How Big is a Zebra?

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.

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.

Angling Times Photo of a Brace of Huge Roach.

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 not young fish.  Fish do not get to be of near record size in a short lifespan.  But examine them closely: they look 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.

Two Pounds Exactly.

So:  How big is a roach?  ...or this roach in particular.

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:

2-7 and...

2 pounds 8 Ounces of Gorgeous Rudd

  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.

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.

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.

High Backed Crucian.

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.

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, but, 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.

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.  

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.

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.

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.   

 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.

The Crucian Finale...Probably.

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.


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.

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.


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.


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.


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.

LBJ

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.

Four Two Pound Plus Crucians

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.


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 never 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?


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.

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.






During the day I had other visitors, dragonflies were constantly passing.  This one stopped to lay an egg or two.

And of course the young moorhen that was in constant attendance.

Although welcome, I wish they would all time their visits to the quiet periods between bites. 

Of Voles, and Dragonflies, of Carp and Crucians

Missing out, at least temporarily, missives about perch, roach, barbel and grayling trips, I want to mumble a few words about other bits and pieces.  I needed to have a few sessions that were very casual, almost trivial, and to fish for other species, in waters that I would not usually visit regularly.

So firstly I particularly wanted to catch some crucian carp.   These were always my favourites as a very young angler, fishing on the club pond, getting on towards dark, using lift method with a pinch of breadflake a couple of feet from the bank in three feet of muddy water.  The bites were typically crucian, delicate, little pimples of bites, barely registering on the small floats, but using the lift method made it all much easier, and most bites were non too difficult to hit.  Then that vibrating fight, making the rod tremor as the fish struggled frantically to get free.  Finally having the fish curl up its tail in the hand as it was unhooked, a gorgeous little teddy bear of a fish. Bliss.

Not surprisingly then my first choice of venue was also a small club farm pond.  The lift method was

Little Cruician

frequently used in my early angling life, and the bites now, on that same method and same breadflake  ( although now Warburton's rather than  Mother's Pride) were just as satisfyingly minuscule.   But as before, they could be hit, and as the afternoon wore on a good thirty crucians came to hand.   All of a size, small, their growth in the pond probably limited by their numbers, stunted growth as we used to call it, and also restricted by the competing hoards of small rudd they shared the water with.   Other animals seem to die in lack of food situations, fish just appear to reduce their maximum size, whilst still becoming fully mature adults. Quite a few of those rudd in the pond also liked the

Tiny, but Colourful Rudd

bread, end I greatly enjoyed the short three hour session.

Roach poles in my youth were archaic pieces of angling tackle, used only by a few Southerners of extremely advanced years, on the rivers Lea and Thames.  I had still never seen one when I stopped fishing about 40 years ago.  On my return to the fold 6 or 7 years ago they were then commonplace, even locally, and frequently used for carp of all species!  When did elastic appear in the system? I was shocked somewhat by their frequency, but I did buy one a few years ago.   It has remained in its bag...until last week ...when I determined to have a go with it, on another club water, and also for crucians.  Not the best of poles, costing about 60 quid.  I understand people can pay as much as fifty times that for a really good one.   However there are limits, both financial and temporal as to how much I was prepared to invest on a pole. Two days later, I had only one crucian, maybe a little over a pound, to show for my efforts.  But, in words straight off a can of tuna, my first pole caught fish.  I can see some advantages to using poles, but I am unlikely to frequently suffer what I see as their many disadvantages.

I took the pole to a third pond, a new one for me, but it remained in its bag, and I used an eleven foot

Morning on the Pond, and the Little Patch of Lilies

Avon to fish bread for another two crucians, a tiny mirror carp and one roach.   All day I ignored some carp that were smokescreening in the shallow water close to and in front of me, only feet from the bank.  I don't think I have used the word "smokescreening" since first reading it in "Stillwater Angling".  But these carp, even in already muddied, clouded water were subtracting visibly from their visibility. Eventually though I gave in, temptation proved too much for my feeble determination to ignore them, and I cast a bit of groundbait, moulded into a paste, to where I had seen the fish, very near to a small clump of lily leaves. It was not long before the float sailed slowly out towards the middle of the lake, and after a short scrap a mirror carp of about seven pounds was landed.  Another much smaller common followed just before dark, on the last cast of the day.  The crucians were very pale in colour, so pale that I momentarily doubted their identities, but the coloured water had discoloured the fish quite dramatically.

