The Fifteenth Of March

 March the fifteenth.  Close season on the rivers.  Time for all those barbel anglers to vegetate in front of the TV?  Or time for them to see what else night be swimming around in some of our UK waters?   Or perhaps something else....

The last week or so has been patchy, partly my own fault, poor choice of suitable venues. I had intended to return to the river to see whether the grayling would be as obliging as had been the trout a week or so ago, but the rain stepped in again, and the day after I caught the trout, the river was three times as deep and probably carrying ten times the flow. I did go to look, but it was very chocolate in colour.  So I spent a few days messing about on still waters.    

The first trip was to try for a crucian carp, on a water that produced them in quite large numbers for me on a couple of occasions last year.   This time was however a complete and utter failure, not so much as a twitch.    It would seem that crucians wake up more reluctantly than do tench. The lake surface was absolutely still all day, no wind at all, and from my chosen spot I could see 90% of the lake surface.   Only one carp broke surface all day.   No other fish at all stirred.  There was a heavy splash right at the far end of the lake though, a splash preceded by a loud cry of desperation a few moments before.  I had seen a carp angler wandering along the far bank and he had chosen to climb into a waterside tree overlooking the clear water, and to search for carp with his polaroids.   The tree gave way, and I saw him drop vertically, feet first, into deep water that I already knew was at a mere 5 degrees centigrade.  He managed to crawl out, and I could only imagine what he might have been saying. He was a youngish lad, and before being dropped in the lake by that tree, had been dropped off at the lake some time before by a friend or relative.   I guessed he had no means of getting home, wet as he was, until a pre-arranged time.   A while later the bailiff came and checked my card and EA licence. I mentioned the poor damp lad to the bailiff, and said he might expect to find someone cold and shivering around the corner.    No sympathy from this bailiff though.   "If he left his rods fishing by themselves to go looking for carp I'll endorse his card, I don't care how bloody wet he is."   Some days the milk of human kindness flows freely,  other times it has curdled nicely before being added to the cup of tea, and is then served up without sugar. The stillness of the water surface revealed quite a lot of bubbles rising to the surface.   As usual another angler said they would be carp, digging into the mud.   He was wrong, I think almost all bubbles seen rising, from lake or from river bed are nothing to do with the fish.   But on this occasion I was able to prove it to him.   I noticed that near to me there were about a dozen places where bubbles were rising. Two or three were near enough to the bank that the absence of fish could actually be seen.   Other bubbles were rising in exactly the same spots repeatedly,  and more surprisingly, at regular intervals.   I monitored one such spot for quite a while.  Every one minute and forty seconds (give or take a couple of seconds), a mass of about 50 pea sized bubbles would rise to the surface.  This was so regular, that I could have timed an hour quite accurately by it, should I have chosen to do so.  These bubbles continued in precisely  the same spot, at the same time interval, right through the day.  At just 5 degrees, I was surprised that so much decomposition gas was being generated. There must have been quite a large underground reservoir of gas, helping to regulate the bubbling. Not a single carp was involved though!  Most of the other spots were bubbling at fairly regular intervals too.

My next outing was to the local canal.   Occasionally, with just half a day to play with, a local water will tempt me and become my target.   The fishing was fine, and a few half decent perch were teased out from near some moored barges. None reached two pounds but all were very welcome.   My fishing was briefly disturbed by one barge which sailed past, crewed by what one might have described as  the epitome of a "dirty old man"..  He obviously had great  a sense of humour though.  His barge was named the "Nautilust".   Brilliant, and a pleasant change from "The Elk" or "Priscella, Queen of the Canal" and various other silly and sentimental  boat names.

I was determined to get out a few times before "March the Fifteenth", and I arrived at dawn a few days ago to fish a smallish club pond.  No idea of its fish content, but I had an ulterior motive for later in the day.   The

The Bream Pond

fishing was nothing to shout about, and although by the end of the day I had about twenty fish, mainly bream, none would have dragged a spring balance, kicking and screaming, past the half pound mark.  But a pleasant day with the sun shining.  Dave: if you are reading this, dig out those water skis. I finally found you a sloping lake!
Various signs of Spring were apparent.   A few ladybirds were crawling about.  Unfortunately they were all harlequins emerging from their Winter hibernation.   The harlequin ladybird is another of our invasive species, and is outcompeting some of our native species as it spreads ever further to the North.  The dunnocks were getting fruity, the male fluttering his wings at any nearly female.  A solitary lapwing was in its display flight, crazy aerobatics which were probably impressing me more than any nearby female lapwings. The alternative name of peewit comes from its call, rather than its insane tendency to indulge in such crazy flight plans.  One other bird flew across the pond.  Slightly zig-zagging flight, with angled wings. Although my wader identification is non too expert I decided that I must have seen a jack snipe, probably the first I have ever seen. For much of the afternoon I was accompanied by a little wren, which rooted and scuttled about in nearby low vegetation.  It took the odd maggot and had something wrong with its left foot. Not so much as to inhibit its feeding too much though.

