the red spots disappear, sea trout only having black spots. It seems unlikely that the arrangement of spots, or their number, could change, so I must assume that the red ones become black and that they possibly change in shape to a more star like spot. There are many more questions that I have. To what <strong abp="2103">extent</strong> do the fish change as their re-exposure to fresh water progresses. Do any decide to then remain in the river rather than returning to the sea? After some time would their red spots then return? Do sea trout interbreed with the river's resident brownies? And do their fins slowly turn from slate grey to a more brown colour? Fish in the local rivers are very variable, and I have caught a few fish that look very silvery, yet may well be browns. But are these actually long stay sea trout in the process of reverting to look live resident fish ( or perhaps heading back towards the sea)? Were all silvery coloured browns once sea trout? Will they ever become indistinguishable from wild brownies? Do any adult browns head off to the sea? Why is it all so bloody difficult? Does ANYONE really know?</div>
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But I am now confused back home, OUR moon is not right. I have observed this problem before but never figured out the solution to it. I even asked an Astrophysicist to explain. But she was French and probably did not understand the question. On some days, depending upon how the earth, Moon and Sun and juxtaposed, the moon can be visible in daylight. Such was the case a few days ago. </div>
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So: here is the moon, last week, just before sunset. You will note that is it a 3/4 moon. Waxing or waning? No idea but that is irrelevant. As I took the photograph, the sun was about to set over my right shoulder, at an estimated angle of 135 degrees to the right of where I was pointing the camera. The moon does not shine by itself of course, it shines due to reflected sunlight. And the reason we see some parts of the moon as dark, or invisible, is that, that part is where the sun don't shine. Now it seems to be fairly simple logically, to deduce that the brightest part of the moon should be that directly facing the sun, but as can be seen in the photo, the brightest part of the moon is its upper right edge, and is pointing up into the sky at an angle of about 45 degrees...WHILST THE SUN IS ON THE HORIZON TO MY RIGHT. Why was it not looking something like the dreamworks moon? This is not a one off, but a constant feature of how the moon can appear. I have tried to figure out what I am missing in this interpretation, but so far have not twigged. I cannot look at the moon these days without being annoyed that there is something about it that I fail to understand...and it is in all probability, blatantly obvious, a forehead slapping realisation, a "How can I have been such an idiot? " moment. I get a few of those.</div>
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-27057647234379267702016-07-10T09:26:00.001+01:002016-07-10T13:23:33.148+01:00Back Down by the River.<div abp="1454">
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Well, it's June 25th (or was when I wrote that), the river season is well under way, young life of all sorts is aboundingly plentiful, the rivers ponds and lakes have never looked greener...and I have to go to a bloody wedding. I used to be good, well brilliant actually, at avoiding weddings, always found perfectly feasible reasons not to attend, reasons that did not upset the bride and groom. It is not so easy these days. I also have to not upset the wife. I knew it was a mistake, attending that first wedding: my own. I am now lumbered, having to go to other peoples' weddings too. My two brothers have each had three weddings. I attended, of those six, none! My youngest brother was first off the mark, and he knew in advance that I would not be there, even without asking me. He was bright enough to know that all those years ago, fishing came first. He is suffering though as a result of an early leap into wedlock, and is already a great grandfather, poor sod.</div>
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But this today is now the third wedding I have been to. That is one <em abp="1490"><strong abp="2134">every fourteen years</strong></em> since I got married. Not even the wedding of a close relative, but the son of one of the wife's friends. Worryingly the lady has two other sons in the pipeline leading towards the aisle. Only a couple of days into Brexit and already I have to wear a damned tie. Of a colour chosen by my wife. It is truly awful, and has a look resembling that flick-flack paint popular on some cars a few years ago, the tie veering between purple and blue as the light affects it. We leave Europe and see what happens: immediate disaster: the pound drops, stock market tumbles, weddings and ties! I am sure Brinit would have been a far better choice by far. I dislike the term Brexit intensely, but at least they never thought of saying Brinit. Had they done so, no doubt we would have had to suffer slogans such as "It's Brinit, innit, to winit?" I'll have to pause here, whilst I explain to Nina that it is customary for guests to try to outdo neither the bride, nor the bride's mother, in the fashion stakes. I don't have any chance of changing her mind of course (although she will change it herself a number of times herself in the long runup to actually wearing something), and she will be late as usual, after making damn sure she is right up there front running with the other red carpet dressers and posers.</div>
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Two hours to go and I watch a young magpie near the bird feeders. Its plumage does not yet have the precise black and white sharp definition of a fully grown bird. It likes bread, but has not yet learned the tricks of the adults, who always dunk dry bread into the water bath before eating it. The garden is busy with young dunnocks, goldfinches, robins, blue, coal and great tits, blackbirds and the occasion jay. Many of these nested in the garden this year. The jackdaws, nesting on a neighbours roof have not yet brought their own young down to feed, but they will, at which time the magpie/jay/jackdaw three way fights are likely to escalate. We also have young greenfinches. Every year one or two fly into the lounge window, and knock themselves silly. One did so recently, taking over thirty minutes to recover. A very few die, most I can pick up, and place safely on a safe tree branch whilst they recover, eventually flying off apparently unharmed. Such is their dazed state that the scarcely notice my picking them up. Greenfinch, the grayling of the avian world, so often needing a bit of help. </div>
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Excuse me: have to go and zip up the wife's dress. Maybe that is why women are so keen on marriage: it gives them someone to zip up the backs of their dresses. Most women would have to go around stark naked were it not for the men in their lives.</div>
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<a abp="1250" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGX3k64UCP4kXcpuSS4jqjZhDTDdw2vzT0Bc5Ut8-D3lyf_7Uw29ee4L-kY93mBXvFMRF4_JK6n9mbKVwg0HIRUkHLJk7_IiPNQzBUvNUc_Olg5M9G9YOOTe4xjGsVQQLogLEuMXzj6tq/s1600/Moorhens.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img abp="1251" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGX3k64UCP4kXcpuSS4jqjZhDTDdw2vzT0Bc5Ut8-D3lyf_7Uw29ee4L-kY93mBXvFMRF4_JK6n9mbKVwg0HIRUkHLJk7_IiPNQzBUvNUc_Olg5M9G9YOOTe4xjGsVQQLogLEuMXzj6tq/s400/Moorhens.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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A Moorhen Feeds its Chick</div>
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Down by the lakes and rivers other birds have their young. All except for the tufted ducks. Although tufties seem to form very devoted pairs, I don't think I have ever seen any young tufted ducks. The two or three ornithological types, who live welded to their binoculars, and whom I have asked, have also not seen any. I wonder why? But the mallards have near full sized young, there are seven swans a swimming in the local lake. The mandarins and goosanders are all guiding their young along the local streams. The kestrels have raised three young which are just starting to make their first short flights. They remain very near to the nest site though, and their plumage does not yet look well developed. Good enough to fly just those short distances.</div>
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<a abp="1947" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHReGKsH3cPTHt4BHhBsqGxrgpOQU10jgB874n9QD07P_mdC78YX1ynog74uolLN33Iz_pq_WAIMZS2kDSysdJ5wcRIglz-x2xHyFSLMWJYbhDWXb1rZ64wSiCD_9JimMuhHBvKiIQuv0z/s1600/gsander2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img abp="1948" border="0" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHReGKsH3cPTHt4BHhBsqGxrgpOQU10jgB874n9QD07P_mdC78YX1ynog74uolLN33Iz_pq_WAIMZS2kDSysdJ5wcRIglz-x2xHyFSLMWJYbhDWXb1rZ64wSiCD_9JimMuhHBvKiIQuv0z/s640/gsander2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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A Small Goosander Family Pauses and Preens by the River.</div>
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<a abp="1952" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyBXkK35kHWJmsdzMO847UZE4A7FqFd7oUVaXPi76X1vO6bHgECD4DqGksU5EgtILGfwwUuymxtOi2F7mYfwJRzDrOU33EEuk0kLT31Jq6uLQLLK2MV3SfR4zjyb3hk3Yak8vccmR34Bj3/s1600/DSC02286.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img abp="1953" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyBXkK35kHWJmsdzMO847UZE4A7FqFd7oUVaXPi76X1vO6bHgECD4DqGksU5EgtILGfwwUuymxtOi2F7mYfwJRzDrOU33EEuk0kLT31Jq6uLQLLK2MV3SfR4zjyb3hk3Yak8vccmR34Bj3/s640/DSC02286.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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A Little Further Downstream: Three Juvenile Mandarins With Their Mum.</div>
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The kestrels have raised three young which are just starting to make their first short flights. They remain very near to the nest site though, and their plumage does not yet look well developed. Good enough to fly just those short distances. I was a little jealous of a friend who caught the three of them side by side just filling the nest box, rather like the three "see, hear and speak no evil" monkeys, with one of the adult kestrels on the roof of the box. He photographed them the day before their first flight. But I am happy with my own efforts, although a longer lens at sometime in the future would see some use. </div>
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Two of the Young Kestrels</div>
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<a abp="2463" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji5jraFPAHVyxVjZVhgLeVQzcI-Wyx5Tx0KQG8z5qrCYlB5NjK4gLCmaSgIA60RVrKPw84DeraU3m6nAkYDvDaC8MU__nCLOIHKOYHR7NcSnRrsEe5hY5gg-fl3T6maVnogP2FblNldjuf/s1600/Reddish+kestrel+%252812%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img abp="2464" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji5jraFPAHVyxVjZVhgLeVQzcI-Wyx5Tx0KQG8z5qrCYlB5NjK4gLCmaSgIA60RVrKPw84DeraU3m6nAkYDvDaC8MU__nCLOIHKOYHR7NcSnRrsEe5hY5gg-fl3T6maVnogP2FblNldjuf/s640/Reddish+kestrel+%252812%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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And the Third.</div>
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<a abp="3348" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVatARufEFTY2IcPiXEKkpN4HX6kRrxHG1QxZhFp8gvKfzDdZRDg4ejSdfdeA6I4Oi4zP3DAeYHWqvK6gHggzsrnjCNhdyIZd1gj_UgmLuoITX2_VgEUsAhglIaA3CAnRC9VRV98iSkmFf/s1600/Peregrines+%252827%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img abp="3349" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVatARufEFTY2IcPiXEKkpN4HX6kRrxHG1QxZhFp8gvKfzDdZRDg4ejSdfdeA6I4Oi4zP3DAeYHWqvK6gHggzsrnjCNhdyIZd1gj_UgmLuoITX2_VgEUsAhglIaA3CAnRC9VRV98iSkmFf/s320/Peregrines+%252827%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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200 Feet up a Chimney</div>
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I took a trip to revisit the peregrines, as I was informed they now had two chicks. The trip turned into three trips, but yes, there are two young peregrines now. Initially after seeing both adults, with the female chasing the smaller male for some reason or other, I finally spotted the two youngsters. One hiding on the edge of a roof, the other so far up a very tall chimney that it must already be a competent flyer.</div>
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Young Peregrine Falcon</div>
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It was high enough to have terrified Fred Dibnah. I did a bit of brick counting and mixed in a bit of 11 plus maths, and came up with a height of 230 feet. I continued to watch and saw the two youngsters chasing a group of pigeons: pigeons which seem to live far too close to the nest site for their own good. The young peregrines failed to catch any, but did not seem to have developed the surprise stoop high speed attack. The chase, ineffective as it seemed to be, will no doubt strengthen their wings. As ever, they did not pose close enough for my camera to take a really good picture, but the results are good enough to see that a peregrine in flight ( adult or young) may well be a sleek and graceful machine, but once it starts to lounge around on a high building it looks to be a right scruffy old bugger with its fluffed up feathers. The day before, walking along the river I saw one of the adults chasing and screaming at a passing buzzard. Would have made for a good photo, but for amateurs such as myself to take such photos, requires a lot of luck, and a goodly dose of needing to be in the right place at the right time. I managed the right place, and the right time, but was not carrying the camera. Professionals have the time and background knowledge to be able to wait for such photo opportunities. They know the right places, and can wait until the time is right. They are not constrained by their equipment to about a maximum of 25 yards for a good photo. Success is never guaranteed, but they are able to gain a great advantage. I would probably get bored all too quickly. Oh yes, and professionals always have a camera handy!</div>
