Prophetic Premonition of a Big Roach?

Well maybe.   Certainly today's trip has been quite prophetable.  (Oh dear! Oh dear!).    Or was it just another case of predictive text from the blog's built in word processing system working very well, exceeding its brief, and actually affecting my fish catch?  Read on.  Whatever it was, I arrived at the lake again, very early, to find the tench ignoring me completely.   I saw a few roll, scattered around the lake, but none appeared to hunger ravenously for my baits.  

The lake had been calm all morning, no tell-tale bubbles anywhere on view.   One or two carp jumped, well out of my casting range, and nowhere near to the baits of a long range carp angler in a nearby swim.   The grebes swam around, followed by their young, which were still bleating incessantly.  Occasionally the adult would dive suddenly, or even "run away" across the lake surface.  You could almost hear it say "For God's sake shut up for a while, you noisy little brat."  I was saying something similar myself.  But their young all seem to be doing well, taking short dives, and the larger ones amongst them are even starting to grow their crests, although their heads remain striped. A coot, taking a lesson from the individual that chased the flying jay a few days ago, chased a crow away from its young.  The crow flying five or six feet above the water, the coot treading water as it flew in pursuit.  I was surprised by the bird chasing the jay, but maybe they chase anything near the nest or young, including the crow family.

Once more there had been two or three splashy rises of fair sized fish.  Yet again I did not think them to be tench.   In an earlier, very recent blog, I thought they might be good roach and even wondered how I might attempt to catch them.  My premonition/prediction, if that is what it is,  appears to have borne fruit.  On this, my very next trip to the lake, I caught a roach.   My left hand indicator zoomed up, and a fairly quick strike caused the rod to bend nicely.   But the fight was not typical of those recent tench, the fish came quickly up in the water column, and was guided towards the bank rather easily.  It was soon in the net, ( 7 pound line) and I could see it to be not just a roach, but a damned good roach.   It had initially looked far bigger than it
actually was, once I had weighed it.   But at two pounds three ounces, not a fish to be sneezed at, not as a fish from up North anyway.  It had had a minor altercation at some time, either with a pike or a cormorant, and was missing a few scales, but very definitely a roach.  Occasionally as an angler, you may find yourself trembling after landing a fish.  It has not happened very often to me, just five or six times.   But today made it six or seven times.   This fish meant a lot to me.

Any two pound roach is very special.    My last two pound plus roach was also a big lake fish, and was also exactly the same weight:  2-3.  But that fish looked to be newly minted, absolutely gorgeous.   I have high hopes that most roach in this lake, if there are indeed more where this one came from, might also look in similarly perfect condition.    I need to have some more sessions, with at least one roach minded rod active.

Later I missed a bite on a big lobworm.   The rod was aimed at a perch, but a missed bite tells me little of the species.   I wonder....... 

I have never been fazed by big waters, and they have produced many excellent fish for me over a lot of years.  I have known a large number of anglers who take one look at a huge water, especially one with great clarity of the water, and no fish actually visible, and they either back off and go elsewhere, or else give it an hour or so.  You cannot give a big water an hour or so and expect success.  It usually takes more effort.  After a while and with the experience of several big waters behind you, your attitude changes.  It changes from "Oh my God I'll never catch anything here.", to "I hope I catch something today."  Eventually you do reach that third stage where you expect to catch something most days on the lake.  It is a good feeling but needs serious work to get there.

 This lake, and perhaps a couple of others similar to it, may well give up some truly astonishing fish.  Big Perch? Huge Bream?  More carp, roach and tench?   Who knows?   The lake still has that mystery, in that I just do not know how big the fish, of any species, in here grow. And I hope that no-one has the information that might tell me.  And if you have, please keep it to yourself. I simply don't want to know.

Tricky Tench and Trivia.

Well, I am back.  And "Why have I not been blogging?" I hear you ask in your thousands. Well, I suppose maybe half a dozen of you might have noticed my absence.  One or two might even have have missed the missives.  I have the best excuse of all time: pure laziness. Writing has had to compete with fishing, sleep, and idleness.  I have not been re-papering the front room, mowing the lawns, repairing the gates.  Nope, and the more I have been out with the rods, the more I have stacked up to write, and the more momentous that task has become. But finally, a few words are hitting the page.