Shortly before dusk, I packed up my tackle, because I wanted to stake out a badger sett near the pond.   I had groundbaited the entrance and nearby areas with some sweetcorn and halibut pellets, hoping to draw out old Brock as the light faded.  However my spending a couple of hours with the camera homed in on the main sett entrance, was to yield no result.  

 As the last traces of light disappeared from the Western sky, so the first stars started to appear in the East. One planet, Jupiter I guess, had been visible for some minutes already.     Also around this time, tawny owls started to hoot.   There were quite a lot of them,  although not much was heard in the way of the usual calls and replies:   tu-whits  and corresponding tu-whoos.      One owl,  which may or may not have been a tawny, made several cries, once every few seconds as it flew a northerly flightpath to the west of me.  I didn't see any of the owls. Normally when fishing at night I hear the odd tawny owls, and occasionally even see them, as shadowy shapes flying overhead, but on this night, with no fishing to distract me, I heard far more of their cries than usual, but saw nothing. Eventually as the temperature plummeted with the clear sky, I gave up on the badgers, and headed home.

With the rivers falling again, I had another couple of sessions, different river, similar result:  4 trout, no grayling, and one very good trout, certainly over three pounds, lost to a hook pull, after quite a long and exciting scrap.  I might need to try and re-acquaint myself with that son-of-a-fish once the trout season opens.   

I did re-acquaint myself with the Derwent one day. The EA river levels website had suggested that the water would be low and clear.   I got up at 3am to check.   The website had lied to me though, and by the time I got to the river, not long after 6.30, it was up a little too much for comfort, and was quite coloured.  I stayed for a biteless day, frustrated by seeing just 4 fish move:  one, a small grayling which rose in front of me, just as I reached the river.   Three other fish swirled on the surface, one midstream as I changed swims around mid-day, and two others, one in each of the two swims I fished, both fish swirling within a yard of my feet.  I saw none of these three fish,  my attention was elsewhere, all were good fish, and I can only guess that they were pike.   But yet again, the only fish I saw were very near to my chosen fishing spots.   Uncanny.

Today is probably going to be my last outing before that fateful fifteenth of March...probably.  As I walked towards the river this morning rabbits were scattering in front of me. The frost was quite intense, and the fields were quite white as I strode down the hill towards the river.   Nice low level, and clear, and I expected a grayling or two.   The first fish though was a 1/2 pound brownie.  A nuisance fish.  I have to say that, for, although I enjoyed catching the fish, it is still close season: so it was a nuisance fish...unwanted... unloved... but which was returned safely.  Another followed, somewhat larger, and the swim went dead after its aerobatics. Too noisy, that fish needs to take up something quieter, like synchronized swimming. I moved a few yards upstream to where a fast tail rip bordered some slower water.   Here I did get the odd bite, but

A Perfectly Plump Chub

they were very, very tentative.   But a chub a little over two pounds soon hit the net after a spirited, deepwater fight.  The identity of the fish established by the nature of the fight long before I saw the chub.   A while later a better fish, a very plump and pristine chub a little over three pounds. As I played it a male mandarin duck flew past, its colours wonderfully vibrant in the sunlight.

Mandarin Duck, by Dali

 I may have said this before, but, had I not seen this duck in real life, I would have assumed it to have been painted by Salvadore Dali, whilst on crack cocaine. In the absence of the male, even the female is spectacular. One other chub shed the hook a little later. Lunchtime was my deadline for going home, and a final cast hooked into a third trout, one of maybe a pound and a quarter.   Throughout the day, the "V" of the river banks had become a flyway for the birds, and  several other species flew past: a heron, a couple of cormorants, one female goosander, two dippers, several grey wagtails, and a flight of five small unidentified ducks.   Possibly female mandarins.   Throughout the day 4 or 5 mallards flew up and down the stretch.

Grey Wagtail

  In the trees were various tit species, blackbirds, woodpeckers,  nuthatches, and woodpigeons.  I was told last week by a birdwatching friend that, unlike gulls, woodpigeons NEVER defecate in flight.   I think I'll stick to fishing if that is what I would learn as a twitcher..

Finally back, or perhaps forward  to March the 15th.   What shall I be doing that day?   Well, the close season seemed to be a good time to go fish elsewhere.  So: March the 15th is big silver bird day.   I will be off fishing abroad, on what will either be a very exciting trip, or my most expensive blank week to date.   More to come later.