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Some of you may well be wondering how went the fishing. Not too badly really, I finally broke the sequence of big tench blanks, landing one of 8-13, although a second one managed a hook pull and</div>
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was lost. Far less success with the big tench this year though. A lot more time has been spent on small local ponds. This has had the advantage of being near to home, I can float fish with bread, usually on lift method, and catch a few fish of varied species, in shortish sessions, without having to work too hard for bites. </div>
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Nothing huge, but with fish like this gorgeously coloured rudd, who cares. Only about 10 ounces, but a young looking fish, and so maybe the pond holds older and bigger. Another of the ponds I fished, a club water, has some wels catfish in it. Always ready for something different, I decided to have a go. The carp on the pond were spawning when I arrived, lots of heavy splashing and cavorting in the lilies that cover the shallows in the centre of the pond. So if the cats were not feeding, there was nothing else much to play with. But over the evening and night a quartet of small catfish demonstrated that any fish capable of swimming both forwards and backwards, needs a larger landing net. It was fun, but all were landed and returned safely. </div>
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Managed a couple of river trips, for a few chub, grayling and a small barbel. It was almost a 1/2 scale model of what a barbel should really be, at about a pound and a half. An odd fish: being 25% short on its barbule count. It came from a swim I had identified during the close season, and was convinced no-one else knew of it. </div>
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Mini Barbel</div>
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However when I went onto the river about the 19th, someone had beaten down the bankside screen of nettles that had previously hidden the fish, and flattened an area big enough for a bivvy. The fish I had seen right near to the bank as I gently moved the nettles a inch or two, had now gone. A couple of the chub had lumps and bumps where there should be none. One had a marble sized deformity on its lower lip. These industrial rivers, once polluted to the death of any resident life may now support fish and many other creatures, but they are still far from perfect. There are a few distorted, bent back barbel, and many of the chub are imperfect. Whether the remanent chemicals in the stream bed are responsible, or whether low populations have led to a degree of inbreeding I do not know. But these fish are probably doing well to survive at all, raw sewage being pumped in during any period of heavy rain, and there being an ever present risk of incidental pollutants being allowed, intentionally or otherwise, into the rivers. Being already none too clean, these incidents can take the river over that knife edge. I have to remind myself how good things are now, for 40 years ago nothing lived in them, neither animal, nor vegetable. Far too much mineral content.</div>
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Finally have a look at what Nina eventually decided to wear. And then tell me that she listened to</div>
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my advice not to outshine the bride's mother. No-one else came close, save, possibly, for some girl dressed in a big flouncy white dress and rather odd headgear. She seemed to be quite important, as she welcomed all the guests into the meal area. </div>
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Nina, in Blue Flowered Dress, NOT Overshadowing Bride's Mother...or so She Tells Me.</div>
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-20501800887490522932016-06-06T10:57:00.001+01:002016-06-06T10:57:22.122+01:00Love at First Bite.<div abp="3833" style="text-align: justify;">
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As I walked to the pond from my car early this morning, I came upon an strange sight. near the usual abandoned Peugeot, was a small wrecked van. It was not there two days ago. Tyres flat, windows all smashed, hatchback and bonnet open. The engine compartment looked as if someone</div>
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had taken a sledgehammer to it. I thought it must have been stolen last night, but something was odd. The load space was half filled with rubble and rubbish, and more of the same was scattered behind it. I was careful not to touch it, mindful that I did not want to leave any fingerprints on something that was really none of my business. Odd though. My own car was a couple of hundred yards further away, but I was still a little concerned...especially it is still missing the wheel trims that were stolen from it in the same spot last year. Not the best area in which to leave your car. Most of the places I choose to fish are in lovely surroundings, green, leafy and safe. This pond is NOT amongst those. I worry more and more, year by year, as I do leave my car in some fairly deserted spots in order to go fishing. But today I pressed on towards the pond. </div>
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Now many, if not all of us, have a few favourite items of tackle. Not all of us may think of having favourites, but think of that rod you so often choose, even for a trip for which it is not ideally intended, that reel that just feels right. I have a rod, only fifty quid's worth, a travel barbel rod. Five sections for twelve feet. I use it for all sorts of things: light legering, trotting for grayling and for float fishing small waters. As a barbel rod, I think it would be quite inefficient: far too light for the job. I have broken it at least three times now: trapped it in a car door, smashed it trying to cast that feeder just a few more yards, to reach some imagined big roach lying that bit further out, but always I have replaced it when broken, and it has become an old friend. An old friend that now has two or three spare handles. I ordinarily use it with another old favourite: an Okuma Trent centrepin reel. This too is hardly suited for purpose. Okuma do not make left handed centrepins to my knowledge, and so I have to use it in an odd way. It is different to most centrepins in that it incorporates a clutch. I find that clutch quite useful, both during fishing with and whilst transporting the rod. But being a right handed pin, I have to mount it backwards on the rod, and wind the line on "the other way round". So to bring in a fish I reel backwards. Not ideal, but the reel makes short distance fishing quite a pleasure. Casting near the lily pads and fishing bread is something I have long done, and it seems so traditional, both generally, and for me. Fishing near the pads for tench and crucians just has to be done. It is an unavoidable fact of life, if not a duty, for any angler. And if that can be done in a small pond, so much the better.</div>
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Today I added another component to the favourite set-up. I used a float I bought yesterday from good old Purple Peanut. I probably paid four times what I might have paid for a similar item in a tackle shop. But for a hand crafted item such as this, I did not mind at all. I have no real reason to suppose that it performs much better than a shop bought item, but it became a case of love at first bite. That first bite lifted the float, and it rose up so beautifully and slowly that it displayed more and more coloured bands with every moment. When I struck into a roach of a very little under a pound, that float had already joined the favourite set up. Previous roach from this little pond have always been quite pristine, with deeply bronzed shading to their sides. Shading so deep that fish under a pound really should not have that colour...but here they do. This fish, my largest to date from the water, showed signs that it had recovered in the past from some sort of attack, possibly a pike. It had areas denuded of scales, yet seemed healthy enough. </div>
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Other scale perfect roach were to follow later in the session, but my next cast saw the float not settle properly after the usual short time during which the bait sinks. A strike brought forth a small rudd. A fish that must have been lurking mid-water. A rudd with blood red fins and a deep golden sheen to its sides. Again, colouration that would seem to fit a bigger fish. I don't know whether "golden rudd" are just ordinary rudd from much clearer waters, or a separate strain bred for the fish keeping trade. But the rudd ( I was to catch two more during the session) in this pond are all brightly lit. The photo clearly shows how the dorsal fin is set back some way from the pelvic fins in a rudd.</div>
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<a abp="3886" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuxDQbvFMYK_T-9bnJjVtZQxmXahr0DkJmBUJ2Smtchkv0g3J-ZdHoGFze_z_lT6M2ULp6ymK5uDJwYGS8g_LU-5L5c7mi_SAiieEZGkIbsNUeSmLOBy2vSK9e2HfLLAzLPB39d51YmMUH/s1600/DSC02232.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img abp="3887" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuxDQbvFMYK_T-9bnJjVtZQxmXahr0DkJmBUJ2Smtchkv0g3J-ZdHoGFze_z_lT6M2ULp6ymK5uDJwYGS8g_LU-5L5c7mi_SAiieEZGkIbsNUeSmLOBy2vSK9e2HfLLAzLPB39d51YmMUH/s320/DSC02232.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I was already very fond, if not actually proud of my new float. But I was concerned for it. Although it was then sitting just a few inches the far side of a thick bed of lilies, I had not cast it there with my usual gay, devil-may-care, abandonment. I was worried for it, sitting there with the lily triffid menace so close. It did not remain idle for long, and after slowly sinking into the depths, it was soon heading for the other side of the pond at speed, my fingers, aiding the lightly set clutch, did little to slow the fish or float down. At that moment I felt just like any father, any father watching his innocent sixteen year old daughter going out on her first date, to meet, in the dark, some hairy arsed, untidy teenager, one totally unknown to him, but already having an imagined bad reputation. And the further away the float went, the more concerned I became. </div>
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I had obviously hooked a carp, on the light rod, on the centrepin, on light line and on the shiny new float. The worry subsided for a while, as I tried to keep the fight out in the distance. The carp had other ideas and escorted the float back and into the lilies, where it quickly became stuck. It became similarly entrapped two or three times, but a combination of pulling, and relaxing line tension to let the carp pull back a bit of line, eventually won the day, and a very fit looking, solidly built, common carp of maybe six pounds or so, entered the landing net. Thank God for those barbed hooks, which are sometimes an essential. Carp are not my favourite fish, but if they all looked like this fish I would have my dislike greatly diluted, and I probably would not mind them much at all. Mirrors should be reserved exclusively for bathrooms, bedrooms and for ornamental pond keepers with poor taste. And koi only have value as a Chinese take-out for herons. They were exactly such in my garden pond! Multi-coloured obscenities when in an angling water. ;-)</div>
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The float has been labelled by Peanut as a "Tinca Stick" in a neat script, written along the float. As such it was <strong abp="4040">not</strong> doing its job. Ten fish into the morning its efficiency in showing me the bites was indisputable, but it seemed to be driving away the tench. But then another fish bit, one which felt exactly like one of the tench I had been catching in the pond recently. It too headed for the lilies, and just made it, but was released fairly </div>
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<a abp="4005" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTsVRPw9EI5DcwN6os7xy5OpiBgzgJEAeGDzNL4XwNQGAPQz0zlkvtMw945umx5I3oOiz_RyPeEVM6vMGLleRxmdedwuSi_8-yMVR9ZjUPyfDGHFXiLDXWmCZ2OmnA7YT9YApmV1CEDZDR/s1600/2-9++Scrapyard+%25284%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img abp="4006" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTsVRPw9EI5DcwN6os7xy5OpiBgzgJEAeGDzNL4XwNQGAPQz0zlkvtMw945umx5I3oOiz_RyPeEVM6vMGLleRxmdedwuSi_8-yMVR9ZjUPyfDGHFXiLDXWmCZ2OmnA7YT9YApmV1CEDZDR/s320/2-9++Scrapyard+%25284%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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quickly from their siren clutches. I was astounded though, for it was no tench, but a crucian carp, and a good one too. A rather nice lump of a crucian, which really made my day. I have now fished this pond about a dozen times, spread over about four years. I had one other crucian a couple of years back, of similar size. Both fish had slightly damaged tails and I did wonder whether they could be the same fish, but the second fish was much healthier looking, and after some deliberation I concluded that they were different. They still remain the only two crucians I have heard of from the venue. Maybe I need to spend a little more time seeking them. Although tench were today's target species, the method I was using was ideally set up for crucians too. And the lift method had given me a super slow lift and flat float crucian bite.</div>
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It was now approached half past eight (a.m.), and too late, for I feared no tench would show. Wrong again! Three casts produced three typical tench for the pond. All between one and two pounds. And all managed to embed themselves deeply into the lilies, forsaking the narrow foot wide channel , back through which I had hoped to guide them. It was once again like seeing that daughter slip into deep parkland shrubbery, in the company of a dark, handsome but quite a slippery young man. All three tench though finally succumbed to the release tactics. Tinca Stick scores a hat trick in the final minutes. A fourth tench wins the lily battle, and I had to pull for a break. The break occurred close to the hook, for I had taken the precaution of a lighter hooklink. Quite a morning, five different species and home for breakfast.</div>
