A Paucity of Perch and a Plethora of Pike

The day dawned grey.  The very ground itself looked grey:  the green of the grass being so muted by the time of year and the ambient light that colour would have been all but eliminated, were it not for a few brightly painted narrowboats in the foreground.  The sky was that shade of grey which you know is going to precede a snowfall.  The canal had a partial coating of cat ice, formed overnight, a very thin covering.   With the reflections from the sky, even that looked grey.  I caught a slight movement amongst the grey on the far bank, some couple of hundred yards away.  It wasn't grey, but a brown colour, yet as near to grey as it could be.  A herd of six deer.   I don't know the species, and although they are rarely so be seen in this spot, there are nearby red deer, and probably fallow and roe as well. These six individuals did not stay in view for more than a couple of minutes, but one by one jumped a fence which was over their head height. They did it so easily, from a standing start, up onto the hind legs and then they just sort of folded themselves over the top wire, making it all look so very easy, immensely graceful with no need for any Fosbury Flop or Western Roll nonsense. 

Deer at 200 Yards, and Some Very Active Moles. 

As the deer  disappeared into the woods, the snow started. Initially just the occasional tiny flake. These first few fell onto frosty ground, and looking closely at some that landed on dead leaves, it was possible to see the hexagonal basis of their shape.  Only a quarter inch or so across, yet on a molecular scale that is a hell of a long way.  And for a snowflake to have the six-fold symmetry that was clearly and visibly defying that vast molecular distance between the separate arms is truly a wonder. How does one arm know what the next is doing? Why should it look identical? I have read that for such symmetry to occur and remain as the flake forms,  requires very stable air, very uniform conditions at any moment, and right  across the space the flake occupies. Every small variation in that uniformity as time passes, leads to a different pattern of crystal growth.  So as the flake grows it actually records a mini history of the conditions, and the changes to those conditions as it formed.   Few flakes will be totally perfect in all six arms of course ( although many come close), but equally you would find it impossible to find two the same. For each has grown in its own short spell of changing conditions, and each records its own past from birth until it is observed. No two flakes occupy exactly the same spot in the cloud, so no two will have the same history. 

So it snowed, a couple of inches falling as I fished, layering the topside of everything: branches,

Snow

twigs, landing net, rods and me.  Just one missed run from a pike, but until the wind started to strengthen it was quite a pleasant morning.   A moorhen chugged past me, snow lying on its back.   It must have been at least as well insulated as I was but without the inconvenience of heavy clothing , boots and gloves.   Oddly I felt quite warm until I packed up just after lunch, when I realised that the typical English wet snow which lays so heavily on everything, does make me feel quite shivery, and I was quite glad to get back in the car.

The previous fortnight had been a little odd. A few frosts, but in general nothing too extreme.  But something seems to have got under the scales of the perch, in that I have stopped catching them.  Instead of three or four fish a trip, perch catches have dropped just to a couple over about five trips.  One of them was a nice enough fish at 1-14.    But it did surprise me somewhat by taking a pike bait.   This perch took an eight inch bream: quite a deep bodied fish, the bream, even at that small size. I swear that the perch had a gob even bigger than some of my Liverpudlian friends, and knew equally well how to use it.     How this specimen managed to take the bait and still have the strength to pull a fairly large float under, I just do not know.   I also have little idea why, during the next four trips the perch all ignored a four inch little rudd, a bait designed specifically for perch, rather than pike. 

A Lob Caught Roach Drifts in Towards the Net

 Having become expert at ignoring the rudd, they then became rather good at ignoring my lobworms.  The odd skimmer bream and roach still took the worms, but there might as well not have been a single striped fish in the entire canal system for all the signs I saw of perch.

Pike have proved a little easier to catch, or perhaps rather more difficult to avoid, with about 15 or 16 of them taking perch baits.  I had my five a day on two consecutive trips, although there was nothing of a vegetarian nature involved and so my waistline has remained unaffected.  Initially when perch were the target I had omitted a trace.   I figured that, as I was on a small single hook, any pike biting through the monofilament would not unduly suffer, and would fairly soon shed the hook.  But I was not expecting so many pike, maybe the odd one or two.  And the pike were not confining themselves to the rudd either.  Some of them took lobworms.  Believe me, playing a pike of perhaps six and a half or seven pounds on 3 pound nylon, using a light rod fitted with a centrepin reel was quite exciting.