Sunday ( Oh my God, I just mistyped that as Sinday, possibly in an accidental confirmation of my atheism ). Odd too, how so many of my mistypes can get quite Freudian.    So, Sunday and yet another club water, one I fished just once before, catching quite a lot, maybe as many as 50, crucians on the occasion.   This water is very clear and deep.  Few spots have less than 15 feet of water, even near the bank, and so the pole was not even considered.  I cannot imagine how anyone could ever land a substantial fish from such deep water on a pole. So I suspect it may once again be gathering dust for quite a while. I had 16 feet of water in front of me, a short cast out, so with the Avon rod I still had to get a little inventive so as to be able to float fish that deep, lift method, without having to use one of those awful sliding floats.

I had not wanted to resort to legering, because right through this season legering has caused me a major problem.  Line Twist!   Not something I have noticed much in other years, but this year it has been dreadful. I am careful when loading my spools with new line, to ensure that the line comes off the supply spool without twist.  It gains one twist per revolution as it goes onto the fixed spool, but this disappears on the cast, becoming twist free in use.  There is an alternative I see recommended, which is to get the line coming off the spool sideways, in such a manner that it loads on to the reel without twist.  After considering both I prefer not to have twist in a cast out line.    There are three things which can add twist to a line during use:

1)  use of the slipping clutch.   Each revolution of the clutch adds one twist to the line

2)  use of a baitrunner does exactly the same.

3)  when reeling in, if the end tackle spins it adds twists.

It is also just conceivable that the end tackle could rotate on the cast as a result of the movement through the air, but I doubt that is really happening.

I don't use the clutch, preferring to reel backwards and the baitrunner has not really moved much at all. So, when using a feeder I have intentionally been reeling in slowly, and, as far as I can tell, the feeder has not been rotating on the retrieve, certainly not in the final few yards.  YET, after only a few 40 yard cast with new line, with either feeder or lead, I am seeing hundreds, if not thousands of twists in the line.  With the lead dangling from the rod tip after reeling in, it can rotate well over a hundred times. 100+ twists in about 4 yards of monofilament. So 40 yards of cast suggests as much as a thousand twists in total.  I have not as yet worked out why it should be so bad, as it seems to defy all the physics I know.  The state of the line gets so bad that twists near the reel, having cast out 40 yards three or four times, have been causing tangles, impeding casts and generally being a nightmare.  My only solution to date has been to keep replacing the line.  Every two or three trips!    Luckily I use line that costs just £1-29 for 250 yards, and that I split three ways.  The financial cost is minimal, but the time taken reloading spools is time that could be better spent. The only other clue I have is that, since I started checking, the twists are always in the same direction, the lead rotating clockwise, seen from above, as it dangles from the rod tip.  New line on both rods yesterday,  I only cast each rod 5 or 6 times, and yet I once again have the problem.   But I WILL get to the bottom of it.

So the float fishing has been a welcome change, and on Sunday, having thrown my bread upon the

The First Of Many Mirrors

water, it was not long before I started to see lots of the usual crucian type bobs and bobbles on the lift method rigged float.  Unusually though, I seemed unable to hit them.  Crucians are of course totally unable to multitask. Eating and swimming at the same time seems completely beyond them, all of which explains the minute movements seen on the float when fishing for this species.  Then I did hit a bite, but the rod tip on the light rod stopped dead, as if I hit a snag. But no, it was obviously a fish, something bigger than a crucian, and proved to be a mirror carp of six or seven pounds, good fun on the three pound line and a one pound test curve rod.  Twenty minutes later, another carp, after more missed twitches, and I started to think that the twitches on the float, today at least, were not crucians, but rather bigger fish, carp, waving their fins about and nudging or disturbing the line. By 9AM I had three more carp, all very much of a similar size, all on bread flake, some giving superb flat float bites.  I learned to ignore the minor tremors of my float. The crucians just were not there.