P.S.   For those of you who read about my drilling holes in the lawn with a Black & Decker...it worked!   I estimate at least a couple of thousand crocus flowers have appeared.

Pretty Ladies, Shame About the Barbel.

A few days ago I had  a trip chasing the grayling of a very difficult river.  I had earlier challenged myself to try and catch a grayling on each trip to the stream.  This was my seventh trip, after I had failed on trip 6 to keep up the winning streak.  Each of those seven trips had also produced out of season trout.  To catch one grayling from this river is a pleasing achievement, and to succeed on 6 out of 7 trips was totally unexpected, although most of the days were to produce just a single grey lady.  But there is only so much self sacrifice one can make, and no matter how satisfying it is to catch fish under very difficult circumstances, sooner or later something has to give.  So yesterday, another destination was planned, another river, one where grayling are known to be present in much larger numbers. I still have not caught my two pound fish, and it was time to change the odds and up  my chances a bit.

The swim I chose is one I last fished a couple of years ago, just the one trip then, with chub the target species. I caught nothing that day, but always thought that the swim held great promise.  Reaching the swim involves a good half mile walk, along a narrow twisty path through a thick beech wood, occasionally bordering a tiny stream into which it would be quite easy to fall like a nocturnal Red Bull cliff diver from the narrow track into the shallow water below.   This was a path I had taken just once before, during daylight.   But yesterday it was still completely dark as, headtorch fitted, I tried to remember the route taken by the path.     Oppressively thick dark clouds overhead filtered out what little light the moon and stars might have otherwise provided.  I had not gone far before a loud cawing and croaking broke out to my right.  I had disturbed a large roost of crows, rooks or perhaps jackdaws.    Probably crows, and they made it well known that my presence in the wood was not fully appreciated by the locals.  Other than listening awhile, I ignored them.   I couldn't see them, and all they could see of me was the headlight.  The path was also more or less invisible; little used, it is just a narrow stretch of  soil, its grass removed by the tread of booted feet.   Autumn, and high winds overnight had almost completely hidden the path.  Masses of beech leaves, mixed with a few from oaks and sycamores were completely masking the route. The whole floor of the wood was coated by leaf fall. Instinct and good luck were all that was keeping me on track.   I disturbed a large bird above me, and it clattered off into the dark.   I would like to think it was an owl, but an owl would have flown off without betraying its presence to me.  Completely silent.  

After venturing into a couple of boggy areas, I eventually reached the river, and my swim.   The first rays of light were leaking through the cloud cover as I tackled up.   For a late November early morning it was quite warm, but those light rays revealed that the river was covered with floating leaves. The leaf cover was maintained by constant heavy winds of maybe 30 or 40 mph, new leaves being added by the thousands. They made float fishing impossible, the line lying atop them on every cast.   As the light increased I could see that almost as many were drifting down below the surface.    Fishing looked as if it was going to be difficult.    I was totally wrong with that assessment, and my very first cast produced a grayling.  I weighed it at 1-8.  A good start.  After a quick photograph  I returned it, and nursed it back to full strength, before seeing it swim off powerfully.   Grayling so very often exhaust themselves during the scrap, and not caring for their proper return would see some of them floating downstream, belly up.  It is always worth taking the time to return these gorgeous fish carefully, even if, as I did, you get your feet wet.

The second and third casts also produced grayling.  All three fish were as peas in the pod.  None would

The Second Pea From the Left

have differed from the others by more than an ounce.  I would have liked a photograph of all three together, but I do not own, nor do I want, a keepnet, and all my fish are returned as quickly as I can.

The fourth cast hit into another fish, one I felt might be a little bigger, and I had already prepared the camera to try and get a shot of the dorsal fin as it came into the shallows.  Nice thought, but the fish proved to be a chunky chub, maybe a smidgeon under three pounds. It too, was returned into the same swim, which may well be a significant factor in the day's equation.    For I was to catch no more chub and no more grayling, despite about three hours of working hard at the problem.   Four casts, four bites, four fish.    The grayling were obviously from the same shoal, but did they comprise the whole shoal? Had I caught them all?    Were the others scared away?   Or did they simply move on?   The pool was quite a large one, and they could easily have gone as much as 50 yards away.   Was my error that of not returning them 15 or twenty yards away?

As I pondered the answers, which remain as elusive as the origins of the Big Bang, a dabchick, in its Winter

Dabchick in Winter

plumage, dived and dithered near the tree roots on the far bank.   A tiny little grebe, it slowly worked its way upstream and disappeared around the bend.  I had thought that the first splash it made, right under the bank, was caused by a fish, but it was too close to the bank for me to risk a cast at it, which is fortunate.   I have seen a dabchick surface with very obvious red maggots in its bill, and I would have hated to have hooked one.

