Does Size Always Matter?

Spring crashes on, its signposts are everywhere.  The roads I drive on are now littered with fox cubs in the early mornings,  although as I get nearer to the venues I gradually see less foxes, and far more white flashes from the scuts of rabbits clearing the road in front of me.  I wonder whether the words scut, as in a rabbit's tail, and scuttle, to run away and escape, are related  Scuttling perfectly describes the actions of the rabbits as they see and run from my headlights. Neither the rabbits, nor the foxes have featured in the roadkill I have passed.  Hedgehogs also seem to have escaped death,  but badgers seem to be very poor at avoiding cars this year, and several have lain dead by the roadside this past month.   It is supposed to be hedgehogs that freeze, confident that their spines will prevent any harm coming to the animal itself, shortly before their being flattened.  Maybe they are getting very scarce, although I still see them in the back garden at times.

I was wrong about the swans.   I never expected that they  would ever lose any cygnets.  The cob, the male swan, is always so very aggressive, and has that "I am the boss on this lake" look about him.  But the family is nevertheless two cygnets short this week.   I doubt that they just died,  all of them looking perfectly healthy last week.  And I don't think they got lost.  The lake is not so big that the swans can't circumnavigate it all several times daily.   So a predator must have claimed two victims.   Poor tactics by the male swan, who, rather than looking after the kids, has spent most of his time chasing geese around the water.   Oh, and annoying the angler in the next swim by swimming through both his lines, as he lay dreaming away in his bivvy.  I always shoo the swans away from my own lines, and am usually successful, although I do get some pretty  vicious hisses from the male as I do so. Occasionally I might have to wave the landing net at them.  It is all for their own good, as I would not want their legs tangled up in my lines any more than they would want my lines wrapped around their legs.   

No signs of the grebes having hatched any young yet.  One spent several hours diving in exactly the same spot, an area of two or three square yards,  just off to my right.   A lot of effort and I only saw him catch one small fish during that time.  The water is fairly deep, and I wonder whether, like the fish, grebes lay their eggs late on such waters, waters that are slow to warm up.   In contrast, in the shallow local park lake, the young grebes are already several weeks old.  It would maybe be to the bird's advantage to lay eggs at a time that is related to the hatching of the year's fish fry. In much the same way that blue tits seem to know when the caterpillars will be most plentiful in the oak trees.

 Other visitors to my swim included this woodmouse, totally oblivious to my presence, and this cheeky, chirpy little chap.

If the alliteration does not help you with the bird's ID: tough!

Most of my days' tenching continue to provide fish at the rate of one bite a day, and I cannot yet seem to find a consistent way to improve this.  Some good fish, some less so, but the recent highlights up until a few days ago,were another at 7, and a fish of 8-11.   Both well worth the wait.   A few males showed up as well, each being a little under 5 pounds but great fighters, as are most male tench.   I seem to catch fish of two very different looks.  One is pale green, almost Granny Smith's apples in colouration, sometimes with quite an orange belly.  The others are dark, almost metallic green, with a belly that is best described as greyish.   I have no statistical data to actually back this up ( so far) but I feel that the darker fish are smaller, and that they fight far harder.  I will leave that as a theory: work in progress, for the moment, and I will see whether future fish help to support the theory.

Having had a number of such zero/one fish sessions, I chose to spend a morning on a farm pond, A change is as good as a rest, and fishing lift method with bread, catching a mixed bag of tench, crucians, roach and one bream, is a very pleasant change indeed.   None of these fish topped half a pound, but there were plenty of them to play on the light rod and centrepin reel.  The pond does hold carp as well, up to at least ten pounds, so there was always the chance of some greater drama.   