A Young Vole is Unable to Resist a Few Pellets

As the sun got higher, the bites ceased for a while, but the wildlife became interesting.  A sparrowhawk, a female, traversed the pond in front of me. A grey heron also crossed the pond.  One of its legs was drooping badly, and I fear it must have been broken.  A heron that has to hop around a pool loses much of its stealthy approach, and I fear for its future.   Later three buzzards were circling directly above, their shrill cries quite loud.  Two of them appeared to be having a bit of an aerial dogfight, whilst the third gained height in a thermal at a speed that greatly surprised me. A family of voles appeared to live in the front edge of the fishing platform on which I sat, occasionally venturing shyly out.  I tempted them out some more with a few pellets and gradually they became less shy.  Two fully grown individuals, one more greyish than chestnut, and later in the day one or more younger voles joined in the feast, nipping out, grabbing a mouthful and then scuttling back.


Soon the bites returned, and another three anglers joined me on the pond.  I was able to advise them that it was fishing well, probably silly of me, as they settled into the next two adjacent swims.   As the day went on I began to feel for them, as they were getting no bites, yet in my swim, the carp just seemed to keep on coming, every fifteen or twenty minutes.   In the very still conditions I could hear them speaking to each other as their words bounced off the still surface of the pond.  "He's bloody well got another one!", "How is he doing that?", "Never even seen him here before"  and other similar comments.   They were doing their usual thing: legering with boilies, and a method feeder.   Maybe the splashes were scaring the fish...maybe the carp had had quite enough of fancy baits.     The carp continued making my float dance and kept on taking the bread flake.   To cut the story short, I finished with 18 carp, two F1s and a really bright gold goldfish.  I estimated my total weight to be about 150 pounds of fish, my highest ever single day total.   The carp were all between six and ten pounds...well the best might not quite have made that mark.  Nothing huge, very uniform in size, and every one a mirror.  Maybe because of the deep water they were all very dark fish, and quite snub nosed, not in any way pretty fish.  I still think of mirror carp as being ornamental, suitable for display ponds rather than angling, but these were to me, very ugly fish indeed. Give me a common any day.  

A Deep Bronze F1 Hybrid

The two F1s were better, deep antique mahogany in colour, and I think, the only decent sized F1s I have caught, with the best about four and three quarter pounds. I have very limited experience of these hybrids, bit I admit these two were very good looking fish, and compared to the significantly larger mirror carp, put up a far better scrap.  That is the first time I have ever had a good word to say about F1s.   I can see how they might be better appreciated now.  Are  all F1s fully scaled, similar to commons, or do some have mirror like scaling?


The goldfish weighed 1-13, a good fish I guess.  I have caught very few goldfish, my only other

A Handful of Gold

remembered gold one being from many years back.  I was surprised at how similar to a crucian carp the mouth on this fish appeared.  As I was driving home I suddenly thought that it would have looked rather good in my garden pond, where in company with my crucians, tench, gudgeon, bullheads and stone loach, it would have been the only fish we would have been able to see regularly.  Of the other species, at most I see the odd swirl of water from a fish I have disturbed in passing.  Too late the thought, but as taking the fish would have broken club rules, maybe it was for the best.

From lunchtime on, as the sun broke through the mist, quite a number of dragonflies appeared, together with the odd damselfly. Various sizes and species, and as I watched them,

At Rest, Guarding its Territory

Mating Pair

marvelling at their incredible skills in flight I missed a few bites.   A pair were mating on woodwork close by, and several were flying in tandem pairs, some laying their eggs.  I had put a ball of bright green groundbait, moulded into a paste, where the voles could access it.  The carp had previously ignored it, but not the voles.   Nor did the dragonflies, and one dark green individual, of similar colour to the bait, actually attacked the bait ball several times.   I had seen other dragonflies, at rest, take to chasing intruding rivals, some even seeing of members of other species.  They were reacting to movement. But I was quite surprised that a dragonfly would also attack something stationary, but of very similar colour to itself.  I can only assume from this event that they must have colour vision. I know they have the multi faceted compound eyes, but wonder whether each of those compound eyes is effectively just a single pixel, or whether each has a significant number of pixels.   Looking at their flight, and their obvious recognition of colour, I suspect the latter.