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As I left, someone was looking at the wrecked van. He told me its owner had been seen fly tipping on each of the three previous evenings, and that someone, a local or few had decided to teach him a lesson. Rough justice: they totally destroyed his van. The rubble inside and outside the van was</div>
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<a abp="4102" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjMOUhG4tKOOKq57Gib_WqE_VOTAELMAOaV0e_Ts_-hrnAY4fQg7oxW_IaIIH_r9VFV8EVRHFbqawxsWIoFSjwqppBj4jrwuOi7h-7fyZpgE_xX77KQpO17YVweEwWPmLhbUawXirJ5GIF/s1600/wreck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img abp="4103" border="0" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjMOUhG4tKOOKq57Gib_WqE_VOTAELMAOaV0e_Ts_-hrnAY4fQg7oxW_IaIIH_r9VFV8EVRHFbqawxsWIoFSjwqppBj4jrwuOi7h-7fyZpgE_xX77KQpO17YVweEwWPmLhbUawXirJ5GIF/s320/wreck.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div abp="1856">
explained. Later in the evening it had been daubed with red paint, saying that the owner had been fly tipping. It would undoubtedly serve as a better warning than the notices forbidding tipping. The nearby notice that said "GARD DOGS" (sic) could also be improved upon. </div>
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<a abp="4139" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1SxwOOufVLBoHJvuqRMy9b_Ikf4LVlKmTFqoKQeLcx1T-EOvIH3SzVsQ8eeLLHDkvM6pHDQqdG2zvHyPr24Ue9NLIsnzft3uahUS34V8_VMGzA7VKNz8t8yolytYO-f_s-g1DnDD-zeMK/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img abp="4140" border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1SxwOOufVLBoHJvuqRMy9b_Ikf4LVlKmTFqoKQeLcx1T-EOvIH3SzVsQ8eeLLHDkvM6pHDQqdG2zvHyPr24Ue9NLIsnzft3uahUS34V8_VMGzA7VKNz8t8yolytYO-f_s-g1DnDD-zeMK/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The Sherlock in me might suggest that there is circumstantial evidence linking the writer of the dog warning notice to the van damage.</div>
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<div abp="1873">
I added a short evening session as additional experience for the new float, and it rewarded me with three more tench, another roach and a bream, making 6 species for the day. The bream, maybe a little over five pounds, unfortunately was a male, in its full breeding regalia: pug ugly and covered with tubercles and scabby patches on its scales. It was not a pretty sight and fought like a tealeaf, albeit a heavy tealeaf. It was so dark and forbidding, that, for a few seconds as I reeled it in I wondered what it was. I knew it was alive, from the few lolloping flip flops it gave as it came in. But once on the surface it was not immediately recognisable as a fish...not for a few seconds at least. It resembled nothing less than one of those dark old sacks the coalman used to use. Not an impossibility in this pond, as one of those very sacks was visible in the shallows, amongst other junk: an old bike, paving stones and scaffolding bars. The remains of a long dead peg I suspect, sandbags and scaffolding, topped by paving slabs, now long collapsed into the water.</div>
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I am left wondering why the bream grows those tubercles, why its sides get such hard and scabby</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a abp="2101" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFx0qmzAf9D08a_BVdKMQvODoHZyeAKsee6ZhC3E5na3L9S0GTvQvO12nfwZv_pxGNFcqFkHKWjIrS2F_D5fuK1VJNCBTF9iDllUPTx68dz3IoKDZfucF70082guh-uH0Iyzo1FO8EbuCK/s1600/DSC02250.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img abp="2102" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFx0qmzAf9D08a_BVdKMQvODoHZyeAKsee6ZhC3E5na3L9S0GTvQvO12nfwZv_pxGNFcqFkHKWjIrS2F_D5fuK1VJNCBTF9iDllUPTx68dz3IoKDZfucF70082guh-uH0Iyzo1FO8EbuCK/s320/DSC02250.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Male Coalsack (You really didn't want to see that, did you?) Neither did I! </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div abp="2103">
patches leading up to spawning time. They hardly look their best, and the least discerning female bream would have to be desperately short sighted to want anything to do with these males. The first time I saw the scabs on the sides of a large male bream, I thought it had some disease. I had never before seen one like that, all my earlier bream angling having been done before the close season on stillwaters was scrapped.</div>
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<div abp="1879">
It must be something of a contact process. None of the gentle caressing and wooing for a female bream: just get out the coarsest of sandpaper and she is all yours.</div>
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Another day, another place, same float, same hook, bait and rod and another bream was on the line. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a abp="2097" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiiFqax1bkG2ZAdkb_vlIPcKGs5HzK0dWQXkuZCfF_sgNjahHRslRG2nUAFfoVH65OJCiFidjHhAtOJQMEjEpZZ5PicF3jE_GirsARJcgm5sX7eB6MNPgny16ThbXNYopn73Wr2rGTf3DP/s1600/DSC02253.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img abp="2098" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiiFqax1bkG2ZAdkb_vlIPcKGs5HzK0dWQXkuZCfF_sgNjahHRslRG2nUAFfoVH65OJCiFidjHhAtOJQMEjEpZZ5PicF3jE_GirsARJcgm5sX7eB6MNPgny16ThbXNYopn73Wr2rGTf3DP/s320/DSC02253.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Female Bream</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div abp="3888" style="text-align: justify;">
Being female, this one actually pulled its weight, although it was unable to reach any weedbeds. It looked, unlike the recent male, very healthy and fit. I weighed it mainly for Peanut, the float maker. At a little over seven pounds, not my biggest bream by a fair way, but certainly the largest I have taken float fishing with a pin.</div>
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<table abp="2038" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody abp="2039">
<tr abp="2040"><td abp="2041" style="text-align: center;"><a abp="2042" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl6KWlojVEivzDahMkbeggbPdgd0jpZRvoHIh48ggVQGiCbaoHlKjkfaw4mjDW19sGHRz1ux9SWJxpw84HCLaZrIVGcXPnTbzoy0z_w0x3M4XigeYANNLqKGLWIZjMJLqDmZHSuGBmZVIu/s1600/slime.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img abp="2043" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl6KWlojVEivzDahMkbeggbPdgd0jpZRvoHIh48ggVQGiCbaoHlKjkfaw4mjDW19sGHRz1ux9SWJxpw84HCLaZrIVGcXPnTbzoy0z_w0x3M4XigeYANNLqKGLWIZjMJLqDmZHSuGBmZVIu/s320/slime.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr abp="2044"><td abp="2045" class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div abp="2046">
90% Slime</div>
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It was not without slime though, and fair messed up the landing net. I have learned though, to leave the net to soak in the water for an hour or so, then turn it inside out and shake in the water. Nearly all the slime then falls off. </div>
<div abp="3888" style="text-align: justify;">
For those of you who may be unacquainted with bream, almost all of the white in this photo is the slime just shaken off my landing net. There is one lump of bread just left of centre. I was surprised later, when it appeared that a shoal of small fish, a couple of inches long seemed to regard the slime as edible. </div>
<div abp="3888" style="text-align: justify;">
The bream was an early morning capture, followed by a small tench. But by 6am the clear water and bright light combined to suggest an end to bites for most of the remaining day. No twitches, not even from a roach. Had I taken more bait than just one slice of Warburton's bread, then maybe more bites would have ensued. But back in time for breakfast. </div>
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The Purple Peanut Tinca Stick has been firmly established as a favourite. Love at first bite, as has been said. Mike, if you are reading this, I understand that all your floats are sold on the same basis as ASDA "bags for life". So if I lose one in the lilies, or leave it dangling from a tree, or stand on it, I get a free replacement? No questions asked? ;-)</div>
By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-85941327675759807172016-06-01T10:11:00.004+01:002016-06-01T10:15:46.487+01:00Not as Good as it Would be if it Were Better.<div abp="3421" style="text-align: justify;">
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<div abp="2811">
It was my first day in grammar school. Being a "fresher" I had to stand, with other first year students, right at the front of the school assembly hall. I positioned myself at the back of the organ, and joined in at the first hymn. I wasn't an atheist then, probably because I had never heard of atheists. After the first hymn, the teacher playing the organ turned around and said:</div>
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"You boy, what is your name?"</div>
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I told him and was instructed to remain behind after the assembly. He then told me that my caterwauling had severely upset him, and quite put him off his notes. He had no idea of why a benevolent God would have ever allowed me vocal chords. The tirade continued awhile, and he finally banned me from singing...FOR LIFE. I was quite proud to have been banned in such a way, and probably boasted about it to my new classmates. Sadly the teacher suffered a fatal heart attack a few weeks later. Although I am fairly sure that my singing was not instrumental in causing his death I have actually, partly in memory of him, but mainly because his assessment was entirely correct, never sung anything since. The teachers in the school were well practised in the art of the put down. School reports were littered with juicy comments. I would like to have been able to say that "lamentable progress" had been written in my report by that music teacher, but it was from the art teacher. He also used the phrase:</div>
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"This work, boy, is not as good as it would be had it been better." </div>
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<a abp="3762" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5GaA5Vp1Bb0WxcC0TV9UjPuHMCLXeXh6EW5TH9FuP61XU9Pn7gvlfiPz0dFdZnbE6a6T12FIHpKv0v62o1f0MmWOxpuTy1QV2EXxBB4LBfWQJddIzkIeCFL-hycbax7PZ7lpiZDkHrIqf/s1600/DSC02146.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img abp="3763" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5GaA5Vp1Bb0WxcC0TV9UjPuHMCLXeXh6EW5TH9FuP61XU9Pn7gvlfiPz0dFdZnbE6a6T12FIHpKv0v62o1f0MmWOxpuTy1QV2EXxBB4LBfWQJddIzkIeCFL-hycbax7PZ7lpiZDkHrIqf/s320/DSC02146.JPG" width="320" /></a>Those two phrases adequately and accurately describe my tench angling to date this season. </div>
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Plenty of tench from the smaller venues, during short sessions, but nothing over about three or four pounds. A few carp and crucians have slotted themselves between those tench. Delightful fish, all of them, but not entirely within the plan. I even resurrected the Sunday Challenge: you may remember that, in the 45 minutes of my wife's church service, I challenge myself to drive to the water, tackle up, catch a fish, and get back in time to drive her home. ~~The result this time was two tench, a carp and a roach. </div>
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<a abp="2929" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQlxCC5RVN11Axrj5NAvKfSgSmObaIMVHTiXaq8qL8Uphyphenhyphenbl9RkXdWVtpuixHyqwDVfVqB6W8GvjRc1o-8QWM0CQ6Pfh2KHOiZxwZaQuZHoNw45IfYXqJW9wsp3duGTRHdDElQ9PfpsNx2/s1600/DSC02195.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img abp="2930" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQlxCC5RVN11Axrj5NAvKfSgSmObaIMVHTiXaq8qL8Uphyphenhyphenbl9RkXdWVtpuixHyqwDVfVqB6W8GvjRc1o-8QWM0CQ6Pfh2KHOiZxwZaQuZHoNw45IfYXqJW9wsp3duGTRHdDElQ9PfpsNx2/s640/DSC02195.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div abp="2931">
None of these challenge fish would have weighed as much as four ounces, but there is something quite wonderful about tiny clearwater tench. Nice to have a moorhen for company too. I understand that the seasonal yellow tip of its bill acts as a target when the young are pleading for food.</div>
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My longer sessions, after bigger fish, have so far resulted in seven consecutive blank sessions. I came close, contacting a fish that shed the hook, and my best guess as to its identity is that it was a good tench. But I don't give up that easily and expect my final school report for the year to have some better grades. </div>
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The blanks did give me a chance to test out my theories on line twist, and I can say, certainly for short casts up to about 30 yards, the process for removing twist does indeed work well. On longer casts the twists do not seem to equalise along the length of the line quite so easily, but results there have remained encouraging, if not quite so good. It may be that I need to allow more time for the twists to disperse along the line, or else perform the process on land, rather than in the lake.</div>
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The birds have been rather more co-operative, the herons in particular have posed quite shamelessly for me.</div>