During this session I somehow developed a lip ulcer, quite a bad one, very annoying. So driving home I stopped by Tesco's medicine counter, and looked for some suitable cream.  Bonjela Cool was what I chose.  Seen it on the TV, must be good.  Back home I applied it liberally. Oh My God!    Cool?   How can they call it cool?  I almost screamed in agony at the powerful sting that went right through my lip, feeling as if had every intention of severing my tongue!   It was murder, Continuously hurt for a good thirty minutes. The TV adverts do nothing to warn of the near death experiences caused by application of this stuff.  The minty taste, (evidently that was the cool bit),  was just discernible, but the major impact was like having a baseball bat crash into the face.  So painful.   I had intended to buy Tesco's own brand version.  It would have been far cheaper...had it existed.   Tesco knows about this stuff I am sure, and do not want the blame, when their clients experience the excruciating effects of using this cream.  Not daft Tesco: now they can finger the Bonjela company every time.  The tube has lain on the table ever since, and only once more have I dared to try again.  I should not have expected a different result, and did not get a different result, It still felt much like a self inflicted decapitation must feel, except that the pain persists far longer.   A week later, and the ulcer is disappearing all by itself. The tube remains nearly full. How full?    About £2-95 of the £3-00 I paid for it.

One final long tench session produced two fish.  The first was a very dark female, no spawn at all visible.  At 5-15 it was not a huge fish for the water, but it fought as though it were being piloted by

A Gorgeous 5-15 Female.

the very devil himself.  Absolutely wonderful account of itself, and such a beautiful fish too.  Very metallic green.   I would have been happy with just the one fish, but decided to stay on through the night.   The lake remained as a mirror the whole time and very few fish, save the odd roach, moved. Sometimes I would swear there were no fish diluting the water in the lake.  I had one rod cast over a tight patch of bait, and another was equipped with a size 6 hook, three maggots and a lump of breadflake adorned it, and it was cast as far as I could into a weedy area. Maybe 50 yards, not much more, as I am no distance casting champion.  The night remained peaceful, with just the bats for company.  The fish had deserted me.  But at exactly 5 o'clock, certainly within 30 minutes of 5am, the distance rod had a bite.   I didn't see the dough bobbin rise up to the carbon fibre, it was far too quick, the bait runner was also too surprised to play any part in the incident, but the reel suddenly started to revolve rapidly backwards. I do not fish bolt rigs, but this fish was sure to have hooked itself.  I struck though, and feeling a heavy weight, thought "a carp".  The fish moved left, heavy and slow, and I was able to reel in the other line out of the way.   After I did so, the fish went quite solid, and stationary,  and I became convinced it

A Spawny 10-5 Tinca. Not so gorgeous.

was off, and that I was into some heavy weed.   Apart from one moment when I thought that a bream might have taken the bread, there was nothing more to be felt on the line, no movement and I slowly pumped in what appeared to be merely a massive ball of weed.  As it neared the net I saw some smooth green, the flank of a tench?     I quickly removed most of the weed, and the fish, which had been completely encased by weed,  moved out powerfully and bored deep several times close in. I have experienced this before: a fish with its head buried in weed will often lie completely still and not fight.  It was netted soon after, and was indeed a tench.  The hook fell out in the landing net, and I thought that maybe I should have netted the weed ball, rather than removing the weed from the fish, thus taking the risk of allowing it to have another swim round.  After a few quick photos I weighed it, and then weighed it again, and again:   ten pounds five ounces!   A new personal best, and my first double figure tench.  

But it had only gained that weight by virtue of at least three quarters of a pound of spawn, maybe even a bit more.  And so my excitement level was not perhaps what it should have been.  Am I my own worst enemy? Wanting all my fish to look perfect and pretty?  Dampening the experience for myself? The 5-15 of the evening before was just as exciting a fish to catch. So size is not everything for me. For many other anglers though, it is.   And I can understand that, although if they were being honest there is not really much more skill involved in the capture, as the weight of a fish gets larger.   If I were being cruel, and having another rant at them, I might suggest that they were fishing in grab-a-granny mode.   Only the weight (effectively age?) matters to them.  Me: I like them pretty.

There is a large barbel in the local stream. It weighs anywhere between 12 and 14 pounds, varying somewhat over the weeks and months, and has been around that weight for several years.   This fish has been named "The Big Girl", by those anglers who MUST name fish, and appears it to be something of a neighbourhood bike.  Everyone and his dog has caught it, some anglers several times.  It probably got to be the biggest in the river by feeding freely, and it seems to get caught at least a dozen times each year, sometimes on a weekly or even daily basis.   People fish for this fish, targetting it specifically.  I avoid the swims in which it lives, quite intentionally.  I don't want to catch it.   A representative from the EA thinks it must be 25 years old, and I assume he therefore thinks it was one of the initially stocked fish.  A great great grab-a-granny?  25 years is a ripe old age for any fish, and I am a little surprised it has not lost much weight from its maximum.  Or rather at 25 years, shocked it didn't die years ago. Do fish suffer from dementure I wonder? Is this a fish that cannot remember that it has just had its breakfast, and hence gets caught again and again?  ;-)    Apologies to Bill, Paul, Jerry, Steve etc. etc.....................etc.