A Large Green Dragonfly Making One of Four Attacks on my Grren Bait Ball

On My Knee, Enjoying the Sun

Very late on, on the very last of the last casts, a single crucian took my bait.  A deep and clear-water

fish, being fairly dark, but its colours were far more crisp and clearly defined than those of fish taken a day or two before, from coloured water.  But I shall not be rushing back to this pond. I'll leave it to the other members.  It is very nice to have such a huge haul, but mirror carp are not my favourite fish, and so once will be quite enough for now, thank you.


All in all a highly entertaining day

Late Update: Having made contact with the a representative of Natural England, I learn that dragonflies do indeed have colour vision, and additionally are able to see some frequencies of ultra violet light, and also to do some things with polarised light. More details were sent for me to study, but I'll not overcomplicate things here. I am surprised, but when I remember that Homo Sapiens has had perhaps a couple of million years of evolution in our history, compared with a hell of a lot more for dragonflies, which back then  probably alighted on T-Rex's knee, then I should not really be surprised that a modern dragonfly is such an incredibly sophisticated insect.

Pond Problems

Because of the laziness mentioned in the last blog, I now have a lot of outstanding  ( as in "not yet done", rather than as in "very good" ) rubbish to write about.  Sandwiched between the tench sessions, have been a few short trips to local ponds.

So I will try to split these trips, pond by pond, and will begin with the scrapyard pond, which has continued to produce the odd surprise. I desperately wanted to catch one of the pond's tench.   I had seen photos of tench caught by others...actually mainly by one particular angler, and although none of those I saw were particularly big, being little more than a pound or so, I still wanted to catch one myself.  The challenge you see.

Because of the location of this pond, in a very run down area, I was shocked to find there were any fish at all, let alone carp and tench, but I set up my float gear, with bread flake and occasionally maggots, and waited.  The first fish was of course NOT a tench, but a carp.   Only about four pounds, but a very good looking, well proportioned common carp. I very nearly like commons.   They seem to fight far better than the mirrors and look just as fish are meant to look,  not like some artist's invention of what a fish should look like.    Mirror carp...or most of them at least...are the Tracy Emin's unmade bed of the fish world.   I concede that one or two do look very good indeed, but most...no sorry, they should be removed from the UK, and wild carp used to replace them.   Size does not matter.  Speed though, does!

As punishment for my thoughts my next fish was a small mirror.  Still no tench.     The next evening trip

Pond Crucian

produced a sail away bite, a very uncharacteristic bite for the culprit, which was a crucian carp.    I had never heard of a crucian being taken before in this pond.   But 50 years ago, in this area, all of the rivers were dead, there were few large lakes, and so most angling clubs revolved around weekend matches by coach, and small local ponds.   And in those local ponds, be they farm pits or JCB holes in the ground, were very often crucian carp.     True crucian carp, for back then few knew how easily they would cross breed with goldfish and carp....both of which were quite rare fish at the time.  The crucian I had caught was a bit of an old warrior, but it weighed two and a half pounds, a very welcome fish indeed.  And I wondered whether there were any more, and were any as big or bigger than this one?   The hunt for a tench became a hunt for crucians, a hunt that remains equally unsuccessful, although the campaign did finally produce a tench of about a pound and a half.  All the tench that have been caught here seem to be about this size, and I think a single year class might be involved, from one fairly good breeding year.   Which prompts the question;  "Are their mummies and daddies still swimming around in the pond?    And if so, how big are they now?    The crucian hunt continued to produce fish: if not crucians. Two bream, each about six pounds.  One a male, dark, ugly, thin, rough and covered with breeding tubercles.   A horrible looking fish.    The female was  by contrast fit, healthy looking, fat and a light gold in colour. Two more different fish of the same species would be hard to catch, but excellent size for such a small venue. I have been left wondering whether all the dark fish are male, and all the golden fish female.   I have always caught fish of both types.   I am going to ignore, for this discussion, several two tone bream that I have caught over the years.  More small carp have followed, two I think, none over four pounds, but commons again.  One or two roach, which leaked milt in my hands.

Last year a couple of young ladies were eating their lunch one sunny day by the pond.   They mentioned that great crested newts were present.   And whilst fishing this Spring, I have indeed seen quite a few newts, including what was probably a pair, one being much darker than the other.    But they seem much smaller than the great crested newts we used to see everywhere 55 years ago.   And so I think these must be common newts, although I have not managed to see one up close yet.    Wonderful to see any newt species locally though.