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<a abp="3562" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFBXCGYXYGR_G-AHMsOOdzXf5KX7-VrjqXLMMCSgujrfy8v3s9pKv_1sXWcyosy2GxkYvTLHQxoFPv-0hyphenhyphenx399Wvff0AggS4THTTlJy28dSyYwYzDz-HowWce1OI-9HA26jdmtR0BQgM0J/s1600/Heron+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img abp="3563" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFBXCGYXYGR_G-AHMsOOdzXf5KX7-VrjqXLMMCSgujrfy8v3s9pKv_1sXWcyosy2GxkYvTLHQxoFPv-0hyphenhyphenx399Wvff0AggS4THTTlJy28dSyYwYzDz-HowWce1OI-9HA26jdmtR0BQgM0J/s320/Heron+%25282%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a> <a abp="3766" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfd8Z2RiXeKx5SxF3JDO4WTY0VE42n_B8geRlIX8Y6JhoHg9ha-IA0Ht7NAGs8ZDD5I3PrrH7xW3MLkiq3IacXc3bQKn5-DmWjmC00lLyPzsDhMNquRERReRIGzdhdPLf2hQp_0KhuBAua/s1600/Heron+%25284%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img abp="3767" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfd8Z2RiXeKx5SxF3JDO4WTY0VE42n_B8geRlIX8Y6JhoHg9ha-IA0Ht7NAGs8ZDD5I3PrrH7xW3MLkiq3IacXc3bQKn5-DmWjmC00lLyPzsDhMNquRERReRIGzdhdPLf2hQp_0KhuBAua/s320/Heron+%25284%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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The bird below was catching quite well, swallowing something every couple of minutes, but they seemed to be very, very small and although he had to turn his take-out prey items, I was unable to determine what they were. The pond abounds with tiny rudd though... and tadpoles. I shall make no further comment about this heron's photograph in the blog. Work it out for yourselves.</div>
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<a abp="3835" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtzexTyruq-malsiPsGuzVwNZ8CYyIL6uG-BzwJ8XF9_YPtUoAYwgk8Pxiu3fYAyYhvsGSBM03PU6ZeObtT41ZZ4X8Nb2y80LcGrpMUVTNpAzwi3sInXg_vPGW4M8mqTSEq4YjKbd4kbKw/s1600/doubleheron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img abp="3836" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtzexTyruq-malsiPsGuzVwNZ8CYyIL6uG-BzwJ8XF9_YPtUoAYwgk8Pxiu3fYAyYhvsGSBM03PU6ZeObtT41ZZ4X8Nb2y80LcGrpMUVTNpAzwi3sInXg_vPGW4M8mqTSEq4YjKbd4kbKw/s640/doubleheron.jpg" width="467" /></a></div>
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The local pair of peregrine falcons are again nesting on the old mill by the river. I understand they already have two chicks, but these have yet to be visible when I visit with the camera. The birds are of course nesting quite high up, and having to stand some distance back means that I cannot see any of the actual nest site, just the cavity containing it. Distance is a problem too: my camera even in bright sunlight cannot really capture the majesty of these birds at such distance, and so the shots remain slightly blurred. I have not seen them catch any prey yet, although there are numerous local feral pigeons that seem rather keen to get themselves eaten. I shall remain hopeful on this one, and visit as often as I am able to.</div>
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As I drove to the pond one morning, still a couple of miles away and on a main road, a female mallard was walking along the middle of the pavement, trailing, in a line behind her, six quite small ducklings. Right down the middle of the pavement, and so confident and law abiding ( no jaywalking here!) that I expect they would have been aiming for the nearby pelican crossing. Unfortunately due to traffic, I was unable to stop and take a photo.</div>
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Reaching the pond had minor compensations: a couple of morning trips ( back home before 9) led to</div>
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<tr abp="2934"><td abp="2935" style="text-align: center;"><a abp="2936" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieIZSvGCUaGUlHoKe5cRMqTMzODeoMsK3o7JrTV2lo9J9PSmz2ZDx3VRZe3N03t6bX-QdGP0jTS9Dh-I7a9JPbmLUNATkielcOrkzdDNjsTQInQcBPgC4yZ7HO3w31SUYxHx3TpIraU2e4/s1600/DSC02188.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img abp="2937" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieIZSvGCUaGUlHoKe5cRMqTMzODeoMsK3o7JrTV2lo9J9PSmz2ZDx3VRZe3N03t6bX-QdGP0jTS9Dh-I7a9JPbmLUNATkielcOrkzdDNjsTQInQcBPgC4yZ7HO3w31SUYxHx3TpIraU2e4/s320/DSC02188.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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a total of three tench, a couple of nicely coloured middling roach, a rudd, a perch, and a carp. I don't mind common carp so much, they do at least look like proper fish, not some oddball creation designed by man for the food or aquarist trade. All the fish on the centrepin which was quite satisfying. A second hooked carp headed along the bank, passing through two stands of lily pads. With the 4 pound line I was a little restricted, but managed to get the carp back through one set of pads before the hook pulled free. Better than the day before when, during the Monday Bank Holiday, I had taken a tour around the pond. A few picnickers and non serious anglers were around, together with a group of guys passing the time of day. One, who was a little worse the wear from drink, pleasantly enough, but he greeted me as "Pops". Never been called "Pops" before, and I admit I hated it. I know I have a few miles on the old clock, but having told my lad to keep it in his trousers and not make me a grandfather any time soon, and struggling with the "pensioner" thing anyway, I really detested being called "Pops". Especially by a drunk. I keep thinking about it: it being one of one's life defining points when you are first called "Pops". I knew I should have worn my woolly hat, that would have prevented being called such. Anyone else calls me that and I will hang, draw and quarter them, not necessarily in that order. </div>
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-64581638777367991472016-04-26T16:46:00.001+01:002016-04-30T11:10:17.324+01:00Line Twist: Diagnosis. Still a Problem, But Maybe There is a Treatment?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Those of you who read this regularly, (and both of you know who you are), will remember that last season especially, I had a major problem with line twist. It hit me whilst tench fishing, legering, and more recently it has again struck whilst I have been float fishing at distance with worms.<br />
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Line twist on monofilament can become a nuisance or even a major disaster if ignored. My tactics to date have always been to change the last 100 yards of line, every two or three trips. It hasn't really been enough, as a single day's fishing can impart a vast amount of twist to the monofilament. Well over a thousand twists is not a rare occurrence. Regular replacement of my line was possible because I use fairly cheap line. Actually very, very cheap, but it still seems a decent product, although it becomes quite a palaver every week or so, to strip 100 yards off each of three reels and then to reload them.<br />
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I suspect that much of the mumbo jumbo I read in the angling comics, comparing various brands of line and their resistance to twist, is just that: mumbo jumbo. No monofilament line is going to be able to avoid line twist, none will be significantly better at it than any other brand. It is a problem that depends upon how it is used, and <strong>not</strong> how it has been manufactured. How supple the line is may have a small effect on how badly the problem manifests itself.<br />
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Line twist causes one major problem: the twist can show up near the rod or reel, by visibly twisting itself together, almost like a platting effect, but with two, not three component threads. Worst case scenario is that these then form multiple twists, leading to tangles and knots, some large enough as to need cutting out, as the knots become ever more difficult or near impossible to undo. Even if the major tangles are avoided, the twists can cause coils of line to leap off the reel, as if alive, adding ever more twisted line to the tangle risk. Such loops can then catch any projecting parts of the reel or the rod rests. It is a problem that if unnoticed will quickly reveal itself once a fish is added into the mix.<br />
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Replacing mono with braid does not reduce the twist: but , braid being more supple, does allow far more twists in the line before it shows up as a problem. It will delay the onset of trouble. Of course being much more expensive it does nothing to reduce costs of replacement.<br />
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Because of my own problems, I have done considerable recent on-line research into fishing forums and the like, but find mainly that there is a lot of clap trap written about twist, by people who have obviously not thought deeply enough about it, or who have gone off at a skewed tangent and written absolute cobblers. Many simply repeat the mantra of others before them. None seem to have correctly analysed the problem. So; having failed to get any satisfactory explanation or solution to the problem, it was time to do some deep thinking and analysis for myself.<br />
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Firstly: what is my objective?<br />
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I wish to fish, as much as possible, with zero or negligible twist in the section of line in the water. Put another way, <strong><em>when the line is cast out</em></strong> I do not want it to display any significant twist. It must not put me at risk due to being twisted.<br />
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Secondly: How is twist generated?</div>
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Line on a new spool, as manufactured, is entirely without twist. So if it is transferred onto a centrepin reel, by putting an axle, say a pencil, through the spool, and allowing that spool to rotate as the reel is filled, then we will put no twist onto the reel. All will be perfect. If instead, we allow the line to slip off the side of the spool, then one twist would be added for every 360 degree loop of line as it comes off the spool. The direction of twist depends from which side of the spool the line slips off. Line twist on a centrepin is not what we want, and this therefore is not a method any angler would normally use when loading a centrepin. The amount of twist that would be put onto a centrepin in this way would only be about one twist for every 6 or 8 inches of line. In normal use this would not present a problem for the centrepin, more twist is to be expected from simply retrieving a trotted float a few dozen times.<br />
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There used to be ( and maybe still is) a reel that purported to combine the best features of a centrepin, together with the free casting of a fixed spool reel. It was a simple design, which reeled in exactly like a centrepin. To cast out the spool was rotated 90 degrees, to become side on to the rod, and the line then would come off the edge of a chamfered spool, allowing long casts to be made. It was called the Alvey Sidecast. It had a major design problem though, in that for every loop on line cast out and retrieved, one twist of 360 degrees would be added to the line. Cast by cast, the twist would build up on the reel, and eventually show itself and cause problems. Alvey recommended the use of a swivel to help counteract this, but swivels, even ball bearing swivels, do not work very efficiently in reducing line twist. I had realised myself that swivels did not solve my own problems. I even went to the expense of buying some ball bearing swivels, only to find they were not much better than the bog standard article. Swivels may help a bit, but they do not prevent twist. There is simply too much friction involved, and added to contamination by bits of weed or grit, they soon allow just as much twist to develop as if they were not there at all.</div>
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The fixed spool reel was invented for ease of long casting, and the rotating bale arm was a method of solving the Alvey twist problem. And it does an excellent job.<br />
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<u><strong>Use a fixed spool reel, without the bait runner, and without using the clutch, and you will generate no line twist (in the cast part of the line), as long as the end tackle does not rotate.</strong></u><br />
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That was probably Newton's Fourth law of motion, but as he did not lay claim to it, it is all mine!<br />
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Line twist, on a fixed spool reel can be generated in several ways.</div>
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Firstly, when loading the spooled line onto the reel.</div>
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There are three ways to do this: </div>
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1) Ill thought out</div>
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2) Totally wrong and</div>
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3) The correct way.</div>
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The ill thought out method, is to wind the line off the side of the spool, in such a way that the line rotates off the spool and onto the reel in the same sense. It is easier for you to try this, and watch what happens, rather than my trying to explain it here. Doing this, if the spool and reel are of the same diameter, the line ends up on the reel with no twist at all. "Job done" say those who recommend this method. If the spool and reel are of different diameters, then there will be a residual amount of twist imparted to the reel. If they are identical diameters we do indeed get a reel with no twist at all on it. Perfect until we cast out. Then once we cast out, we gain one twist for every loop of line that comes off the reel. With a five-to-one ratio reel, if the reel recovers a yard per handle rotation, casting out 50 yards, we will have imparted no less than 250 twists to the cast line. 5 times 50. And that twist would disappear as the line was reeled back in. <strong>But the ideal is not to have any twists in the line that has been cast out, not the line once it is back on the reel. </strong></div>
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The totally wrong method is to have the line come off the OTHER side of the spool. Do this and you put TWO twists onto the reel for every loop of line transferred. And on casting out that 50 yards you still will again have 250 twists in the cast line. </div>