But the chub was not the end of the angling action: an hour or so later I struck into another fish.  My thoughts went:  "good grayling....perhaps not, must be a chub...hmm, a damn good chub". I even thought it could be five or six pounds.  It took a few more moments before reality dawned.   A heavy fish that was sticking close to the bottom, and quite slowly forcing its way upstream.   My four pound line was not bothering it very much.  It was not long after I belatedly sussed that the fish had to be one of the river's barbel, and probably a very good one, that the end tackle came flying back at me, and the fish was off.    The earlier chub and grayling dulled the pain a little but the disappointment remains.  I hate losing fish unseen.   Was it a double?  Would it have been my best from the river?  Could I have kept it out of that snag? All sorts of questions.

The weather was getting worse, the wind strengthening yet more, and occasional showers, some heavy were blasting away at me.   My small umbrella did not fare too well.   It was not blown inside out, but was collapsed by the wind into a half circle, the rib ties being broken.   Repairable, but not good, for the rain was falling more or less horizontally at the time.  It did stop after about twenty minutes, and I found I was not too damp.

Only two further fish were to take my bait, both out of season brown trout in superb condition.  The largest maybe a pound.   The swim was very dead from then on, and although I had a few exploratory casts in other swims, I felt that the best of the day was done, and soon made my way back through the woods to the car.  I resolved to return to the river, in a different swim, early the next day.  A day which was very different.  the sky had cleared overnight, which allowed an early light frost.  The wind had disappeared entirely, and once it dawned, the sun shone steadily and illuminated the remaining leaves from a low angle.  Quite pretty.   the events of the day were to be very different too.   Wildlife which had been hiding from the weather yesterday, now emerged. A splashing to my left proved to be a cormorant, which having seen me, was flapping its way downstream, low over the water.  Several more were to pass me heading both up and downstream during the day. Four mallards chased a goosander downstream.  A large bird emerged from the trees opposite, and headed upriver.   It was a buzzard, almost certainly the one I heard the day before. It probably resented having to flap its wings...no thermals today. Next to pass was a dipper, flashing low over the water upstream.  It splash landed about 100 yards above me, near to some protruding rocks. Ideal dipper habitat.  

A pair of Dippers I Photographed on This River a While Ago.

A Bullhead, A Fairly Rare Capture of a Very Common Fish.

As dawn broke, I had reeled in to re-bait.  Snagged!   Yet another feeder lost, but the hook remained, surrounded by a tiny bullhead.   It had taken 4 maggots on a size 12 hook.    The insides of a bullhead are very much like the Tardis.  On another river a year or so ago, I had caught one that had somehow taken two lobworms on an appropriate sized worm hook.  Open up a bullhead and you will probably find all sorts of stuff, 17mm halibut pellets, half a dozen maggot feeders, that missing sock.  

The still and bright conditions made it very easy to spot any slight movements, and a small white dot that moved opposite proved to be a rabbit, which mooched about directly opposite me.   That white tail seemed to completely invalidate otherwise excellent camouflage.  What purpose does it have to make it worthwhile to override its blatant visibility? The buzzard returned, from the other direction, landing in a tree, the high bank shielding the rabbit from its sight.   But moments later the bird repeated its upriver flight path.  The rabbit must have seen it pass over, for it froze, becoming totally immobile for over a minute.  Three jays were to fly over, separated by thirty minute intervals, quite high, and all along the same flight path,  as if they were planning to land on Runway One at the airport.  A pair of nuthatches did not alert me by their movements. Instead I heard some shrill peeping whistles above me, and on looking up saw them scuttling along an oak tree branch  above me. There were quite a lot of nuthatches flitting about.

Here's Four Nuthatch Pictures I Took Earlier. Crazy Birds.

The fishing remained difficult, the expected additions to yesterday's catches was not happening.  Only when I cast well away from the hotspot, did I finally get a bite.    Another grayling, and apparently from the same pea-pod as those yesterday.  Exactly the same size.   It was one very cold fish.  Despite further searching, it was to be the only bite.  The cold overnight had maybe put the fish off and my hands were now turning blue.    I stopped just long enough to see a heron flying downstream towards me.  Of course it saw me, did a U-turn and diverted its way back on the other side of the far bank trees. Day two had proved very different to day one.

But a good couple of days' grayling fishing on a far easier stream than that I have fished of late.  Still looking for that two pound fish, but four grayling for six pounds was an excellent result.   But the question remains:  a) with so many fish around 1-8, do I fish on expecting a two pounder.   or
b) with all the fish "one size fits all", do I have no chance of a two, at least from that swim?

Oh and....Shame about the barbel.