I have not spent too much time by the Sunday challenge pond, two Sunday challenge sessions for a typical three ounce tench, a two pound common, a tiny perch and a small rudd.   The pond is exceptionally clear so

The Two Grass Carp

Grassies

far this year, the handful of 4 and 5 pound carp seems to have lost some of its fingers, but the two grass carp, the only two in the pond, and which I caught in two consecutive casts last year, remain.    And still look a lot like chub as they swim along.  There seems to be a very tame crow lurking around the venue.   A couple of times it came within a yard or so of me.   I threw it some bread, which it looked at in disgust and then ignored. I must return, camera in hand some morning.

Quite how a clear shallow pond can seem so empty of fish at times is a mystery.   Today I could see one five pound mirror, and a shoal of 30 small rudd.  All the many smaller carp, the roach, bream, crucians, the two grass carp, the tench and perch were invisible.  But they are there...somewhere.

The third pond:

There is a TINY, TINY pond down near the Mersey, so tiny that I have always assumed that it held no fish at all.  Largely weeded up with reedmace and rushes, its open water is maybe 10 yards by 4, with some of that clogged with Elodia. But it is another place where I have seen a few newts. A true wildlife pond.

I was walking, and looking for newts when I spotted, at the surface in an Elodia clearing: a fish!  

Golden Orfe

A crucian no less, maybe 6 or 7 ounces.  I kept looking and was sad to see a bulbous red and white fantail goldfish emerge from the weed too. Later in the day I saw a couple of golden orfe and 4 small rudd.   Maybe the rudd and crucians are natural, but the orfe and goldfish have been dumped of course.  Whatever happened to the good old days when unloved goldfish were flushed down the toilet when the kids were not looking?

So next morning I went down, minimal gear and some bread to check for crucians.  

Got into a spot of bother because it was very early and, as I approached the pond, past the chain mesh fencing of a small company I saw a couple of railway porter style trolleys and a black bag on the ground in the bushes not too far from the Rugby club. Just a few yards from the pond.  I looked at them, heard someone the other side of the fence and thought something was up. Then saw a guy in a balaclava on the path immediately before me. Asked me what I was doing... "going fishing". he seemed unconvinced and so I mentioned it being quite odd to see the  trolleys there. 

He said it was his fishing trolleys and he was fishing " just along there". Unlikely thinks I. Then for some inexplicable, daft reason, I followed him as he claimed he was going to his rod. There was a small iota of "hope he is not in my swim", but in the main I suppose I was curious.  He circled around and then disappeared down near the river. As I walked back, there were now two 10 gallon plastic containers, full of liquid, near the trolleys. And the guy came back up behind me. I told him I had already called the cops, because he was now looking rather threatening towards me. 

" Gimme your phone" he said. "No way", said I, and walked on. He grabbed the hood of my jacket and tried to stop me, demanding the phone again. I refused, and he spun me around, throwing me down an embankment towards the silted up part of the pond. Ripped my jacket.  I was not hurt, so I surreptitiously  tucked my phone inside my fishing boot and climbed up the bank. If he had asked again I would have said I dropped the phone in the fall. I walked on and a second guy, also in a balaclava asked me why I phoned the cops. "because I think someone is stealing something". "Stealing what?" " I dunno" said I. 

And the two guys, luckily, then moved off, now with 4 ten gallon plastic containers, of what I thought were chemicals. Anyway I then really did call the cops, who suggested it was probably diesel. Anyway I am unhurt, slightly ripped camo jacket, but otherwise fine. Oddly, although I was shaking a bit, I realized I had quite enjoyed the whole  incident. I have no idea why I decided to have a go in this way. I have always thought that if I should see a poacher, I would never think of tackling him, not at my age, yet suddenly here I am having a go at sorting two thieves on an industrial estate. Silly me. Coppers took their time...they went to the wrong rugby club! Their dog found nothing, but they could see someone had been climbing the fence.  I am told they got away with about forty gallons of diesel.

Had I had more time, been thinking more clearly, I would have backed away on seeing the trolleys, and if I had not been seen, phoned the cops from some hidden spot, and watched the process.    But   nope: I just dived in!

And I caught nothing.