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Method three is to allow the spool to spin on a pencil as you load the reel. This will result in one twist per revolution on the reel bale arm, but once in the water it will be free of twist . Twist on the reel does not matter in the slightest! Wound onto the reel, line twist has no negative effects at all. It is not being used, and the twists are in effect captured, trapped and contained. Method three is the way to go.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This photo shows how I load line onto a reel. The fingers are acting as an axle and also control the tension as the line is loaded. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">The line passes through the first ring to make the process fairly easy. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> I usually hold the rod butt between my knees. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Many anglers will tell you to allow line to come off the label side of the spool. This is wrong and based on a misconception. It would load the reel with no twist ( assuming spool and reel are the same diameter), but once you cast out you add one twist for every loop of line that comes off the reel. About 5 twists per yard.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Using the method in the photo, when you cast out the newly loaded line, there will be NO twist in it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Twist is almost certain to be added as you fish, but at least you start off clean.</span><br />
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Another way to generate line twist is to allow the reel clutch to operate. Whether that be a fish taking line, the angler rather stupidly reeling with the clutch set too lightly, or the bait runner operating, there will be one additional twist applied to the cast out line, for every rotation of the reelspool. Every loop of line that a running fish takes, adds one twist. If you are snagged and attempt to reel in with a slack clutch, then every turn of the reel handle, on a 5 to 1 geared reel, will add 5 twists. These twists are NOT removed when you reel in. They will still be there on your next cast. </div>
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One method to reduce this would be to reel backwards when playing a fish, rather than to use the slipping clutch. I play all my fish this way, and apart from the very occasional rapped knuckles due to my carelessness, it has worked perfectly for me. </div>
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You could also allow the reel to rotate backwards, rather than using the baitrunner, but that is perhaps taking things a little too far.</div>
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Another way that twists are added is by using end tackle that rotates on the retrieve. Feeders are very prone to doing this. Baits, particularly big baits, will cause line twist on the retrieve. Even a couple of maggots can act like a propeller in reverse, generating twist as they are pulled through the water. If you are lucky, then alternate casts will have the bait rotating in opposite directions, cancelling out any problems. I am never so lucky and find that such twists build up, and can build up very rapidly indeed. After just 4 or 5 casts, line can become almost unusable. Catch a fish every cast: no problem, the fish itself prevents any twist being added....unless is swims around and around in circles. Cast frequently and reel back in without those fish: possible big problem.<br />
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Fish with a heavy lead, and keep the line taught, and fewer problems will present themselves, but the twist will still be there. I prefer to fish fairly light.<br />
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It may be that some twist may be generated on the cast itself. The truth of this is hard to determine, but such twist is likely to be negligible, and so I will ignore it.</div>
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What can be done about twist, if you cannot, due to bait choices and legering, avoid it entirely?</div>
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Well, there is a lead that you can buy. Cast it out and as you reel in, it is supposed to rotate and reduce twist in your line. It's called the Gardner Spin Doctor. In theory it works, but it has two problems: because it rotates at a constant speed, as you gradually reel in the line, so it has a greater effect on twist reduction, the nearer the end tackle gets to you. It does not redistribute and remove twist evenly along the length of the line. I should point out here of course that reeling in a bait has a similar effect, putting more twists per meter into the line as you reel in and the hook gets nearer. So maybe not a great problem, especially as, once you cast out again, the twists remaining will tend to equalise along the length of the line in the water. A second problem is that the leads only remove twists in one direction, and I guess that such a lead is designed to remove twists due to clutch use. The direction of that twist is predictable. ( But do all bail arms, on all reel models rotate the same way?) The twist due to rotating bait or end tackle can be either clockwise or anti-clockwise. So the lead would then be useful only perhaps half the time.</div>
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Another method would be to dangle a lead from a high building, tied to the end of your line and allow the twist to unravel itself. this would work fine, but might take some time, and is hardly a convenient bankside solution. And if you live in a bungalow, tough!</div>
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My own problem is due, I believe, almost entirely to the rotation of end tackle and baits. Feeders or leads when legering, worms and similar when float fishing or legering. So I cannot predict in which direction my twist will build up. But I have had an idea. </div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Use the reel to remove the twist!</span></strong></div>
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Let's say that twist caused by use of the clutch on my reels is <strong>clockwise</strong> twist. Clutch induced twist will always be in the same direction for any particular reel. ( it is possible that on some other reel models the bail arm rotates the other way...I wouldn't know).</div>
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So if my baits have been applying <strong>anti-clockwise</strong> twists, then I can cast out my usual distance, use the line clip as usual, loosen the slipping clutch right off, point the rod down the line and wind away, thus cancelling out and removing 5 twists for every rotation of the handle, the clutch being so loose that the lead does not move at all. As long as the lead does not move, I can remove all or most of the twist, by applying clockwise twist and then re-start my fishing. I could <strong>guarantee</strong> the lead does not move by taping the reel spool to the bail arm.</div>
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If on the other hand my baits have been applying a cumulative clockwork twist, I can still use the reel to correct it. After casting out, I can tape the reel spool to the bale arm to stop any relative movement between them, and then reel BACKWARDS to remove the twist. So I have a fairly quick, bankside method of removing twist from my line, ( for twist in <strong>either</strong> direction), and no longer have the need to replace my line every week or so. This saves me £1-29 for a spool, which would usually be enough to fill the reels on three rods, but more importantly, it gives me a bankside, quick and easy solution, to my problem. </div>
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All I need to do is to decide in which direction to apply the correction, and how much of that correction to apply. Examination of the twist loop which forms when a length of line is slackened will be enough to diagnose whether the twist is clockwise or anticlockwise. So the direction of reel winding is fairly easy to work out. </div>
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How many turns of the reel handle will be required is more difficult. I could remove an amount of twist and then look to see how close I am to the twist free target, having a second, or third go until I get somewhere near the ideal of zero twists. There is no point in going right down to zero, as the next cast or two will undoubtedly probably re-apply some twist. </div>
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So instead I designed an experiment. I took a yard of my 8 pound line and applied first 10, then 20, then 30 twists to it. You may think that these are very large amounts of twist to apply to such a short length of line, but my experience has been that when fishing I can generate many hundreds, if not a thousand or more twists in a few casts whilst fishing as little as 30 yards from the bank. </div>
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Having generated the 10,20 or 30 twists in a tight length of line, I allowed it to slacken and looked at the size of the loop formed. I was expecting the loops size to vary with the amount of twist: the more twist per unit length, the smaller the resultant loop. And so it proved. 30 twists in the yard gave me a loop size having an area of about the same size as a penny, Twenty twists and the loop area was about the same area as a 50 pence piece, whereas 10 twists presented a loop size area similar in size to a 55mm lens cap. See diagram below:</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5f6atz4LQZnJ28dQ_WFXH02uZ6F03X77J4Sn8j9h0RXaGztPMbF0lSZyhyphenhyphenqoZaaBswvT_Atz2cc00GLCq6LWBYanwLAZwhp6rhYRN1WU2JOrLNha8WwD_hRSGyKMvsaK-1p1QoLpB7uxC/s1600/Loopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5f6atz4LQZnJ28dQ_WFXH02uZ6F03X77J4Sn8j9h0RXaGztPMbF0lSZyhyphenhyphenqoZaaBswvT_Atz2cc00GLCq6LWBYanwLAZwhp6rhYRN1WU2JOrLNha8WwD_hRSGyKMvsaK-1p1QoLpB7uxC/s640/Loopy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approximate Loop Sizes Obtained From Twisting a Yard of 8 Pound Line. **</td></tr>
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So if I get a loop size somewhere between that of a penny and a fifty pence piece from my cast line, I might then estimate that I have in the region of 25 twists per yard. Multiply that by 30 yards and I have in total 750 twists. One rotation of the reel handle on that 5-1 ratio reel gives me 5 twists, and so to remove the twists, a rotation count somewhere around 150 winds of the handle, in the correct direction, should see me reduce the problem to somewhere near zero, close enough at least to be able to fish on without a problem.<br />
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**Note that line of a different breaking strain would have given different loop sizes.<br />
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So that is the theory and the experimentation, and all that remains is to see what happens in the coming tench sessions.</div>
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<br />By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-84084538402495566372016-04-19T11:22:00.001+01:002016-04-27T13:36:06.745+01:00Pesistence, Patience, Perspiration Pay off for PerchI have had thoughts that some of my blog entries are far too long, tending towards tedious. So this one will be a little shorter:<br />
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Begin: <br />
Woodpigeons, robin, rat, crows, jackdaws, sparrowhawk, kestrel, tufted duck, mallard with young. A pair of peas in pod perch.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ405PVxcN3hlNcuT2GtdW8eWI1l840983KSAq35_L2foIQr4SC6DxNw6k4QmXdGlbxgZFLT1v2p8Cjaosh6vYPsvQEU2NAXofoNbIra2HCD8JEJnANpHSgOZ-Fb7hW2UFuGFmX6tWBuF6/s1600/Perch+3-0+%25285%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ405PVxcN3hlNcuT2GtdW8eWI1l840983KSAq35_L2foIQr4SC6DxNw6k4QmXdGlbxgZFLT1v2p8Cjaosh6vYPsvQEU2NAXofoNbIra2HCD8JEJnANpHSgOZ-Fb7hW2UFuGFmX6tWBuF6/s640/Perch+3-0+%25285%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Perch</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUZmYonQVjXoa80ISMj-2y8gv5WApbi3e3eBGKETqB7N8oTAFXbeDsFpgWW8YdKleR3TWturrt0eJIsdktC9iFySjCYd9MfIRmqj_fEN-IeginX4GTm4z8EqOLv75WkINB_4uDxzDTILLu/s1600/Perch+3-0+%25289%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUZmYonQVjXoa80ISMj-2y8gv5WApbi3e3eBGKETqB7N8oTAFXbeDsFpgWW8YdKleR3TWturrt0eJIsdktC9iFySjCYd9MfIRmqj_fEN-IeginX4GTm4z8EqOLv75WkINB_4uDxzDTILLu/s640/Perch+3-0+%25289%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Same Fish, Another View.<br />
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-49244439914824754462016-04-16T14:17:00.001+01:002016-04-17T12:28:03.493+01:00It's Fishing...But Not as We Know it. (Part 2).<br />
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OK, Part two: "What about the fishing?" <br />
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The fishing I experienced in Thailand can also be effectively split into two parts. </div>
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The target (or bigger) species, and secondly: any smaller types of fish.</div>
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I am probably not going to say too much about the larger species (although that may change as I write), far too many others have extolled their virtues. I am certainly not going to list them, fish by fish, as I caught them. All are hard fighting fish, and as I said before, a main objective of the trip was to get into contact with some real scrappers, some large fish of exotic origins. </div>
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At least a dozen red tailed Amazonian catfish fell to my rod. Some good sized ones, none of record breaking proportions though. They were my favourites: beautiful spotty heads, with gaping mouths, long barbules and a skull you wouldn't easily dent with a large jack hammer. My first one took a deadbait, a small herring like fish, but I later found that even small baits were a suitable enticement for these cats. They seemed to prefer the marginal parts of the lake, but maybe that was because any unused fish baits were tipped into the lake by the ghillies each evening. Right into the shallows.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwM6XR0aJoai13rLYRCPWyrUU_TBiBtg8op5ZtIuQGxy_W4gFJnIp2s2mQ1wha-QqNdMBsxUVHfFgJ-aZ6_gC_KyaNSPm3tZRfRBxU5v56ciTDT8UKBU4XvRsfqhcckvq2B_E4zEXdyEQ_/s1600/2016+Redtail+16+pounds+%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwM6XR0aJoai13rLYRCPWyrUU_TBiBtg8op5ZtIuQGxy_W4gFJnIp2s2mQ1wha-QqNdMBsxUVHfFgJ-aZ6_gC_KyaNSPm3tZRfRBxU5v56ciTDT8UKBU4XvRsfqhcckvq2B_E4zEXdyEQ_/s640/2016+Redtail+16+pounds+%25281%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Tailed Catfish<br />