The Lobworm bait is Just Visible, Curling Out of the Pike's Jaw

  The fish fought more like a summer pike, and with a barge passing by me as I played it, the drama and heart rate rose considerably and in parallel with each other. I actually shouted at the pike to keep to the near bank, and fortunately it did. It honoured and obeyed me far more than the wife ever has.  I would have been unable to stop the fish had it made a  determined rush for the boat's propeller.  On the other rod I had resorted to using a trace with the rudd.  No point in being really silly.

Playing that fish  came in very useful a couple of days later, when a rather good looking pike of a little over fifteen pounds also took a traceless lobworm bait.   This fish fought for less time that the earlier fish, but stayed deep and slow, and I knew it was a fair old fish.   Knowing that, and remembering the monofilament end tackle, really affects how one plays a fish.     The image of one of those 700 teeth cutting through the line remains in the mind the whole time.  There was one other double in my haul, a little smaller, and a fair mix of fish from as little as a couple of pounds up to just under the ten mark.

With a Flick of its Tail, Fifteen Pounds of Pike Vanishes Into the Murk.

   A wide size range, indicative of a good and healthy population.   One fish of about eight pounds though, had a damaged left side jaw.  An obvious fishing injury, one created by an angler who had no idea how to treat a pike, and who valued his lure or trace far more than he did the pike.  The jaw had quite a flap of loose flesh, and as I looked at it in the landing net, the fish thrashed, and somehow managed to inflict half a dozen small cuts in my finger and thumb.  The exposed side of the pike's jaw had also exposed a fair number of its teeth, which caught my hand. Usually it is not until the hook is to be taken out that those teeth need to be watched carefully. The next ten minutes were spent wiping the blood away.  The fish, apart from its wound seemed quite healthy, could certainly feed itself, and swam off strongly when released.  But I don't like to see pike injured like that.  Those that do not know how to handle pike should get a demonstration from an experienced angler before going pike fishing alone.   The pike is always in some danger, especially from those who still use anything similar to Mr. Jardine's old snap tackle.  A couple of treble hooks deep in a pike are not easy to remove for the inexperienced, and are likely to have barbs ending up near to the delicate blood filled gill filaments.  Barbless hooks help, but I do feel that multiple trebles are not a good idea on a deadbait.

I took a day off from the perch, as the rivers had fallen to an acceptable level.  Two rods, one for pike which proved to be ineffective, and a grayling rod.   Just the one grayling was to take the bait, but the trip was not wasted.   Something landed in the willow tree, just to my left, maybe 6 feet away.  My head automatically swivelled, and I saw, as it took flight, what I immediately thought to be a nuthatch.  Another second of observation though, showed that the orange/brown chest was that of a kingfisher, one which, having been as startled as I was, headed speedily back upstream.  Good to see one in February.  Still no good photograph though.

Tales From the Riverbank  (or Towpath)

I meet a fair few oddballs whilst fishing.  Maybe likes attract.  Yesterday a cyclist wheeled his bike onto the towpath near me, and settled down onto a memorial bench. I assumed, because of the time, he was going to have lunch.  He was, although I had not expected it to be a 500cc can of Boddington's.  Initially he was quiet, but then became noisy and rather over-friendly. It was obvious this was not his first lunch stop.  A young lad fishing nearby was initially the target.  Various phrases he used were as follows:

"I am one of life's victims."

"Watch out for the Chinese, they are out to wreck the UK"

" See him there ( pointing at me), he is above me".   I took this to mean that he thought I was a rung or two higher up the social ladder than he was. 

"I am a God"  This seemed to go somewhat against his previous statement, unless I too have become a deity whilst I was not looking.

"I am on your side"

He also made reference to a life in which cocaine had played a big part.

The young lad was half amused, half scared and pleaded with me not to leave him alone.  A friendly drunk, whom I dismissed as harmless, but I did worry whether he might fall into the water if he tried to get on his bike.  Luckily he didn't, but walked along the canal pushing the cycle, and shouting other phrases at various passers by.  It all helps to pass the blank days.