I think I might now go and hide for a while. 

...and Over-confidence.

There is nothing like a good day by the lake to boost confidence to stratospheric levels.  Having a great day, and then seeing the next day dawn identically: same temperature, same cloud cover, same wind strength and direction, endows the angler with a sure fire certainty that he will catch.  That may well be so on your waters,  but not on my tench lake.   After my 6 hour, 9 fish session I was back in the same swim, at the same time, with the same tactics and the same bait the next day.    Nothing had changed, except the fish.  The fish had returned to their usual uncooperative sweet selves, and I did not get a single bite.   An angler needs confidence. I cannot explain it in any logical way but a confident angler will have far more success than one who is not so.   But confidence is not everything, and fish are frequently able to override any other factors so as to change the results.   That is what happened on my recent successful trip.  It was not the case that the fish suddenly decided to stop biting...it was more that, on that one day. they suddenly decided to feed very well indeed.     Their behaviour probably had more to do with my success than all my skills and experience combined.   And so trips to the lake have now returned to the "one fish/no fish" normality.

That first and successful day also saw fish rolling all over the lake.  It was noticeable the next day that very few fish were seen moving at all.  And that is another enigma: why DO fish roll?   It seems obvious to me that their rolling had something to do with their feeding on that day.   I remember fishing Loch Hightae, back in about 1965.   Hightae is very near to Lochmaben, Scotland, and famed for its big bream fishing back then. Seven pounders were being caught!  It  was probably against the rules to fish Hightae, but it was much more peaceful, smaller, and with a dour Lochmaben yielding no fish to the English invasion,we decided to fish one night, one when we thought no-one would be looking.   I suspect they actually would not have cared, Hightae not being a trout loch.   Three of us had driven up to Scotland in an old Austin A35 van.   The sort of van owned by an eighteen year old with little money. It was rated at 5 cwt (hundredweight)  and so must have been near the limit with just the three anglers on board.  Add the tackle, clothing etc for a week and groundbait, and we had one very overloaded small van.  More on the groundbait later, save to say we had two separate hundredweight bags of it crammed into the back.   Half way up the motorway the van decided it was not overly keen on the way we had packed it, and collapsed on its suspension, with the rear leaf spring mountings coming up through the rusty old floor.    The rest of the journey became even less comfortable, but we did get there, and knew we would have a lot less weight going back...so no problem.

On this particular night, having left Keith, the van owner, crying over his Austin, Eric and I headed for the Loch.  It was a mile or so to walk, but we arrived early evening and found a couple of adjacent swims in amongst the reeds.  Soon, looking a hundred yards to our right, we could see a shoal of bream rolling. A large shoal. Some thirty yards out, they were moving slowly, parallel to the bank, and getting nearer.  So we mixed some of the groundbait.  It was unlike any I had seen before, or since.  It was breadcrumbs, but was bright yellow in colour, and very coarse.  So coarse that it actually hurt the fingers as we mixed it.  We were close to drawing blood, it being more like bread crystals than bread crumbs. I could see, as the shoal drew closer, that there were a LOT of bream in it, and decided that we should mix the bait as hard as possible.  And we did:  there was something about that bait that enabled us to generate balls with the size, shape and consistency of cricket balls.  They did not change shape or break up when dropped.  Real splod-oosh balls. We threw in about thirty or forty of these and sat waiting, rods cast in with a lump of Mother's Pride bread (medium sliced) on the hooks, as the bream got gradually nearer.  They eventually reached our swim and stopped.  The stopped all night, and I imagined them playing football with their yellow cricket balls.  Desperate for the tasty delights under their noses, but unable to break in and take a bite.  There was no way they could have chiseled them away quickly.  A few extra balls were chucked in to top up the swim every couple of hours.   The final result was over thirty bream for me, and about fifteen for Eric.   And all the time they rolled.  Another instance where the rolling was feeding related.   Once daylight arrived in its full force, the rolling and the feeding stopped simultaneously.   But the question remains: why were they rolling?