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The second species I caught were Siamese carp. Half a dozen or so. I didn't get the largest caught during the week, but had fish to maybe thirty five pounds. Apparently that is none too big for the species, but they all gave a good account of themselves.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghecTIt7rUy8Yduf9U7DxfSHNlJ0zakt0xenEfAE4R-_FiW_tID9LHicfk40UpGlvjqoykpnDsYK36AMVgn-NsHDm8KxLbdxC4gX8cto4LFHErF7arxbraYSIGaWadVPkN4GLpJZSKqSkF/s1600/Siamese+Carp+19++%25283%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghecTIt7rUy8Yduf9U7DxfSHNlJ0zakt0xenEfAE4R-_FiW_tID9LHicfk40UpGlvjqoykpnDsYK36AMVgn-NsHDm8KxLbdxC4gX8cto4LFHErF7arxbraYSIGaWadVPkN4GLpJZSKqSkF/s640/Siamese+Carp+19++%25283%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Small and Peaceful Siamese Carp<br />
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The fish above is probably the smallest I caught and is a lot better looking than the bigger specimens were. Nice edging of red on some of the fins. The fish is being held by one of the ghillies. I wasn't about to get myself wet for the smaller fish. Some of the slightly larger fish were less than happy about my staying fairly dry:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4xyg4JVG4WBwrdHRbdeExEG00d_ZTltF5ewie-HcHfKK1WxAJF_luWQexgPZR9PV2UXZgpOlbg6GaR79OF4cdCmUL-_vxUdUTTRDqwyDpYnYKP6-2T36FqEWjRz0UMPAaz8synsvyfc9k/s1600/Siamese+carp+34+pounds+++%252856%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4xyg4JVG4WBwrdHRbdeExEG00d_ZTltF5ewie-HcHfKK1WxAJF_luWQexgPZR9PV2UXZgpOlbg6GaR79OF4cdCmUL-_vxUdUTTRDqwyDpYnYKP6-2T36FqEWjRz0UMPAaz8synsvyfc9k/s640/Siamese+carp+34+pounds+++%252856%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Larger and Stroppier Siamese Carp<br />
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But I suppose any fish with a gob approaching the size of the Mersey Tunnel, is going to have something to say about being caught. One of my carp surprised everyone by taking an eight inch fish deadbait.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwd4H7FEhmtfe-negeUuuIKsoDkmMkgS5apb1ews4DvC8aaiMYyQL69G3fak6bB8U1ESQcJKq6PcOKBoNJ3NOt9P0VWEA7QBm_YLafKnsJ9hBTWmu7RTOnb5EcAmcForC5thJydm0O2Q4S/s1600/Siamese+14+%25285%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwd4H7FEhmtfe-negeUuuIKsoDkmMkgS5apb1ews4DvC8aaiMYyQL69G3fak6bB8U1ESQcJKq6PcOKBoNJ3NOt9P0VWEA7QBm_YLafKnsJ9hBTWmu7RTOnb5EcAmcForC5thJydm0O2Q4S/s640/Siamese+14+%25285%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Small Siamese, Big Gob.<br />
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I foulhooked one carp, and it went rather ballistic, charging off at warp 6 speed. It was not long though, before the line went slack and the hook provided the evidence: a single scale was firmly attached, that to the best of my knowledge, was a scale from a Siamese carp.</div>
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Sizes mentioned here must be taken with a pinch of salt. That is not to say they have been exaggerated, rather the converse. I erred on the conservative. Weighing the fish would have been difficult at times, especially for some species, so sizes were estimated. One ghillie was on a work experience trip. Cheap labour maybe, but nevertheless, far better for him than selling fries in MacDonald's. I don't think he had much real angling experience. Got on well with him. He was almost as daft as I am. He tried hard but didn't quite make my grade of idiot. The other was a dyed in the wool carp angler, one who had stayed on at the lake, having bartered some extra fishing in exchange for work as a ghillie on site. He was OK, a good bloke but only the carp seemed to really matter to him, and he spent considerable time trying to get me to chase carp as my main quarry. He failed. So the two ghillies, I soon realised, were less experienced at estimating fish sizes that I was myself. And it had to be faced, fish of the sort of sizes caught in Thailand are rare in the UK, and no matter how much I measure the photos, and calculate lengths, girths and weights, there is always going to be a degree of guesswork involved, especially with the bigger fish. Which brings me on to the third target species: Arapaima.</div>
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Arapaima are another South American species, and one that grows very big indeed. They are a little different in that they breathe air, coming to the surface at intervals to take a breath. In Thailand they appear to be bred especially for fishing resorts ( but possibly also as a food source). The weather conditions and climate certainly suit them, and they probably have comparable growth rates to those in the Amazonian areas where they are normally found. I read that in South America, they are somewhat endangered, so perhaps breeding programmes in Thailand can only be a good thing. It would be sad to lose such a really large and spectacular fish species from the planet. Better to have some specimens outside of their usual haunts than to have none at all. </div>
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I landed three arapaima, all weighing into three figures, with the largest, best guess/estimate, being about 205 pounds. This took quite some time to land, with my legs actually turning to jelly part way through the fight. I sat down to complete the process. Now I don't think the fight should have taken anywhere near that long, but the lake's owners specified that they be played very lightly. I had to allow the ghillies to set my clutch. This setting was, I am sure, only about 3 or 4 pounds, to judge from the bend in the rod when the reel gave line. ( I may have sneaked the odd bit of finger onto the spool at times though). I was told that despite their size, arapaima are delicate fish, and would suffer if played too hard. My own thoughts on this differ: I feel that playing a fish for such a long time is bound to stress it more. I would rather have had the fish in the net in about twenty minutes, and I saw no reason why that would not have happened had the clutch been set differently. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX7lmdDuynGK_lH1erpZClZ8q6stX_PlscXQj89f9rZH_Y41YE3odzewtwzhMRsC8mvV5k3q1bziN6td_DS-z2-xL6wTrtVa1ZUnucMRhx6Rx5yBkIoekKg3VRzOZhl4qWxPHOGyQjgd8L/s1600/Arapaima+205+%252816%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX7lmdDuynGK_lH1erpZClZ8q6stX_PlscXQj89f9rZH_Y41YE3odzewtwzhMRsC8mvV5k3q1bziN6td_DS-z2-xL6wTrtVa1ZUnucMRhx6Rx5yBkIoekKg3VRzOZhl4qWxPHOGyQjgd8L/s640/Arapaima+205+%252816%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">200 Pounds of Fish Makes Quite a Hole in the Lake, After Surfacing to Breathe During the Fight. </td></tr>
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I accepted that, when the fish came up to breathe air, that the line should be slackened. It seemed reasonable to assume that interfering with the fish's breathing would really have upset it, and caused extreme panic. But I could see no reason why, for the rest of the time, much greater pressure could not have been applied. My feeling is that the approach adopted was totally wrong. I was sure that, with such a light clutch setting, a big fish such as this was just having a good swim up and down the lake and I was doing little more than waiting for it to swim near enough to the net to be encased in it. It was only when I was allowed to tighten the clutch, so as to avoid having to play and land the fish in darkness, that I felt much progress was being made. Light tension, combined with barbless hooks, means extra care was needed whilst playing the fish, but there was surely no need to be quite so gentle.<br />
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Another criticism was that the landing nets for arapaima: long bits of heavy grade knotted netting stretched between two eight foot parallel poles, were highly inadequate. With largely untrained ghillies, two of my arapaima actually got out of the net. One broke the line in doing so, leaving me with just two, rather poor photos. The other, my biggest, forced its way out, and then had to be played a second time, back into the net. The nets were just a long rectangle of mesh. There was no end netting to prevent a fish from swimming back out from between the poles, a fact they took full advantage of. I feel a much softer mesh should have been in use, and that the net shape should have been more like a pig trough, with ends designed to keep the fish in place, once netted. Human muscles, without the help of a suitable net, just cannot control and compete with a lively thrashing arapaima in its own element.<br />
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I did make a few changes to the way I fished, rather than just accepting the prescribed methods and baits, and I feel this helped me hook this fish, the biggest arapaima, and also a few others. But had I <strong>not</strong> anticipated there would be restrictions on how I fished, I would have gone home very resentful indeed, that I could not fish my way, with my own tackle. I am sure I would then have caught more...and in perfect safety. I have, after all, been fishing a hell of a long time. But I compromised...rather more than I would have liked, for the sake of a peaceful week.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">200 Pound Plus. Lovely Red Edging to Most of its Scales.<br />
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I found the end tackle odd: compulsory 4 ounce leads, even for short casts. Reason given: they need to be sure the fish won't swallow the lead. Easily solved: just put the lead more than 9 inches away from the hook. All rigs were 9 inches between hook and lead. And I have <strong>never</strong> heard of any fish <strong>ever</strong> swallowing a lead. But all of the rigs I used were subjected to two or three JayZS special tweaks before I attached any bait to them. I really hated the end tackle set up. Even after the tweaks I did not find it was approaching an ideal. My apologies to the ghillies, they will have to re-tie any rig I used, to get it back to the site standard. Heh heh!<br />
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I must re-iterate here: this trip was about catching a few fish. It was simple fishing for large fish, and not angling for them. The fishing itself was not difficult. Treated as happy hour, a lightweight trip, it worked just fine for me. Had I taken it more seriously I should have been very unhappy. I don't like others making decisions for me when it really matters.<br />
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One thing for me to think about is that they used the slipping clutch for all the fish. I prefer to reel backwards myself. In using the clutch, week after week on the resort rods, they are applying a LOT of twist to the line. One twist for every rotation of the spool. This much twist on monofilament, would result in its twisting about itself, into "T" shaped offshoots from the main line. It causes line to flip off the spool too, and can (and does!) cause major tangles. I have a lot of problems with line twist when legering, and nothing I do seems to be able to avoid it. Not even ball bearing swivels. But line twist did not show up as a problem in Thailand. Why? Simple! They use braid as a main line, which is so supple that any twist does not seem to cause major problems. I might have to test this theory out on the tench this year. I have high hopes....just need to check the club rules to see if braid is allowed.</div>
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I had more freedom with the smaller species: whether fishing for livebait or just generally passing a bit of time catching tiddlers. I felt they would have preferred me to do this with the 3 foot long bit of bamboo, equipped with a small hook and three of four feet of light line, that they supplied to other anglers. Instead I used tackle I had taken with me and fished just a few feet from the bank. What a rebel I was. Not entirely ideal though, float fishing 5 pound line, 16 hook on a 3 pound test curve carp rod. But I caught fish, some for livebait, others just to pass a bit of time. I didn't in total spend more than 9 or 10 hours fishing like this, but maybe I should have done. </div>
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The predominant species was tilapia. A cichlid species.</div>
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The tilapia is very widespread across warm countries because of its suitability as a farmed food fish. They taste lovely. We used to catch and immediately cook them over a fire of coconut husks in the Philippines. Few better tasting freshwater fish exist. Tilapia in the lake were prolific, mainly just a few ounces in size, but my tackle enabled me to catch them up to a couple of pounds or so. They have a chunky body and a lot of finnage, so punch well above their weight on the end of a line.</div>
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Next most common species was the java barb. None of these were over about 12 ounces, but they looked very much like a brighter, shinier version of our own silver bream. The anal fin, body shape were similar, and they even had an identical copious coating of slime. They liked bread, and I had taken a loaf of Warburton's with me. Doesn't everyone?</div>
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Other occasional captures on my float gear were small Asian retail catfish. They were quite astonishing fish, with highly flexible whiskers almost as long as their bodies.</div>
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Note the green perch bobber float. It was made by a guy called Mike Cootes, who calls himself the Purple Peanut...or maybe he just calls his website such. But he makes absolutely beautiful floats. So nice that I am almost reluctant to use them. But equally it would be such a shame <strong>not</strong> to use them. A bit like having a Ferrari that never leaves the garage. So I used them for catching small fish in the margins. I feel that I should now use the term "Peanutting" to describe the very action of messing around in the margins to catch tiddlers. The float worked well.</div>