The other situation was rather odd too.   Over a few trips there has been a dog, near to  a boat on the far bank.   The dog seems to incessantly watch me.  It stands there, paws on the very edge, and stares at me.  For hours at a time.  Another boater mentioned to me that it was a fishing dog.   Apparently the boat owner, some evenings, casts out a pike bung, which the dog watches, and on seeing a run, the dog barks so as to drag the guy away from his TV, to get him to come out of the cabin and strike the pike.  The dog did seem at times to be watching my float!   The second boater mentioned that the dog's owner was a serious angler, who fished all over the world, and even made fishing DVDs.  He was called Pete Drabble, the eel man.  I said I thought I recognised the name Drabble, but  the eel man was surely Barry McConnell.  (Barry is fairly local). Ah yes, said the second boater, those two are great mates.  Coincidences all round: Barry fishes, or fished the Cheshire Meres for eels.   I did fish for eels myself on the Meres some years before Barry, although with not quite such spectacular success.  But the interesting part is that Pete has a fishing dog that gets him out of bed whenever a fish bites.  Is that not cheating?  I hope to see that in action one evening.  Life at times just gets very weird. It will be nice if it continues to do so.

Trout Survival, the Odd Fish, and More Idle Chatter.

Well, what a shame.  The rain arrived a couple of days ago in force, and the rivers, being spate streams, have all become far more difficult to fish.   So difficult that usually I tend not to bother, certainly for grayling.   The levels are up substantially, and the flow rate has increased quite dramatically.   The leaves that were deposited at the river edges as the levels slowly decreased last week, have all been in motion again, having been washed away from the banks.   Finding the fish has become harder, and it has become more onerous for the fish to find bait, in between trying not to get washed downstream.   Maybe looking good for tomorrow though, although Sundays are not my favourite days to go fishing. 

A Very Thin Out of Season Trout of 3-2.   Huge Jaw.

But I did manage a couple of sessions during the week before it got too damp.    The first session was to a swim I have only fished once before.  It gave up one of my only two rainbow trout from the river about three years ago.   A fair old fish of about two pounds.  This second session was all about chasing the grey ladies again. Fishing for them was difficult, but a couple of fish did grace the old landing net, the best being a nice fish of a pound and nine ounces.     The trout proved a substantial nuisance ( where are they all during the trout season?).  Four small trout were followed by four far better fish.  Two spotties of about a pound and a half, which may well have been the same fish.   If so, it managed to find its way back home, some twenty yards or so, and become so hungry as to take the same bait, in the same spot, after only about 45 minutes.  Mind you, trout are silly buggers and I had one fish three times in an afternoon last year.  The other two trout were bigger,  one of 2-7,  and a 3-2.    I stopped fishing then, for it was obvious these trout had fairly recently spawned, and were desperate to regain lost weight and condition.  It didn't seem very fair to continue catching them.    Look at the photo of the three pounder.  It demonstrates quite clearly why we need a long trout close season.  The fish has lost so much weight that its BMI would be lower than that of Kate Moss divided by Twiggy. What weight would that fish have gone in the last week of the trout season? Anyone any ideas?  Five pounds anyone?  In the Winter, with minimal food in the river, a spawned out trout is likely to recover very slowly.    Why do trout not ignore the past evolution of their species, and start to spawn in the Spring like sensible fish?    What are the advantages of spawning now?    I gain the impression that the ova lie dormant in the gravel until the water has warmed up.  During those months they sit there praying that there are no heavy floods, or are the eggs so sticky that they can make it through the nights until April?    Crayfish permitting. Coarse fish seem to have their heads screwed on far better than do trout.  Come to think of it why are they called "coarse" fish.  The word implies something of a Grimsby fishwife, all mouth and obscenities.    But coarse fish seem to be far more logical, much brighter than trout.   Trout do seem to be the daftest of our native fish, far too eager to snaffle any baited hook.   Maybe that is why fly fishing was invented, to give trout fishing a level of difficulty, and therefore trout anglers a level of apparent sophistication?   Trout are certainly at the thick end of the IQ and coarseness spectrum.  Does any coarse angler really believe all the guff about  only such and such a dry fly works under certain river conditions?  Come to think of it, does any game angler really think that?  Or is it just nice to have a fly box full of pretty things?  Ah well, I probably upset a few carp anglers the other week, it was time to target the game anglers.   Who next I wonder?  :-)

The swim I fished was what I would call a big swim.  Odd things rivers:  you can get what looks to be a very "big" swim, wide, with good flows right across the river, and then a short distance downstream you will get a "small" swim, which appears to carry dramatically less water.   It doesn't of course, but can really give that impression.   The strange thing is that the "big" swims always seem to hold far more fish, and so it is not just me that is being hoodwinked by the river.