Gull With Minnow

Walking back along the river I saw a black headed gull fishing in the weirpool.  First I have ever seen perched on a branch, although this branch has been long dead.   It was catching minnows, male fish in full breeding colours.  There are many, many minnows in the river.  Not too much else post cormorants, but many minnows.

More Buses

I live on the busy A6, between Stockport and Manchester.  Apparently it has the most frequent bus service in the UK,  approximately one every three minutes.  And this would appear to be true, and is very convenient for those of us fortunate enough to have free bus passes.   Unfortunately I cannot use the pass on weekdays before 9.30AM, which makes it a bit useless for fishing.   The "one every three minutes" is of course an average, and sometimes I may wait ten minutes.  To compensate, there are many times when two come at once, and the record that I have observed was no less than FIVE 192 buses, nose to tail. The old adage about buses is indeed accurate.

But it is not only buses that can come in such strangely timed fashion, fish can do exactly the same.   Before my 30 odd year break from fishing, it was unheard of for carp to be caught in UK rivers.  The one exception was the Electricity Cut on the River Nene, near Peterborough, which was famous for its big, hard to catch carp.  So, on my return to angling, I had never seen a river carp, and certainly had no expectations of ever catching one.   But, on the Trent last season, two came along at once,  two mirror carp in successive casts,  landed within five minutes of each other.  Had I been in Liverpool, I would have been gobsmacked, but in the more gentile Midlands, I was very surprised. Not many weeks later I had a third, from a local spate river, a common of maybe ten pounds or so, hooked whilst fishing for gudgeon on three pound line, with the river going like a train.  Quite a fight ensued before I landed it...by hand, as I had not considered a landing net to be needed for gudgeon.   Silly me.    

Today, I was warned by the wife that I have to "do something" with the compost heap.  For some inexplicable reason she wants to use some of the soil it has generated over the last couple of years for planting flowers.  Not wanting to miss out on fishing altogether, I decided to have a couple of early morning hours on the "Sunday Challenge Pond". And yes: I know it is Saturday, not Sunday, but the only other option was the flooded river, or a 25 mile trip to one or another tench water. So I arrived at the pond, with minimal tackle, rod, folding stool, three slices of bread, the packet of hooks that my wallet always contains, a float, shot, and a small bucket of groundbait I had left in the car for a couple of sun-warmed days.   Being already moist, the groundbait was fermenting badly and the smell in the car was quite unpleasant, even by my standards for a fishing car.  I also took an empty bucket, as I wanted to see if I could catch another crucian carp or two for the garden pond.  Didn't bother with the landing net, instead left it in the car, as I know the pond to contain small tench to maybe 3 oz, carp, mainly under 12 ounces, small roach, rudd and perch.  There are a few carp around five pounds but, in the small, yard wide gaps between thick Elodea Canadensis weedbeds, they are uncatchable on crucian carp gear,  they bolt  irretrievably into the weeds within a second or so of being hooked.  Nothing you can do. So my mainline was set at 5 pounds breaking strain, and a small float, capped with a starlight was thrown out at what I hope would be a gap in the weeds, at about half past four.  A couple of handfuls of sloppy boozy groundbait was added to the mix and thrown at the float. Set at about 2 foot 6, the float was a fair bit overdepth in this uniformly very shallow pond, and the light atop the float was soon seen to be moving sideways along the surface, as a rudd of a couple of ounces took the breadflake.  That is a good rudd for this water.   The next cast produced nothing, until I reeled in to find a fish attached.   A crucian carp of five or six ounces.   Ideal for the pond it went into the bucket, along with water and a pile of fish calming weed.   Crucians are not shy biters, but they have a habit of not moving off with a bait, leading to little or no movement of the float.  Maybe, had I waited, I should have seen a bite, but then again, possibly not.   Daylight now, and the next cast hooks into something far bigger.   It made the thick banks of weed fairly quickly, and the light tackle did not allow me to stop it.   Another carp lost in the weeds.   I think that is the third I have lost in such fashion over the last dozen trips to the water.  But I was not fishing for carp, and to use suitable tackle for them would probably put off the crucians.   The water is so weedy that even half pound carp usually get tangled up in the weed, and I often pull in a ball of weed, and then search it to find the carp, or the small tench that it contains.     However I did nip back to the car for the landing net.  Who knows, maybe one of the carp might behave itself and swim around in small circles for me.   Fat chance!   