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But this tackle did not just attract small fish. Three times that size 16 hook, carrying a minuscule bit of bait, less than half the size of a pea, hooked into something far bigger. Three times my precious peanutting float was dragged eighty, ninety, maybe a hundred yards down the lake. As the float became more distant, my fear of losing it increased in proportion, if not exponentially. In each case I fought back, bringing the fish most of the way back. But then the light line gave way. The fish had not broken the line, but had abraded it, reducing its strength. The last few inches of line felt rough to the touch when I reeled in after losing the fish. I suspect all three were good sized red tailed catfish, which had taken a tiny bait. The cats have abrasive pads just inside the mouth, very similar to a Wels catfish, but also that hard head might well have guaranteed the destruction of my line. Three exciting ten minute sessions. I should have liked to have landed one of them, and maybe I should have spent more time "Peanutting" for them, so that Mike could have had a more spectacular photo of his float and fish, but the five pound line was far from ideal, and my chances of success were reduced by it.</div>
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But apart from a few niggles, it was a generally good week abroad. Nice fish, great wildlife and it is not everywhere that a young Thai lady will bring you breakfast down by the lake.</div>
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Lastly this: You won't get many of these down the local canal. A Long Snouted Pipefish.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OK I Cheated. I Caught this One in the Landing Net. Bye.</td></tr>
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-55689436827576895722016-04-16T14:04:00.000+01:002016-04-16T14:20:04.917+01:00It's Fishing...But Not as We Know it. (Part 1).<div style="text-align: justify;">
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I had a fairly good end to the conventional open season for coarse fish, a couple of dozen pike, and some nice perch over the last couple of weeks. The largest of the pike was about 15 pounds, a good fish for the water, and took a lobworm aimed at its stripey companions. Playing the fish, once I had realised it was no perch, was all a bit heart in mouth stuff. No wire trace, 4 pound line. All very pleasing when the fish was in the net. The fish, both perch and pike, appeared NOT to have spawned yet, which, considering the warm weather we have had this winter, seems a bit odd, especially in a shallow water venue. Neither did they yet seem to be overburdened with spawn, and the spawning event for both perch and pike, in mid March, still looked to be a good couple of weeks away. I sometimes find early close season a difficult time in which to catch fish. Late close season is very much spent avoiding bream, as I do not like to catch them with all the lumps and bumps, and that rough touch that comes with male bream getting ready to spawn. The tubercles, and other features make the fish actually feel and look ill as I touch them. Far better to leave them alone. Managed a rather nice photo of this handsome male goosander. It surfaced unexpectedly in my swim, and somehow seemed rather less shy than those I find on the rivers, where I usually see them.</div>
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So recently, I had a birthday. Happens most years. Past a "certain" age, birthdays become something to be avoided. Another year's mileage on the old chassis. I breezed past 60. I had just retired and that the new found freedom overshadowed the big six - O. Sixty two was no great problem either. I had just started to take the company pension and felt instantly richer at 62. Adequate compensation for the high numeric. Likewise 65, when all those workers out there pay their taxes purely to fund <strong>my</strong> fishing bait. So 65: not a problem . No, the problem age is sixty eight. That is the number at which you realise you are nearer to seventy than sixty five. And there is nothing you can do to remove the feeling. You can ignore it, but not remove it. <br />
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My son added to the horror by sending me a birthday card. A card that he littered with just about every fishy pun he could find. I shall not risk losing friends and readers by repeating them <strong>all</strong> here, but see no reason why you should not suffer one or two that I had not heard before: "Re-inventing the whale" for instance. And I <strong>had</strong> heard "For Cod's Sake!" before, but not the more subtle "For God's Hake!" That one is quite a gudgeon. But enough of that. My wife had also recently intercepted an article of fishing tackle I had bought on Ebay. She then wrapped it in gift paper and gave it to me as a present. Sneaky! And possible grounds for divorce.<br />
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Going into Sainsbury's recently I found the loo out of order. A note pinned to the door said "Sorry for the inconvenience" I kid you not. So I had to go across the road to ASDA. I don't like ASDA. They have a long escalator to get up into the shop. I don't usually mind escalators, but this one is different. The hand rail moves slightly faster than the stairs. I stand on the bottom step, rest my hand on the rail, and as I ascend, because my hand is moving slightly faster than my feet, I am slowly tilted forward, bit by bit, until at the top I am leaning about 20 degrees, and am within a midge's of falling flat on my face. Who designs these things? How could they risk life and limb in this way? Yes, I know I could shift my hand, but that would be no fun at all. ;-) As an aside, the next time in ASDA, the up escalator was broken, and I had to walk up it. I don't know why, but the visual impact of walking up a stationary escalator was quite weird. I felt a bit strange. Maybe it was linked to all those parallel shiny metallic strips. It seemed to have a sort of optical illusionary effect on me.<br />
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So why all this mini rant? Well I needed rather more than the impending close season to justify a fishing trip abroad. Grasping at straws. An escalation of my real reasons for going fishing. My wife also spotted an article in the Daily Mail's web site about fishing in Thailand and jokingly said I should go there to catch "<em><strong>some real fish</strong></em>". I think she was somewhat shocked, when, three days later, I was in a taxi heading towards the airport. Birthday, escalators, close seasons: what better excuse for a trip abroad?<br />
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In the UK I never fish commercial waters. At least I never have to date. I just don't like the idea of them. The fisheries in Thailand are certainly a type of commercial. Exotic fish species swim in them, but they are very much commercials. I have never thought that UK commercials amounted to real angling. I know many carp anglers will disagree, and they will no doubt similarly disagree with me about the fishing in Thailand. It is fishing...but not as we know it. I think the best I can say is that from my point of view it <strong>is</strong> fishing...but it is <strong>not </strong>angling. To me angling implies a degree of art and skill. I cannot really say that angling in Thailand at these fishing resorts qualifies as skilful. There are too many rules to follow, individuality is not approved of, and with very minor differences, everyone at these resorts fishes with similar tackle, similar methods and similar bait. You are largely TOLD how to fish, so what you catch is more down to them, than it is to you. This is understandable, for the exotic fish the waters contain do not come cheap, and have to be protected from maverick anglers, and it means that rules have to be imposed so as to offer a degree of protection to the fish. So in order to be able to stand the process I had to accept most of the rules. I understood all that before leaving the UK, and as long as I could consider the fishing as being "happy hour" stuff, playtime, I was content. Had I wanted to fish in a way wherein my angling skills would be tested, I would never have got as far as a boarding pass. This is not to say it was not fun: getting a bend in the rod and an ache in the arm is what it is all about in Thailand. To fish for these exotic species "in the wild" would have entailed great expense, a major expedition, exposing me to considerable danger and disease deep in the Amazonian jungle. The only way Joe Bloggs is ever going to be able to fish for species such as arapaima, at an acceptable cost, is to visit one of these angling resorts. In much the same way as the only way most carp anglers are able to fish for 40 pound plus fish, is to visit a commercial water, possibly even one such in France.<br />
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How the resorts manage to get licenses to stock waters in Thailand with exotic, predatory species from South America is something of a mystery. I have to put it down to lax environmental departments, the wish to encourage tourism at all costs, and maybe a lack of any realisation of how much damage these fish might cause if they escaped into the wild. After all the Thailand climate is sufficiently similar to Amazonian conditions that we can be certain the escaped fish would breed, probably prolifically.</div>
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I was as attracted by the wildlife as much as by the fish on offer, and although the number of species present (seen?) was less than I had hoped for, there were still some gems that I would never find on the banks of the local cut. Look at this flower: it is called a batflower for obvious reasons. I found it well away from the fishing lake, when I went for a wander. It is probably too much a flight of fancy to suggest that real bats are involved in its fertilisation processes.<br />
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There were some interesting birds too, and I apologise if I mis-identify any of them. This I think is a black winged stilt. Incredibly graceful once you come to terms with it having clockwork, backwards facing legs. I suspect that what looks like a knee, is probably an ankle joint.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS2Opq00AStVVi6EDUPBeNiv4VYWLQGDxAUtpF-gJndh8DedCpkADgLFhe8w_DWX_l5Iz8xr58cgtas6fMWkaOXOH6ki-0Dgr3CAn-djYEjNs17pS-gZMKXPrKwBD-gdilHTRk4XVFPqAs/s1600/Bird+%25286%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS2Opq00AStVVi6EDUPBeNiv4VYWLQGDxAUtpF-gJndh8DedCpkADgLFhe8w_DWX_l5Iz8xr58cgtas6fMWkaOXOH6ki-0Dgr3CAn-djYEjNs17pS-gZMKXPrKwBD-gdilHTRk4XVFPqAs/s320/Bird+%25286%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a><strong><u> </u></strong>Another, much smaller bird, looked a little like a humming bird as it sipped nectar from the bird of paradise flowers that surrounded the lake. It ignored me, enabling me to get quite a passable photograph.</div>
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I think this is an olive backed sunbird</div>
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These are open billed storks. Common birds: I saw them in India too. The one on the right has a small snail in its bill. Snails appear to be a favourite food. How the bird uses something that looks better suited to cutting drivers out of cars crashed on the motorway, to extract snails, without damaging the shells, I have no idea. But there were always lots of empty snail shells wherever the storks had been feeding.</div>
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This next bird I am not so sure of. If was one of a number of herons and egrets I managed to photograph. I have been unable to find a photograph on line which looks exactly like it, but perhaps it was a youngster, in plumage yet to be fully developed. It was obviously some sort of heron or perhaps a species of bittern. My best guess is a Chinese Pond Heron. Either way, this one was hunting a small lizard. It didn't catch the lizard, as the bird was scared away by a lady needing the toilet in a hurry. So my hoped for pictures of bird with lizard did not happen, and the bird missed out on its lunch. A stunning bird though. The second picture is an adult Javan Pond Heron, and is probably a closely related species.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUwGtR1yPHOiu-yE9r4pXSaTq1U4qIrWxLiKy0iTUIxF2qIW-eupCTHMj8QDz7tsycdpZjEo0p8uBwgAhyZ2aVlDInU39jTiRT5A13y17SWLERy0K97yQykx64mt4DKl-lFdmaWgazy0cJ/s1600/heron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUwGtR1yPHOiu-yE9r4pXSaTq1U4qIrWxLiKy0iTUIxF2qIW-eupCTHMj8QDz7tsycdpZjEo0p8uBwgAhyZ2aVlDInU39jTiRT5A13y17SWLERy0K97yQykx64mt4DKl-lFdmaWgazy0cJ/s640/heron.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chinese Pond Heron??</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Javan Pond Heron<br />
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This was the lizard that the heron was hunting.</div>
After resting a while, a good ten minutes of sunning itself on the handle of my rod, it suddenly dived into the undergrowth. Moments later, two herons appeared and stood over the spot where the lizard had hidden itself. It was at that point that the lady intervened in the little tale. I think it to be an oriental garden lizard. </div>
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Much bigger, at about five feet long, was this water monitor. It crawled out from waterside vegetation, ambled along a pathway, and took to the tree once I started to chase after it, camera in hand. </div>
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Snakes were around but quite hard to find. Only saw two, one being far too high up in a tree to try and photograph it. I felt there was no point in waiting until it came back down, snakes are amongst the most patient of animals, and I am sure it would have out-waited me by quite a while. I said "out-waited" there, not "out-witted". I did manage to photograph one swimming snake: it was one of the bronze backed species. As I photographed it a damsel fly approached it and landed on its head, giving me an unexpected but very welcome and perhaps unique picture.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bronze backed Snake and Passenger</td></tr>