The following day I fished a "well known" swim on the river.   And probably suffered for my art.   One tiny grayling, three tiny trout and a couple of trout that were somewhat larger, one just about besting a pound.  Again, the largest was showing signs of having spawned, whereas the three smallest were just creeping out of the parr stage.  But, despite sport being slow I was well enough entertained by a pair of dippers, that

Pair of Dippers. Photo Taken in Spring

chased each other past me, very low over the water, whirring their way across the stream.   They spent a lot of time feeding at the edge of a gravel bar, going in up to their knees, or more probably their ankles.  One bird did manage a couple of full Cousteau underwater trips, but the morning chill had maybe kept them out of the water.   Like the rabbits the other day, without their white chest patches, they would be brilliantly camouflaged.   In their case though, maybe the white helps hide their silhouette against the sky, reducing the chance of prey items spotting them.  Or maybe, more likely, I am completely wrong in suggesting anything of the sort.  I was watching one, thinking that it was very much kingfisher sized, when a kingfisher flew past me, heading upstream far faster than the dippers.  And then I missed a bite. Bloody kingfisher!    But it didn't really matter, as, a few minutes later TWO kingfishers came flying rapidly back

Treecreeper at its Nest Site

downstream.   There was one wonderful moment when I could see a pair of dippers and a pair of kingfishers.   Other birds seen: a buzzard, herons, goosanders, cormorants as usual, crows and jackdaws, a treecreeper and two unidentified flying ducks. Not mallards, but similar in size.    Too fast for my ageing eyesight. 

I had to pack up about 11.00am, because I had booked, a couple of weeks ago, two tickets to see West Side Story at the Manchester Palace Theatre.   Lucky to get the tickets, very few were still unsold, and to get two adjacent seats I had to book the afternoon matinee. Oh dear!  Full of schoolkids and drama students.   Our seats were near the top of the "Grand Tier",  about as high as you can get on a Wednesday afternoon without the help of illegal substances.   It was really far up.  And steep too.   I was very tempted here to tell the old joke whose punchline is "Yeah, deep too".  But I am not going to.  It was so high that we could see the very top of the porticoes over the various posh boxes that lined the sides of the auditorium.    My wife commented that the tops had not been dusted for years.   Now my wife and I continually differ on what constitutes a tidy room.  I had always hoped to convert her to my way of thinking, that a room can still be tidy whilst littered....strewn?....I'll go with "furnished" I think.... with various items of fishing gear, a few half read books, most of last week's papers etc.   But her complaining about the dust in the theatre has finally convinced me that we will never be able to agree and close that particular gap in our thinking.   So I considered, once again, the steepness of the tiers, and figured that if she were to crowd surf from our seats,  she could build up just enough speed, as she approached the edge of the balcony, so that when launched into the auditorium space,  she would just about be able to take out the first violin in the orchestra pit.  

Getting more or less the last two unsold seats meant that we were plumbed into the ultimate in restricted legroom seating areas.  It was impossible to sit with feet pointed straight towards the stage.  Not enough legroom, and so my feet had to be turned slightly out.  Most uncomfortable, sitting there, with widely separated knees projecting over the seat in front.   I can assure you that it is NOT enjoyable to  spend a couple of hours with a young blonde art student's head between ones knees.  Of course the lack of space propagates backwards too, and I made the mistake of turning around during the interval.   My head was also between someone's knees and I rather embarrassingly came face to close up face with a pair of flowery pink knickers.  I cricked my neck quite badly, due to the speed I felt was needed to get back to a respectable eyes front position.  Four rows below us two fifteen year old schoolgirls decided that the interval was a good time to have a fight.  The one whose nose was bloodied was allowed to remain, but the girl who had hit her was quickly muscled out by the schoolteacher.  Well done Miss!  I used the rest of the interval to convince everyone in row M, that, if we all sat pointing 45 degrees to the right, thus placing our legs in front of the adjacent seat and its occupant, we would all be rather more comfortable, and I would probably be able to stand up and walk on leaving the theatre.   The second half was therefore suffered in only minor agony. The first half had made the prospect of a Japanese WWII prison camp seem almost inviting.  Although suffering less, we were so high up, that the top curtain cut off our view of all performers on the staged balconies.  It is difficult to recognise a character when you can see nothing above her waist.   I had to ask the wife which performer was wearing the pink trousers.  My wife both notices and remembers this type of thing.