Izaac Walton mentions bream rolling. I think he referred to them as sentinels in "The Compleat Angler": lookouts, if you will.   In his time that was probably as good an idea as anyone might have had.  The eye of a fish though, is designed to see clearly, and in focus, under water.  The curvature of the pupil would mean that, out of water, any vision would be blurred, and so it is unlikely that a half second glimpse, as the fish porpoises, would be likely to reveal anything at all, never mind any dangerous, above the surface, predators.  The fish would have been far safer keeping down and out of sight.

Another guess I have seen mentioned is that fish, changing depths, need to equalise pressure in their swim bladder, by adding or expelling air.  But the Hightae fish were in a constant depth, and my tench lake fish were all over the lake, in varying depths, some quite shallow, some much deeper than float fishing depth. Fish are split into two groups, and one group has swim bladders that have an opening into the mouth and throat area of the fish.  Most of out UK species are like that.  So if a fish wanted to sink deeper, one option, other than by absorbing gas into the blood, would be to expel a bubble from the bladder. No need for rolling.  If it wished to rise in the water, then, other than transferring gas from the blood to the swim bladder, it could alternatively gulp a bubble or two from the surface.   BUT, why would a shoal of bottom feeding bream need to rise up in the water? They wish to stay deep, surely?

 Interestingly. different species seem to roll differently.  Bream mostly seem to stay upright, with just the tops of their backs and dorsal fin breaking surface.  I cannot say with certainly whether their mouths/gills  break surface. Hard to tell.     Tench seem to roll more on their sides, or roll, turning onto their sides as they do so.  Carp mostly come half way out, head first, flopping back onto their chins. And a carp often will have two or three flops within just a few seconds.  Each of these species seem to roll in their own way, but with some precision, it is not a random movement.  Roach seem to be more splashy, but may be doing it for a different reason.   Barbel roll, but only rarely on the surface.  Far more often they turn on their sides whilst remaining on the bottom of the stream.  In clear water they will often reveal their presence by such manoeuvres, flashing their white stomachs.  They don't take in air, but for a bottom living species, it must be an advantage to be always a little bit denser than the water around them.  Trout and grayling break surface, but they have their own, different reason for doing so.

I have heard people suggest that fish roll to get rid of parasites.  But most parasites hang on to a fish as if their life depends on it ( which it may well do) and a rolling fish would certainly not dislodge a fish louse such as argulus.  And why would large numbers of a shoal all suddenly decide to get rid of a parasite or two at the same time?    Others suggest that the fish is passing air through the gills to dislodge mud and debris, picked up whilst feeding.   But it cannot be that simple,  as many, many times fish feed well but do not roll.

All I know is that rolling fish are not to be ignored: their rolling is probably something to do with feeding, but if the fish are rolling all in one place, then that at least reveals where they are, and where my bait should be. I would like a weather forecast that said: cloudy, wind 6 mph, fish rolling.  For now: another fishy mystery remains largely unsolved.

But back to the fishing:  several sessions with few bites allowed me to listen again to those cuckoos.   And I found that they do on occasion have some variation in their calls.  The odd "cuk" all by itself, or followed by a sort of throat clearing rattle, almost as if coughing up phlegm, before settling into full cuckoo clock mode.  As the weeks pass they are gradually calling less and less.

The mallards are interesting birds.  There have been two pairs with young on the lake.  One lost all its

Mallard Duckling

chicks quite quickly, I only saw them once.  The other had a starter for ten, and then there were seven ducklings hanging on the wall,  followed by five, three and now just two.   These are now three quarters grown, and often spend time away from mum.  The drake also seems to be in regular attendance. In the absence of the parents the duckings call constantly, one having a high pitched tweet, the other being much more of a  quack, very different sounds.  Maybe one is female, the other a male with its voice broken.  As ever, the lake supports a few solitary males as well.  These have "urges", and the female of the pair seem to be subjected to being regularly raped by these isolated males, her own partner seemingly torn between trying to drive them off, and trying to join in.   The family, the parents and two young were sitting quietly on the bank one day, until the second pair of mallard floated by, twenty yards out.  The male on the bank flew out, raping the other female, and then sauntered back as if nothing had happened.   All a little disturbing, but it led me to wonder how humans might behave had we not constrained our own behaviour with laws, rules, religions and social conventions.