Since India the fishing has taken a couple of directions.  The arrival of the trout season has ensured a few trips to the rivers, with Salmo trutta as the target.   And a few fish have graced the end of my line.  Nothing huge, with fish to three pounds.  But I am not going to spend too much time talking about the trout.   Much of that was effectively done whilst catching them out of season on trips after the grayling.   And of course, once the seasons switched from coarse to game, the nuisance fish switched too. A few grayling were caught and also a solitary chub.  The chub did not look as if it needed the close season.   A very good looking fish, and at an ounce over four pounds ( I was unable to resist weighing it), my largest from the river for a couple of years.  A shame it did not really count.   Actually two chub...I have just remembered another one, maybe half the size, which intruded upon the trout fishing.

Cormorant Damage on a Good Sized Chub

    There seem to be few chub in the river these days.   Massed black death: cormorants, have seen off so many of the bigger fish, with goosanders also dealing quite effectively with smaller species. Even the common roach is a rarity, and I have gone whole seasons without landing one from the river.

So it was then on to the tench, and my first few trips were to a banker water, one in which I suspected I would catch a few fish.  After all, I had caught tench there in January, February and March,  so April should not be too much of a problem.  And it wasn't.  One trip produced 5 fish, to just shy of six pounds.   Despite their  heavy activity in the opening months of the year, they were still showing no signs of holding any spawn, which pleased me.  All fought very well, as tench invariably do.   But I did have a problem, and not for the first time.  On this trip I was to lose three other fish, on consecutive casts, and all to hook pulls. Were these the only three fish I have lost then I would have dismissed this as a statistical blip,  but I have lost a few other fish, tench and grayling.     Losing the grayling I can fully understand, the upper jaw of the fish is very bony and hard.  A hook in the upper jaw will very often have penetrated only a millimetre or so, and, regardless of it being a barbed or barbless hook, that hold is vary precarious.  A with a fish of a lively nature, such as is the grayling, a lost fish or two is to be expected. There have been days when I have lost half of the grayling I hooked, usually immediately, and it is part of the game, it is to be expected, rule 1.  But tench are different, their mouths are tough, but not so tough as to prevent a sharp hook, and most modern hooks are very sharp indeed when new, from taking a good hold.    And those three fish losses were not immediate.  All were lost well into the fight, as much as a couple of minutes having passed, before the fish was off and away.  I have no explanation for this.  I am happy with my hook choices.  Those fish that I did land were all hooked perfectly, with not a clue as to why the hooks had pulled out of other fish. I feel that I can look at a hook, and taking into account its size and pattern, be confident with my choice.   Other times, with other patterns, or maybe a larger size in the same pattern, I feel that the hook is not perfectly suited to the job.   But my lost fish over the last two season have not all been with one size or even one model of hook.  I am reluctant to assign the get out phrase of "just bad luck", but I can think of no other explanation at the moment.    

The grebes seem to have also been hit by bad luck.   They had been nesting on my previous trip.   This time they were nowhere to be seen, and a coot had taken over the nest site.   Which was annoying as, one day I had driven there with just my camera...no rods...not intention of fishing.   And the damned grebes had gone. Such is life.

Having sated the lust for a few post India tench, it was time to move on to some more difficult waters, waters in which the tench swim bigger...some of them.    The "easy water" has given me fish to 6-14, the others have all produced fish over seven.   In my past a seven pounder would have been seen as more or less unattainable, but these days I am learning rapidly just how far the bar has been raised, and so, despite my vow not to return to being an all out specimen hunter, I have the chance to catch these huge fish with a more leisurely approach.    So water number one, a fair sized reservoir was home for a couple of nights.   The tench were partying elsewhere and my efforts were to be rewarded by a solitary male fish of about four and three quarter pounds.    I lost another fish, a carp which on being hooked came up seven feet or so to the surface, and with a large swirl of water, was away.    I suspect that it was never properly hooked.  It probably would not have been over about ten pounds, as I have yet to land a double figure carp in this water.   Swifts, swallows, house martins and sandmartins all made guest appearances over the water.    

Coot, Sitting on Huge Blue Feet.