A roach of 4 ounces is the next visitor, once again, a good fish for the water.  No tench today, which is a shame for I love the little, hand sized tincas that the pond holds. Next up was a bream, always a surprise in this shallow clear pond.   At 6 ounces it was no monster but still seems to be out of place in this water, long ago abandoned by the club that owned it, as being a waste of time.  They were unable to control the poachers, both kids and adults, who thronged around it, dropping litter by the bucketful.    Today, unusually,  it seemed to be litter free, and I know that one or two conscientious locals do clean it up occasionally, as do I.    The pond also holds perch which is the main attraction for the kids., Small, with pretty stripes, red fins and easy to catch, I have never caught a perch here myself, but a few minutes with a maggot baited hook would soon solve that one.   Rumours abound of a few chub being present, which is reasonable considering the proximity of the pond to a local river. With anglers there is always someone wants such and such a fish in such and such a water.

The next bite was a sail away and I hooked a decent sized fish,  which scrapped a bit, but not like one of the carp.   In the still poor light I could see it was a chub, and quite a good one too.  But as it struggled and came nearer the net, that which I had luckily recovered from the car, it looked odd.   Was it.....surely not...but yes, it was a grass carp!  Bloody hell!   I had never before even seen a grass carp.    All I really knew of them was that they were introduced into the Lincolnshire drains round about 1970, in order to keep down the weed growth, and help control flooding. I have no idea how well that plan worked.  It was believed at the time that they would never actually take an angler's bait, and so would never be caught.  Obviously a theory put about by the same guy who said cane toads would only eat the pest species in the Australian Maize fields.  I was equally amaized by my catch.  I'm sorry, honest I am!    Interesting and good looking fish, the grass carp,  fights very much like a chub, if mine was typical of the species. Visually it looked very much like what I imagine a chub/wild carp hybrid might look like, with maybe a touch of grey mullet about the lips. I was wearing just the detachable lining of my fishing jacket, and as I keep a number of things in the main jacket pockets I was unable to weigh the fish.  So I decided to wrap the fish in a mass of weed, and leave it in the landing net, in the water, and hoped that another angler, with scales, would arrive soon.  

Another roach was landed, again about four ounces.  Good looking roach these, the clear water means that the fish are very colourful, and an inexperienced angler could have easily mistaken this fish for one of the rudd that are also present in the pond.  Another bite, and another good fish is hooked. To my utter, jaw-dropping amazement, it was another grass carp. Two in the landing net now, together with a mass of weed. I could hardly have been more surprised had a hippo strolled out of the woods opposite, and sauntered into the pond.

 Photographs, camera phone: too casual a trip to have brought the SLR.  But as I took the picture I realised that the pocket, in which I keep my scales, is in the jacket liner, and not the main fishing jacket.  The two 192 bus route grassies weighed 5-8 and 4-12.  I put them carefully back, pack up, and am home by eight AM.

I wonder whether the rumours, of chub in the pond, have been created by people who have seen these grass carp swimming around in the shallow water, and mis-identified them as chub?    Might I have done the same, had I seen them? The grass carp certainly did not come from the river though!  And no-one to whom I have spoken, has ever mentioned grass carp.  Where were they from? Another mystery.  But surprises like this are a lot to do with why I enjoy my fishing so much.

Too Many Fish?

I don't like my angling to be too easy.  The idea of fish after fish is always unappealing as I make my way to the water, and actually becomes boring during their capture. I learned this very early on, when I caught over 30 bream one night for my first ton up bag. Every fish was identical in size, its bite was predictably like the last, and the fight was similar.  And I knew what result the next cast would bring.  Oh, sure enough it was exciting as the fish were first seen to roll at dusk, a hundred yards away, and still more thrilling as they gradually approached the baited area, but once on the feed, as fish repeatedly came to the net, the experience soon palled.  I didn't go back for a second night. I like a challenge... but there are exceptions. Gudgeon fishing should always be easy. It is traditional for them to come freely to the hook, and it would just seem wrong to have to struggle to catch gudgeon. I still enjoy the odd trip to catch the gudgeon under the bridge that crosses the local river.