The male swan continues to drive away any other bird on or near the lake, and the reason has become apparent.  The pen has had a well hidden nest, and her absence has allowed incubation of her eggs. So there are now some very young cygnets on the lake.  The swans KNOW they are the bosses.  It is why they, of all the birds, are quite happy to bring their young very close inshore, and quite near to an angler.  The swan knows he is in charge and cannot imagine that any other creature would dare to interfere with his brood.

Bullfinches, Male and Young

Back home the first young birds are appearing on the feeders: bullfinches, greenfinches and goldfinches.  One of the male bullfinches appears to have damaged a foot.   He can perch on a branch, but sits low down, feathers covering his feet.   He can only take food from the feeders by hovering, humming bird style.   Humming birds make it look so much easier. But he is surviving well, and seems otherwise to be in good health.

In between the nature studies I have had the occasional fish, never more than one a day recently,  but one tench was a new personal best again.  At 9-2 and female it truly was a very good looking fish indeed. Although not empty of spawn, it did not have so much as to distort the fish's shape unduly.  I could have looked at it for hours had I suspected it could breathe air. Perfection, if not in miniature.

.  
There have been three or four other tench too, but none so big as this one. Some sessions remained

A Tenchy Little Corner

blank.  I remember one of them well.  It was raining, but I sat under my umbrella in as much comfort as the situation could provide.  I wish I had read the weather forecast before setting out.   It was flat calm in the afternoon as I read Charles Dickens's "David Copperfield".  A good read. You see, it is not just the female of the species that can multitask.  I can read and fish at the same time with ease, especially when the bites are light years apart.  My apologies to any scientific pedants reading that.    I read with some unease, and was at a crucial part of the plot, in which there was a great storm over Yarmouth, uneasy because, as I read, the wind by the lake also strengthened.  I struggled to hold on to the brolly, and eventually exited stage left, and took it, with all my gear to  a more sheltered spot, in deep vegetation, but with trees behind, sheltering me fairly well from the wind.   As the evening progressed about 50 house martins hunted near me.  They too were flying in the wind shadow of a thick wood, with one or another bird occasionally breaking ranks and flying off by itself, probably to feed its young.   The

Dawn

wind continued throughout the first part of the night, reaching about 50 mph.   It remained warm but the night was otherwise distinctly unpleasant.    The wind, early in the morning eased off completely, with the lake becoming flat calm as dawn broke.   I knew it was dawn because the grass and other foliage looked as if it had been left out all night.     And it was about then that I also discovered that I should really have gone home.   Moving into an area of already wet foliage was not the best of ideas, and all my gear, and my clothing, was covered in slugs.  In my pockets too.  Hundreds of them.   Even now, the odd one seems to find its way out of my tackle and onto the floor of the utility room wherein I keep my gear.  Wifey is not amused by black slugs crawling up the fridge.

Ruddy Shelduck

She also does not really like me going fishing, and so I sometimes take walks instead.  She does not mind walks, although from her point of view I am just as much not there, whether walking or fishing. Odd.   But the travel gives a chance to see more,  and to take a few interesting photos.    This was a bird I could not identify. But having found someone who was a far better googler than I am, it is a ruddy shelduck.  Either a rare visitor to the UK, or an escapee.

And a grass snake.    This is only the third I have ever seen, the other two being swimming in some water or other years ago.

This one is, I think, quite large as grass snakes go.   It has two areas of damage, wounds,  possibly made by a heron?   The yellow marking on its head identifies it as a grassie, rather than an adder.

The Eclipse of March 20th, and Other Photos That Day...and NO FISH!

Firstly let me apologise for not yet having written the rest of the posts about the mahseer fishing trip. This is not JUST due to laziness on my part but also because some things relating to the trip are still going on in the background, which make it inadvisable for me to post just for the moment. Since my return I have caught the odd trout, grayling and bream, but nothing really worth writing about has happened, so I will mention them no more.  So today is all about a few photographs, with minimal commentary.  None of the shots are great, merely reminders of the day.