Eventually I settled on yet another water, much closer to home than the aforementioned reservoir.  A water from which I extracted just three tench last year.  But their sizes promised much.   The first trip was an overnight session, in a new swim, and a very misty night produced just one small tench, probably less than three pounds.  A few fish were seen to roll, but I was unable to persuade them to come out and see me. In the early morning mist I did see a pair of the resident grebes perform the "penguin" dance.  A birdwatcher friend told me that the dance was so called. I have often seen pairs of grebes, alternately shaking their heads, occasionally dipping their necks down in a momentary preening of the back feathers motion.  But I had never seen the penguin dance, except on TV.   Both birds approached each other, and paddling away  like mad , chest to chest, they raised themselves up high in the water, bodies quite vertical.   Sorry no photo.     The coots, as ever, were being aggressive, chasing and squabbling with each other, often lying on their backs, kicking away with their ridiculous blue feet.

Coot, Being Aggressive With a Mallard

As I drove home along the motorway, I was surprised to see a pair of magpies, fighting on the hard shoulder.  Like the coots, these were lying on their backs, on the tarmac, kicking away merrily with both feet.  Something new, as I have never seen magpies acting quite so before.  "Two for joy?"  Far too often, I see things that are either too brief, or simply at the wrong place, wrong time to get a photo.   Hanging out of the passenger window, whilst driving at 60 mph pointing a camera, was a risk that not even I was prepared to take for you, the reader. So, in the absence of a "selfie", from said magpies, tough.

The next trip to the lake was to be a blank, just a dawn until midday trip.  Very few fish were seen, despite a flat calm lake surface, and a choice of swim that allowed me to see the whole lake.  A slow movement caught my attention though, and a three pound pike drifted slowly into the swim, a few inches below the surface.   Donning my polaroid glasses, I could see that it was many yards from any potential prey. But next time I looked, a second, slightly smaller pike had appeared three or four yards from the first.  They remained for an hour or so, basking in the sunshine.  As I watched them, I noticed something trapped in the scum at the lake edge, and fished it out with my landing net.  It was a cockchafer beetle....

"Yes, yes, I know!   I wouldn't want one of those in my underpants either".   

I thought it had drowned, but it twitched one of its legs slightly.  So, as I was not being disturbed by massed ranks of eager hungry tench, I placed the beetle on the handle of my rod to dry out, and brushed its back to clear off some parachute seed heads that had become stuck to it.  After an hour or so, it moved a little, turning around on the handle.  Eventually it flew off, rattling as it went.  I felt quite pleased with myself, having rescued it. But just take a look at those crazy TV aerials on its head.  The seven individual leaves on each side can by closed up from the fan shape by the insect.   Each leg has a twin hook at its end, and its grip on my finger, in the photograph, was very secure. A tornado would not have dislodged it. What an insane, superb creature.

The next two sessions both produced fish.  Simple legering tactics on the first morning resulted in two tench, a small fish of a couple of pounds and a very nice fish indeed of 7-8.   I was surprised that, given the very mild Winter, it was not bloated and fat with spawn.  Instead it was just a beautifully proportioned and

coloured fish. It has maybe a slight hint of being a two tone fish too.   Top secret bait, as you can see in the

7-8 Female

photo. (Note to the mat police: the fish was on thick wet grass, and came to no harm at all). The next day, also in the early morning I caught another tench in the upper half of the six pound range.  It though had a quite noticeable spawn ball, and I did wonder why all the fish were not at a similar stage of gravidity...gravidness?  Neither word passes the spell checker.  Another fish, which felt much bigger, or which may have been a male was lost to yet another hook pull, after an extended fight. I did not see the fish.