All went well with the second half of the musical until the long intense silence of the death scene.   I felt quite embarrassed for the old dear a few seats away whose mobile phone rang at that very moment.   The embarrassment turned to incredulity when she answered it.  "Hello Mary....Bingo? Yes.....what time tonight....."   I swear I saw the corpse corpsing.

OK,  show's over,  time for the applause and then you can all clear off home. Maybe take this thought with you:

Today you are the oldest that you have ever been.   It is also as young as you will ever be.  A very special day...and you have just wasted part of it reading all this crap.

A Nice Plump December Grayling

P.S.  I did fish today, Sunday, and the river responded well.    I would have said brilliantly had 10 of my 12 fish not been out of season trout.   Only one showed signs of having bred, and it would seem as if only fish of a pound and over breed in this stream,  the smaller individuals maybe still being too immature. The other two fish were a chub something over two pounds and a grayling that I judged to be 1-6.  A beautiful fish though, and caught as I watched a peregrine falcon perched atop a very tall tree. I had been hoping to see it fly off,  or maybe chase a woodpigeon, but it sneaked away unseen as I played the grayling.  Fishing the river on a Sunday was indeed a pain.  I was the only angler around, fishing a stretch I have not been near for about three years.  It was heaving with dog walkers, dozens of them.  One batch even came by the dozen, twelve dog owners each with their precious pooches gathered together in a wildebeest sized herd.  And not a lion in sight.  None of the twelve dog owners was bright enough to suggest to the others that maybe they should go elsewhere to throw their sticks into the water.   My swim was constantly churned up by canines for a good twenty minutes.  Absolutely no consideration at all.    I moved swims several times during the day, more to seek other fish than to avoid the dreadful plague dogs. Sorry:  plague  of dogs. No need to take that personally Mr. Adams.  The dogs still jumped in the water, or ran amok scattering my gear. Of thirty or so owners whose dogs caused me pain today, only three apologised.   Whilst they were apologising I was thinking "All I want for Christmas is a 12 bore shotgun and open season on poodles, labradors and dalmations.  Especially dalmations."

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.
One twelve bore shotgun,
Eleven cormorants croaking,
Ten dalmations drowning,
Nine yorkies yowling.....

Oh come on!   Join in, you all know the words.  Get with the festive spirits.

I'm going,  Obviously way past my bed time. 

Confessions: Act 2, Scene 4. Dog Walkers.

I hate cats:  bloody things always lying in wait by the bird table. I spend far too much money on sunflower seeds to fatten up the goldfinches, only to have next door's cat benefit.  Don't like grey squirrels much either.  Good photogenic subjects, but when they are eating away at my roof timbers I don't feel like getting out the Minolta.  £2500 the bill to repair the roof!

But most of all, I hate dogs...and dog walkers.  As an angler I find I just cannot avoid them.  Why some people have the need to hunt fishermen with watered down wolves, I have no idea.  Only today some small white rat-like creature jumped up at me as I was walking along a pathway carrying my tackle.   Had I been wearing a white lounge suit, no doubt it would have been splattered with muddy paw prints and the remains of other dogs "leavings".   The footprints today are probably still there, but are at least invisible on my fishing trousers.   However I put my foot up and gently, and I really mean that, gently pushed the dog away.   The dog's owner was less than happy, even though I took great care not to hurt it. Her precious little brute had been pushed away, by me: using my foot.  I had not done the expected, and petted it saying "What a nice little doggie.", as it would seem, many others do.  Instead I said that the dog should have been on a lead, and muzzled.   The lady mumbled at me, insisting that I was completely in the wrong, and so I suggested that next time I would give it a good swift kick, in order that I might fully deserve her criticism.   When she returned later it was on a lead.   I call that a win.      

A couple of years ago I had a far worse incident.   Fishing the river, peacefully, upsetting no-one, I was suddenly aware of something behind me.  A dalmation, one of those horrible spotty creatures, and it was heading right for my tackle and bait.  It scattered everything it could not eat, and ate as much of my bait as it could wolf down.    I shooed it away.  