The other exception to my rule is the crucian carp. They are such pretty, cuddly things for one. But they are also always a challenge on a fish by fish basis.   Every one can present a problem.  And so, although I ended up with over 30 of them yesterday, in a 7 hour session, every fish in the net was a delight to catch. And they did give me  a few problems to solve. 

I have always viewed bread as my ultimate crucian bait,  most of my crucians, big or small, have been taken on Warburton's Bread, or before Warburton's, on Mother's Pride sliced bread.  Mother's Pride disappeared from shelves locally some years ago, and I have occasionally wondered whether their factory became Warburton's. The texture of both loaves is so very similar.  Bread has been a favourite of mine for a number of species, and many years ago I  fished with it to catch some very large rudd and roach.   I always liked a big hook for bread flake, and those roach and rudd were mainly taken on a size 2 Sundridge Specimen hook. Quite intentionally on a size 2.   But yesterday I arrived at the lake with my rod still set up from a previous fishing session, in which I was using maggots, and the tackle was armed with a size 14 round bend hook.  The swim was about 12 feet deep, and with very clear water, and so, knowing crucians to be my quarry, I again set up the float gear, lift method, with just a single AAA shot to take the bait down and cock the float.  It would take a while, each cast, for the bait to sink to the bottom, and for the float to cock,  sometimes needing a wee bit of tension from the rod to set the float vertical, if the depth was a couple of inches or so less than it had been at the spot where the bait rested on the previous cast. But once the bait had reached bottom, I rarely had to wait very long before the first tentative bobs of the float.   The rain was, all this time, coming down sufficiently hard as to prevent any chance of much play on day five of the third Ashes test, and, as I had only taken an ordinary gentleman's umbrella, it did make both keeping dry and fishing a little awkward.  Nothing a seasoned drowned rat like myself could not manage though.

The bites were typical of those from British Standard crucians, and at start of play, the first over or two, I was missing three quarters of them.  But some fish were being hooked and landed.  Others were coming off as I played them, and I was losing about one in three hooked fish.   I noticed that many of those landed were hooked by the most delicate of hook holds, and suspected the losses were due to the hook pulling through that ever so slight fold of lip on the bend of the hook.   I put it down to the crucians, and their oft infuriating habit of playing with their food. A situation such as this is a prime opportunity to experiment though, and after a couple of hours it seemed logical that I had to try something different.  That was as far as logic went: logic would have maybe suggested that, for shy biting fish, I should reduce their food portion size and drop a couple of hook sizes.   I chose to do the opposite, bearing in mind my bread experiences from forty years ago.   I upped the hook to a size 10.

Up until that moment I had about 15 fish on the tally board, landed and released, none having been hooked other than in the lip, several very delicately so, and with maybe seven or eight other fish lost.  The hook change had an immediate effect.  I was then hitting three quarters of the bites, and three from the first four fish were hooked just inside the mouth: a far more secure hook hold.  I figured that the smaller hook must have been skating out of the crucians' mouths, securing those tenuous hook holds as the hook was leaving.   If my theory was correct, the larger hook was not skating out in the same way.  So, rather than it being a case of shy bites, it was more a case of poor hook choice.  I continued to catch at a much higher rate, with less missed bites, and only one other fish dropped off, until I chose to leave. The final tally was well over 30 crucians, the best couple being something over a pound and a half,  plus one crucian/goldfish hybrid and a solitary F1, carp/crucian hybrid.  I have only had a couple of F1s before, both being only a few ounces in weight.  This one was maybe four pounds and put up a good scrap.   The F1 seems to be quite severely compressed side to side, in a bream like fashion, but has a very prominent and well defined scale pattern.  This fish had four barbules, but they were very small, especially the upper pair, which were miniscule.  I was a little surprised, as I had read that F1s had just two barbules.  Maybe they didn't search hard enough to see the second pair?

A bread fishing lesson re-learned, and applied to a different species.  No photographs.  The small umbrella, rain, and a minimal tackle trip had rendered it impractical to take the camera.  However on my return home there was a male bullfinch, together with three of his youngsters from this year's brood, on and around the feeders, so the camera did see some action.   So here a picture of a male bullfinch, and a youngster of the same species.  Bullfinches are not popular with fruit tree farmers, but they provide quite a splash of colour if you are lucky enough to have them in your garden.