Friday the 20th of March started very early in the morning as usual.   I didn't.  I waited until it was nearly time for the eclipse to start, and then went out into the cold onto a small balcony on the top of the bay window of the house a little after eight o'clock.   It was of course cloudy, and I was expecting very little would be there to be seen.  The last time I remember seeing a solar eclipse, also a partial, was back in 1959, I was at school at the time, and no one warned us against looking at the sun.   I did, and was probably lucky to have suffered no eye damage.   Friday's eclipse was, or so I read,  about 93% coverage, as viewed from Manchester.  And it actually took quite a long time to progress.  From first contact to the end was well over two hours with the maximum being at 9.32 A.M.   Despite the cloud I did manage to take quite a few photos, and although the clouds were never completely absent, I actually think that they give additional interest to the pictures with an almost rainbow-like colour effect infusing into the clouds.

Neither of these pictures was taken at maximum coverage of the sun, and I admit to having been disappointed that the world did not turn very noticeably darker at any time during the event.  The birds did not exhibit changes in behaviour, and the traffic did not stop in panic.  It was just quite cold up there and away from the central heating.  Nice to see it though and it could well be my last view of one, unless I live much longer than anyone wants me to.  Myself excluded of course.

Having got the camera up and running, and having otherwise used the best part of the fishing day, I ventured out to the river, camera in hand, rods in utility room.  I had decided to have another go at photographing the dippers, and was soon sitting precariously on the river bank, overlooking a spot where I knew the dippers were often to be seen.  Today they weren't, but after a while a pair of grey wagtails arrived on the far bank.   They did what grey wagtails always do, pottering up and down the edge of the stream, waggling their tails like mad.  All the while the scent of the newly sprouting wild garlic filled the air about me, probably because I crushed a fair few leaves as I worked my way near to the river's edge. No white flowers yet though.

Grey Wagtail

The dippers though did not appear and so I drifted downstream a short way, and caught sight of a pair of goosanders through the trees.  They were, as usual, very shy birds, but allowed me a couple of pictures as they patrolled up and down a short stretch of river.  They dived for fish several times, but to date I have never seen a goosander catch anything at all.   But maybe they are secret eaters, swallowing their prey beneath the surface and out of my sight?

Female Goosander

Male Goosander

 Moving further downstream I came to this pretty little spot, and one of the dippers was suddenly visible on the far bank.  

I clambered down again to the edge, not as close as I would have liked to get to the bird, but again, I managed a couple of  shots at distance.            I waited for a long time, hoping for him, 

or perhaps her, to enter the stream, but the bird remained a strict landlubber.  

I then decided to see how well the video function on the camera worked, and so took a short clip.  But still the uncooperative little creature would not dip into the water.  And then I found that, once placed into the blog, the video would not play.  I am still working on that problem. The video may appear later.

A couple of mallards completed the river's bird collection.  

En- route back home I stopped by the lake, one I fish a few times in Spring.   It is still very bare, few signs of new growth either from the trees or the water plants. Deep water, so it warms up slowly. But a pair of grebes were keeping each other  close company, so nesting, mating and chicks are getting near to being on the week's menu.  The male swan, the cob, has already started his own duties: chasing away any Canada goose or mallard that comes near,  with near meaning "anywhere on the lake".  It all seems a bit pointless, as, whenever the cob gets near, the chased bird just takes off, and flies a few yards further away. Silly swan, it has no chance at all of actually catching one of the trespassers.   I wonder if the displayed aggression is in any way related to that phrase "getting a cob on"? 

Annoyed Swan

Threatening Swan

 On returning home a few more species were visible around the feeders in the garden, goldfinch, greenfinch,  bullfinch, several tit species, dunnocks, woodpigeon and robins visiting in their turn. The bullfinches are very faithful to each other.  I never see the female without the brilliantly coloured male being in fairly close attendance, regardless of the time of year.  A new addition, not seen in the garden for well over a year was a lone blackcap. It may have been taking lessons from the swan, in that it was very aggressively chasing any and all small birds away from the feeders. 