"Don't you dare shoo my dog." came a cry from behind me.  "It has as much right being there as you have."  "I have been coming down this river with my dog for years."

"Look" says I, " I have sharp hooks and other tackle down here that you would definitely not want your dog to eat.  And it has already eaten some of my bait."

"I've been coming down here far longer than you have.  My dog has every right to jump into the river here."

" Could you not have let him swim upstream where no-one is fishing?"

"Nope, I am down here every day, and if you shoo my dog again, I'll bloody well have you."    Said the ginger headed moron who owned the dog.  And as I was more than twice his age ( he was about thirty), I decided that maybe I should retreat, and keep quiet.   Say nothing.  Just fume quietly.  And wish that he be struck down by a thunderbolt. Or that he would....well  never mind. 

He then disappeared for about thirty minutes, during which time it appears he had gathered a number of very large pebbles from the shallows upstream. On his return, he proceeded to throw them into my swim, and threatened to do the same every time he saw me shoo his dog away.

"I am here again tomorrow,", said I  "and was that really necessary? That really was not very nice at all. I was just trying to protect your dog."    Meanwhile my thoughts were "What an obnoxious little so and so. Shame the dog didn't drown."...and far worse

The next day, along came the dog again,  and it gambolled gaily through my gear once again.  This time I said nothing.  Discretion is the far better part of getting ones head kicked in. The owner watched and grinned.

The dog however ate six large lumps of luncheon meat from on the top of my bait box.  Oh dear!   He should not have done that.   Earlier I had prepared the meat specially, pressing two constipation relief pills into each.  My son, then a student doctor,  had recommended them as the strongest available in the UK without prescription.  My only regret is that I did not get to see the results.   But I hoped that either his car, or lounge carpet (or both) would have felt the full pebble dash effects that those pills were going to have a couple of hours later.

My third unfortunate incident with a dog was some years ago.   I was on a large public field, and I was practising with a very large boomerang.   This, measured along its length, was about two feet of carved plywood.  Heavy, it must have weighed a good half pound.   Although not an expert, I could usually get it to return to within ten or fifteen feet from me.     Occasionally it would come back very precisely,  but  very occasionally.   When you throw a boomerang you launch it at an angle of about 30 degrees to the vertical, with as much speed as you can impart, and some rotation.   The angle, together with the aerofoil section causes it to fly, in theory, in a horizontal circle.  But something else happens:  as it progresses around the circle, it slows down, and its angle changes into a flatter spin.   The energy it loses slowing down is partially changed into rotational energy. It starts to spin far more rapidly.    Ideally you then catch it flat between the two palms of your hands, one above, one below, as it hovers, completely flat, in front of you.     Now I admit that I had never managed to catch it.  On those occasions it returned close enough, the speed at which this substantial lump of wood was spinning fair put me off trying to catch it. I valued my fingers far too much.  Of course when throwing you need to be safe: check the area.  I had, the previous week warned my son's friend to always watch the boomerang carefully, and not to just run away from it.     Silly, silly boy, and the lump on the back of his head that resulted was worryingly big.   But no permanent damage resulted, the boomerang still worked perfectly.

But on this occasion, a week later, no problem, no-one in the flight area, just a lady with her dog 40 yards behind me.  So I threw, threw it hard, and its trajectory looked as if it would return quite close.  Not a bad throw at all.  I was still not quite brave enough to try a catch  though, and as I watched it spinning very rapidly, hovering almost stationary, in front of me, there was a very small brown flash, and a Yorkshire Terrier leapt up and tried to catch the boomerang in its mouth.  It must have seen me throw a stick, and then chased after it.   Kangaroos probably have more sense.  Evolution has removed their impulse to chase thrown sticks. Unfortunately, the boomerang  arm hit the dog very hard indeed, and the poor pooch dropped like a stone, twitched a bit, and was dead.  And I had to face a very irate lady who no longer had her pet Yorkie.  Threatened to call the police too. Much was said, and I think I only escaped by pointing out the "Dogs Must Be On A Lead" notice.      It was unfortunate, and I did feel a bit guilty.  Well very guilty actually.  She picked up the dog and put it in her shopping basket!

I wandered off slowly, deciding that maybe then was not a good time for another throw or two.