There followed three of four blanks sessions, in each of which a tench or few rolled right over my baited area.  I was surprised a little by the lack of bites in the presence of fish, fish that were obviously attracted by by bait, but, as ever, I would always want such events to occur.  Predictability would destroy much of what I seek from angling.  One session was a night session, float fishing in about 14 feet of water.   No bites at all...until about 11.00 am, when my float slowly lifted and lay flat.  My thoughts of a tench were soon dashed as a two ounce roach came to hand.  A large, probably very large shoal of roach had moved in and three more were hooked, on the drop, in three casts.   As I reeled the last one in, something grabbed it.  Pike, thinks I, but despite the size 14 hook, being already embedded in the roach, I thought I would try to gently bring it to the net.   I soon found it was not a pike, but a perch, with a 8 inch roach half into its mouth.   It spat it out as I looked into the clear water, but soon grabbed it again.   It struggled a bit, and I had to choose whether to strike, and hope enough of the small hook was exposed, or to wait and try to draw the perch over the net very slowly.  I waited until the roach was fully inside the fish's mouth and began to reel in slowly. Of course the perch ejected the roach and swam away.  Size: difficult to say, but well over two pounds for sure, maybe three.  Its stripes were really black, a benefit of life in clear water.  One rod quickly became a lobworm rod, and soon I had a bite.   But the culprit was a slightly disappointing three pound jack pike.

Eight Pounds Nine Ounces

Back to the lake for an early morning session in a new swim. 3.00 am start, and before ten minutes had passed after introducing a smallish amount of bait, two fish, probably tench rolled right on the money.   Very few other fish rolled anywhere, and so I sat, wondering why and how they could ignore my baits.  It was around 8 o'clock, long after the last fish moved, that I had my first bite.   A tench, to judge from the bend in

the rod, and a good one.   Two or three times I thought it had become snagged, but I suspect that it was merely swimming directly away from me, the pressure of my line in accordance with Newton providing an equal and opposite  force.  As it eventually approached the net I saw a huge flank, and knew it to be my biggest tench to date.   8 pounds 9 ounces.   It was well provided with spawn though, and would probably have not touched eight without it.    Would I have preferred it to have been 7-15, without the spawn?  Good Question. But the spawn did not stop it from demonstrating how displeased it was to be so disturbed.  An hour later, the indicator shot up, and the reel began to spin backwards faster than I could have wound it.  I struck and missed!    How could anyone miss such a bite? But as I reeled in a small roach

Super Strong Suicidal Roach

was revealed to have taken the bait.  I might have suspected it had been grabbed by a pike, but its scales were absolutely pristine.   It was just a very fit, suicidal roach.   I wonder what it thought as my strike brought it to a sudden dead stop, directly from warp speed three?  All quiet again, the only movement being from a flotilla of Canada geese with their young.  These geese appear to creche their offspring, and thirteen young were guarded by eight adults.

The guards did not deter the male swan, which now that his mate was on the nest, was attacking anything that swims.   Anywhere on the lake, even hundreds of yards from its nest, the swan was chasing anything that floated.  Geese, mallards, coots.  The coots were also with young now, and as I watched a jay flying very low across the water, dambuster's style, a coot flapped its way across the lake so as to try and intercept the jay.  Ambitious but brave.

Back to the Scrap

Another couple of short sessions on the Scrapyard Pond.  One morning, one late the same evening.  There are times when I need to fish just a short session, nothing heavy, neither in dedication nor in the gear to be carried.  So fishing fairly near home, with just a rod or two, and a very small package of bait and other gear is ideal.  I can be parking the car within 5 minutes, and fishing in ten.  None of the British Expeditionary Force preparation, and, as long as it does not matter much what is caught, it can be very enjoyable. 

The fish today were not exceptional, hardly worth a literary mention, a common carp of about three pounds which gobbled a lobworm ( and which fought as well as the far bigger mirror taken a couple of days ago), two roach around the half pound mark, 3 or 4 little perch, and, new for me on the water, half a dozen small rudd. With a skimmer bream the other day, this has brought my species count for the pond to 5.  And I hope to add eels, tench and crucians, if any crucians do actually swim in its depths.  As darkness fell last night small fish were rising and splashing like crazy in and around my float.   Something in my baiting must have caused this, as rises elsewhere were quite spasmodic and infrequent.  I suspect that most were rudd, and had I chosen to fish shallow, or with a slow sinking bait, I think it would have been a fish a cast.

The perch would make this an ideal water for a new angler, a kid with a cheap rod, as I once was myself.  Not too many perch to remove the challenge, but enough to keep a level of interest.  In some respects the perch are unfortunate: they are the most likely species to swallow a bait quite deep, and small boys, if they do come equipped with a disgorger, do not usually come ingrained with the knowledge of how it should be used.   A lot of small perch end up swimming in circles near the water's edge, as the lifeblood drains away from them.   I find the slammo design of disgorger to be very useful, and much more efficient in extracting a hook safely.  Even in darkness ( for some of those small rudd were caught in the dark, and had swallowed the bait), I find the slammo works very well.