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So, you may by now be asking: "What about the fishing?" <br />
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Well, I am afraid that I found the wildlife equally as interesting as the fish and fishing, and so, in order to keep the blog entries no more than tediously long, the fish related stuff from Thailand is all in part two of this missive. <br />
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To be continued in Part 2....very soon.</div>
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By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7808609956350479846.post-39155705794479265612016-03-08T21:39:00.000+00:002016-03-09T11:29:38.364+00:00A Paucity of Perch and a Plethora of Pike<br />
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The day dawned grey. The very ground itself looked grey: the green of the grass being so muted by the time of year and the ambient light that colour would have been all but eliminated, were it not for a few brightly painted narrowboats in the foreground. The sky was that shade of grey which you know is going to precede a snowfall. The canal had a partial coating of cat ice, formed overnight, a very thin covering. With the reflections from the sky, even that looked grey. I caught a slight movement amongst the grey on the far bank, some couple of hundred yards away. It wasn't grey, but a brown colour, yet as near to grey as it could be. A herd of six deer. I don't know the species, and although they are rarely so be seen in this spot, there are nearby red deer, and probably fallow and roe as well. These six individuals did not stay in view for more than a couple of minutes, but one by one jumped a fence which was over their head height. They did it so easily, from a standing start, up onto the hind legs and then they just sort of <em>folded</em> themselves over the top wire, making it all look so very easy, immensely graceful with no need for any Fosbury Flop or Western Roll nonsense. </div>
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As the deer disappeared into the woods, the snow started. Initially just the occasional tiny flake. These first few fell onto frosty ground, and looking closely at some that landed on dead leaves, it was possible to see the hexagonal basis of their shape. Only a quarter inch or so across, yet on a molecular scale that is a hell of a long way. And for a snowflake to have the six-fold symmetry that was clearly and visibly defying that vast molecular distance between the separate arms is truly a wonder. How does one arm know what the next is doing? Why should it look identical? I have read that for such symmetry to occur and remain as the flake forms, requires very stable air, very uniform conditions at any moment, and right across the space the flake occupies. Every small variation in that uniformity as time passes, leads to a different pattern of crystal growth. So as the flake grows it actually records a mini history of the conditions, and the changes to those conditions as it formed. Few flakes will be totally perfect in all six arms of course ( although many come close), but equally you would find it impossible to find two the same. For each has grown in its own short spell of changing conditions, and each records its own past from birth until it is observed. No two flakes occupy exactly the same spot in the cloud, so no two will have the same history. </div>
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So it snowed, a couple of inches falling as I fished, layering the topside of everything: branches,</div>
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twigs, landing net, rods and me. Just one missed run from a pike, but until the wind started to strengthen it was quite a pleasant morning. A moorhen chugged past me, snow lying on its back. It must have been at least as well insulated as I was but without the inconvenience of heavy clothing , boots and gloves. Oddly I felt quite warm until I packed up just after lunch, when I realised that the typical English wet snow which lays so heavily on everything, does make me feel quite shivery, and I was quite glad to get back in the car.</div>
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The previous fortnight had been a little odd. A few frosts, but in general nothing too extreme. But something seems to have got under the scales of the perch, in that I have stopped catching them. Instead of three or four fish a trip, perch catches have dropped just to a couple over about five trips. One of them was a nice enough fish at 1-14. But it did surprise me somewhat by taking a pike bait. This perch took an eight inch bream: quite a deep bodied fish, the bream, even at that small size. I swear that the perch had a gob even bigger than some of my Liverpudlian friends, and knew equally well how to use it. How this specimen managed to take the bait and still have the strength to pull a fairly large float under, I just do not know. I also have little idea why, during the next four trips the perch all ignored a four inch little rudd, a bait designed specifically for perch, rather than pike. </div>
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Having become expert at ignoring the rudd, they then became rather good at ignoring my lobworms. The odd skimmer bream and roach still took the worms, but there might as well not have been a single striped fish in the entire canal system for all the signs I saw of perch. </div>
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Pike have proved a little easier to catch, or perhaps rather more difficult to avoid, with about 15 or 16 of them taking perch baits. I had my five a day on two consecutive trips, although there was nothing of a vegetarian nature involved and so my waistline has remained unaffected. Initially when perch were the target I had omitted a trace. I figured that, as I was on a small single hook, any pike biting through the monofilament would not unduly suffer, and would fairly soon shed the hook. But I was not expecting so many pike, maybe the odd one or two. And the pike were not confining themselves to the rudd either. Some of them took lobworms. Believe me, playing a pike of perhaps six and a half or seven pounds on 3 pound nylon, using a light rod fitted with a centrepin reel was quite exciting. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga9MOct0pgDIjZXPfulqfiWktUVLTpuswC0wBQNtxTgi-9q6_Pvi43P18beZK9SQvWDykTx-7zygrwQ5jNHTm8u2n_IiivPda_Vt8mWUmUzO6rnh4OR6AERT6HMlNkfl_PlMgofiCKunTo/s1600/DSC01728.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga9MOct0pgDIjZXPfulqfiWktUVLTpuswC0wBQNtxTgi-9q6_Pvi43P18beZK9SQvWDykTx-7zygrwQ5jNHTm8u2n_IiivPda_Vt8mWUmUzO6rnh4OR6AERT6HMlNkfl_PlMgofiCKunTo/s640/DSC01728.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Lobworm bait is Just Visible, Curling Out of the Pike's Jaw</td></tr>
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The fish fought more like a summer pike, and with a barge passing by me as I played it, the drama and heart rate rose considerably and in parallel with each other. I actually shouted at the pike to keep to the near bank, and fortunately it did. It honoured and obeyed me far more than the wife ever has. I would have been unable to stop the fish had it made a determined rush for the boat's propeller. On the other rod I had resorted to using a trace with the rudd. No point in being really silly. </div>
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Playing that fish came in very useful a couple of days later, when a rather good looking pike of a little over fifteen pounds also took a traceless lobworm bait. This fish fought for less time that the earlier fish, but stayed deep and slow, and I knew it was a fair old fish. Knowing that, and remembering the monofilament end tackle, really affects how one plays a fish. The image of one of those 700 teeth cutting through the line remains in the mind the whole time. There was one other double in my haul, a little smaller, and a fair mix of fish from as little as a couple of pounds up to just under the ten mark.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLgZ3vpaaX3V3mt6zXy-xUnhAe9RlC7LQ-Gd-mL5eICCcAvRNL3jA5soqAxjfwv0P3U1EWoRm3M_CG4FR96oJ1Q83QzXaoA1jkdfB2sShLjmAds-4NoREdoLwFlHQihmwYhDuwImjEHYiv/s1600/DSC01745.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLgZ3vpaaX3V3mt6zXy-xUnhAe9RlC7LQ-Gd-mL5eICCcAvRNL3jA5soqAxjfwv0P3U1EWoRm3M_CG4FR96oJ1Q83QzXaoA1jkdfB2sShLjmAds-4NoREdoLwFlHQihmwYhDuwImjEHYiv/s640/DSC01745.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With a Flick of its Tail, Fifteen Pounds of Pike Vanishes Into the Murk.</td></tr>
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A wide size range, indicative of a good and healthy population. One fish of about eight pounds though, had a damaged left side jaw. An obvious fishing injury, one created by an angler who had no idea how to treat a pike, and who valued his lure or trace far more than he did the pike. The jaw had quite a flap of loose flesh, and as I looked at it in the landing net, the fish thrashed, and somehow managed to inflict half a dozen small cuts in my finger and thumb. The exposed side of the pike's jaw had also exposed a fair number of its teeth, which caught my hand. Usually it is not until the hook is to be taken out that those teeth need to be watched carefully. The next ten minutes were spent wiping the blood away. The fish, apart from its wound seemed quite healthy, could certainly feed itself, and swam off strongly when released. But I don't like to see pike injured like that. Those that do not know how to handle pike should get a demonstration from an experienced angler before going pike fishing alone. The pike is always in some danger, especially from those who still use anything similar to Mr. Jardine's old snap tackle. A couple of treble hooks deep in a pike are not easy to remove for the inexperienced, and are likely to have barbs ending up near to the delicate blood filled gill filaments. Barbless hooks help, but I do feel that multiple trebles are not a good idea on a deadbait. </div>
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I took a day off from the perch, as the rivers had fallen to an acceptable level. Two rods, one for pike which proved to be ineffective, and a grayling rod. Just the one grayling was to take the bait, but the trip was not wasted. Something landed in the willow tree, just to my left, maybe 6 feet away. My head automatically swivelled, and I saw, as it took flight, what I immediately thought to be a nuthatch. Another second of observation though, showed that the orange/brown chest was that of a kingfisher, one which, having been as startled as I was, headed speedily back upstream. Good to see one in February. Still no good photograph though.</div>
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<u>Tales From the Riverbank (or Towpath)</u></div>
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I meet a fair few oddballs whilst fishing. Maybe likes attract. Yesterday a cyclist wheeled his bike onto the towpath near me, and settled down onto a memorial bench. I assumed, because of the time, he was going to have lunch. He was, although I had not expected it to be a 500cc can of Boddington's. Initially he was quiet, but then became noisy and rather over-friendly. It was obvious this was not his first lunch stop. A young lad fishing nearby was initially the target. Various phrases he used were as follows:</div>
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"I am one of life's victims."</div>
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"Watch out for the Chinese, they are out to wreck the UK"</div>
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" See him there ( pointing at me), he is above me". I took this to mean that he thought I was a rung or two higher up the social ladder than he was. </div>
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"I am a God" This seemed to go somewhat against his previous statement, unless I too have become a deity whilst I was not looking.</div>
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"I am on your side"</div>
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He also made reference to a life in which cocaine had played a big part.</div>
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The young lad was half amused, half scared and pleaded with me not to leave him alone. A friendly drunk, whom I dismissed as harmless, but I did worry whether he might fall into the water if he tried to get on his bike. Luckily he didn't, but walked along the canal pushing the cycle, and shouting other phrases at various passers by. It all helps to pass the blank days.</div>
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The other situation was rather odd too. Over a few trips there has been a dog, near to a boat on the far bank. The dog seems to incessantly watch me. It stands there, paws on the very edge, and stares at me. For hours at a time. Another boater mentioned to me that it was a fishing dog. Apparently the boat owner, some evenings, casts out a pike bung, which the dog watches, and on seeing a run, the dog barks so as to drag the guy away from his TV, to get him to come out of the cabin and strike the pike. The dog did seem at times to be watching my float! The second boater mentioned that the dog's owner was a serious angler, who fished all over the world, and even made fishing DVDs. He was called Pete Drabble, the eel man. I said I thought I recognised the name Drabble, but the eel man was surely Barry McConnell. (Barry is fairly local). Ah yes, said the second boater, those two are great mates. Coincidences all round: Barry fishes, or fished the Cheshire Meres for eels. I did fish for eels myself on the Meres some years before Barry, although with not quite such spectacular success. But the interesting part is that Pete has a fishing dog that gets him out of bed whenever a fish bites. Is that not cheating? I hope to see that in action one evening. Life at times just gets very weird. It will be nice if it continues to do so.</div>
By JAYZShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10019543835999526122noreply@blogger.com1