The morning and evening were quite still, making float fishing easy, but the clear skies and cooling temperatures were certainly suggestive that Autumn is very near now.  The water, however was very warm. 

Unusual: A Non Agressive Coot.

But no tench, the target species, were to show any interest.  The peace and calm was shattered by the coots as usual, a dozen or so being resident. Get coots in numbers above zero, and aggression is invariably the result.   I am told that male coots often kill some of their own young.  Not observed it myself but I have seen, on a Cheshire Mere, a fight break out between two coots, and all the other coots within sight rushed in to join the action.   There were eventually about 30 birds in the scrum.   Yellow and red cards all round.  On the Trent I watched a drama between just two birds.  One had taken a particular dislike to a second.  It constantly chased it, such that it had to submerge to escape.  As soon as it returned to the surface it was attacked again.  This continued for over half an hour, and eventually the poor bird was caught, and actually drowned, by being held under water,  the body drifting away downstream.

But the coots were not the only birds being aggressive.  About a dozen magpies live in and around the area.    They defend their turf constantly, despite there no longer being any young defenceless birds amongst them.  The young and defenceless have long since joined in the aggression   The first birds to suffer were overflying crows. Each was escorted off the premises, not attacked, but certainly accompanied.  Later a grey heron flew in and perched atop a tall tree at the end of the pond.  Magpies started to assemble, and perch in

Grey Heron with Beak

nearby branches.   More and more came until there were about fifteen in attendance.  None dared to get too close, for they knew, I assume, that the heron's bill is quite a weapon. A sparrowhawk was next to fly across the pond.  As it crossed,  half a dozen magpies peeled off from the heron's tree, and followed the hawk. It looked more and more harassed as it left the area.  The heron continued to ignore the magpies, but eventually flew down and landed on a bed of grangle weed in the middle of the pond.  It slowly sank up to its ar....ar.......armpits, just about getting its underfeathers wet.  Apologies for the poetic license involved there.  It seemed quite happy to walk about on the weedbed, every step sinking it a few inches into the water, but it remained supported by its large splayed feet.    I could now see it to be a young bird, and it remained a while, hunting for fish, until it flew away to a bankside spot.  Later, well after dark, it again landed on the same weedbed. I assume it was hunting, but it was by then, too dark to see any detail.   

Herons seem to me to be as comfortable in the dark as do owls.  I often see them flying up and down the river in the middle of the night.   They usually spot me, even though I remain perfectly still, in dark camouflaged clothing, with no lights shining.   At twenty yards or so away, they will suddenly veer off in panic.  I have no idea how they see me, but must consider infra-red vision to be one possibility.   But why would they need infra red vision?   Fish are cold blooded, and would not show up as heat generating creatures.   BUT if a bird spends so much time flying at night, it must have a good reason, and so I am sure that herons must hunt at night.   I did see a heron once trying, unsuccessfully to catch bats.   Perched atop a metallic structure, used to carry cables across the river, it was stabbing at them as they flew past.  Maybe they eat more rats and mice than we suspect.  There was a photo in the press a couple of years ago, showing a heron eating a small rabbit. (Google "heron eats rabbit"). The eyesight of herons is certainly impressive, bearing in mind that they also have to cope with fish not being quite where they appear to be due to the refractive index of water causing light beams to bend.  The bird must have to make "in flight" adjustments to its fish grab stab.

But the eyesight of a heron is not perfect.  I was fishing at night for barbel a couple of years ago.  Only a three pound eel had so far taken any interest in my bait, when suddenly, the rod wrenched violently to the left, ripping line off the baitrunner at speed.   I picked up the rod, so as to play the barbel that I most surely knew it must be, when there was a huge splash mid-river, some twenty yards downstream. Most unlike a barbel, even in shallow water. It soon became apparent that it was not a fish.  A heron, flying low over the river, had NOT seen me tucked away behind a tree, and had flown into the line.   I struggled to bring the bird back to me, and carefully disentangled it from the monofilament.  As I stood it on the bank, looking very dishevelled indeed, it took a couple of stabs at me, and then strolled nonchalantly downstream, already, it seemed, in hunting mode.  I heard it fly off two or three minutes later.

The Unlucky Grebe and the Roach

The Unlucky Grebe and the Roach. 

A Short, True, Story, with Pictures. By JayZS

Easter, and I decide to take a stroll down the local vale, taking the camera.   I had decided not to fish, it still being rather cold, and I was not feeling particularly heroic, more so because my central heating has been broken for two weeks during what has been the coldest March for many years. So, after a cup of hot chocolate in the visitor's centre, I ventured out, and wandered towards the larger of the ponds, hoping to get a good photograph of the great crested grebes.  The previous week they had stayed as far away from my camera as they could, without actually leaving the country, and I had returned with the camera memory stick empty. Initially today, they also kept well away, diving in the distance  ...   until one suddenly surfaced quite close to me.  I was as shocked as the grebe, and it dived again, within milliseconds, but not before I managed this first photo. No time to adjust anything on the camera, but Lady Luck was with me.  She was to remain in close contact for a couple of minutes, as a mini drama unfolded centre stage.


The luck of the grebe had also changed when it resurfaced some 30 yards away. It had caught a fish during that dive, a roach: Rutilus rutilus for those of you who speak fluent Latin. The orange pelvic fins of the fish were clearly visible.  The fish looked to be rather more than a light breakfast, the bird having caught a fish big enough for a slap up "eat as much as you can" buffet. The fish had already been turned into the head first position.

In such a position, the fins of the roach tend to fold neatly back along the body as it is swallowed by the bird, and thus it slides quite easily down the gullet, without any need for gravy.  So much for the theory.  Sod's Law, combined with the Buggeration Factor, conspired against the grebe.  The fish was too large to be swallowed. The grebe struggled valiantly but the fish would simply go no nearer to its stomach.  The bird tried everything it knew, even holding it vertically above its head, in order to try to gain assistance from Mr. Newton.  Had the grebe employed Isaac's law of gravy, rather than gravity, then maybe, just maybe, it might  have won the battle. But those gravitational laws were designed for apples, not roach, and apart from the loss of a few scales, the fish remained unmoved, the tail, and most of the body, remained visible. Highly visible.

The commotion went completely unnoticed by the Easter crowds, who were, just a few yards away, busy ramming inordinate amounts of bread down the throats of Canada geese, mallards and the odd domesticated grey lag goose. It did not go similarly unnoticed by the black headed gulls. Some of the gulls had just gained their black heads, ready for the breeding season, and they decided that there might just be such a thing as a free lunch.




Several homed in on the grebe, which after initially trying to swim away with its meal, was forced to dive, with its fish, to avoid them.

Each time the grebe surfaced, it was quickly set upon by the gulls and had to dive again.  Six or seven times the grebe tried to get away from the sharp eyes of the attackers, each time diving in panic.

Eventually the poor unlucky grebe had to give up its roach. The gulls' harassment proved far too much and as it dived one final time it gave up its fish.  The roach was quickly picked up by one of the seabirds.

The gull took flight but was immediately chased by several others all intent on stealing the feast. It soon dropped the fish, which was again looking much too big to be swallowed. The black headed pirates could barely carry the roach, let alone swallow it.

The fish passed from gull to gull, each picking it up from the water surface and then dropping it, none being left alone by the other birds long enough to be able to get the full meal deal. None were able to hold on to the slippery fish.

Eventually one dropped it near to a pair of coots. I was quite surprised to see one coot join in the fray, diving for the fish, leaving just a small triangle of coot visible, looking like it was auditioning for a Jaws IV trailer .  I had always thought that coots fed mainly on pond weeds, with some small pond creatures added, with maybe the odd slice of Warburton's for special occasions.  But no: this one wanted fish for Easter.

Having surfaced with the roach, stolen from the gulls, the coot scooted across the surface, closely pursued by the gulls. The coot headed for a central island, laid the roach down on the ground, and proceeded to leisurely eat its Sunday lunch.  The gulls seemed very unwilling to challenge the coot for the food, and it ate in undisturbed peace.