Stroppy Female Blackcap

None was allowed to remain.  But what was most surprising is that this bird was a female: grey with a brown cap: perhaps a chestnut would be a better term for it than a blackcap.  It is alone, no male seems to be resident nearby.  But so much aggression must be unusual in the female of almost any species.

Goldfinch

Greenfinch

Bullfinch

Woodpigeon with that Typical Staring Eye.

...and of Course  a Robin, looking Perky and Intelligent as Ever.

Nina went to clear out one of our nestboxes a few days ago, and was surprised, as she put her hand into the box, it touched feathers, and not old nest material.  The robin that had been sitting there flew out, surprising her, such that she nearly fell into the pond. The robin returned to the nestbox a few minutes later, and so we must expect some young robins fairly soon. I myself went to look at a second nest box, also open fronted, robin style, and as I neared it, a woodmouse ran out.   I am sure he will return too.

The crocus planted with the aid of the Black and Decker have done well, and there are hundreds of flowers now.  sadly not a single white crocus amongst them.  

I should have retained the packets, as I am sure they pictured white ones.  Even the yellow are few and far between, purple prevailing.  

The evening arrived and to complement the eclipse of the morning, the moon and Venus were both present in the evening. By over exposing slightly I was able to include the full disc of the moon lit rather poorly, whilst the crescent remained bright. Almost like a second eclipse.

And finally, back to the warmth of a good old traditional coal fire.  No fishing, but quite a good day.

 

Frustrations

After catching two superb roach in the last three or four trips, I chose to make hay whilst the iron was hot and went back.    Not good.   The four provisional swims I had mentally listed to choose from, were all full of carp anglers.    People who sit there for days labelling my roach as tench, whenever they rise and splash in front of them.    And this was Sunday evening.   You would think that they would have cleared off to watch some of the football.    Would you believe that none of them anticipated my arrival and left space for me?   One even sneaked in just five minutes before my arrival.  Have these carp anglers no shame?

But it gave me a chance to try another swim, one I have fancied but not fished before.  I blanked of course,

Great Tit and Two Young Pleaders.

spectacularly so, without any signs of fish rising, and nothing interfered with my bait, save for a cheeky robin and some young great tits.

The next trip was to be to one of my proven swims, but became an even greater failure.  I have now realized that blanking without a twitch is far more tolerable to blanking having had six bites.  I made mistakes.  Too many mistakes. The one bite on worm ( probably a tench) was struck too soon.   Years ago when I float fished lobworm for tench under a long piece of peacock quill, I let the float move at least five feet across the water before striking.  Tench have fair sized mouths but a large lively wriggling worm is difficult to engulf when one has no hands and ones' pectoral fins do not quite reach ones' lips. So I struck too soon and missed.    I also missed one bite on hair rigged paste of some kind...krill... I think.    No explanation for that miss. A third bite was missed whilst dealing with the aftermath of this next photograph. The resident pair of swans have 

Silly, Stupid, Semi Submerged Swan.

five cygnets this year, recently hatched.  The parents were shepherding them across my swim, and I was mentally thanking them for keeping far enough out, that they did not swim through and interfere with my lines.  I had recently, writing elsewhere, stated that swans do not feed their young. These swans decided to prove me wrong as one upended, and came back up with a strand of weed which it then gave to its young. Unfortunately weed was not all the swan came up with:  it came up with my line half hitched around its neck.  Stupid bird.  And of course the bait runner went mad, giving out line as the bird tried to disentangle itself...unsuccessfully. When I picked up the rod and clicked the baitrunner off, the line was still firmly in place like a hangman's noose, and every half second or so was jerkily giving way a little more.  I realized that the line was slowly moving as the swan moved away, rotating around its neck, and it was obvious that eventually the feeder and hook would gradually get nearer to the bird, causing a disaster, or even decapitating the swan .  The only thing I could think of doing was to strike hard, so as to break the line.  It broke at the bird's neck, and the swan seemed to be completely unharmed, which was a great relief.  I was still worried that the other part of the line, that with the feeder and hook, might be attached to the bird, but an hour or so later I reeled the end tackle in, having snagged it with another line. So the swan had a lucky escape, and my guilt dissolved.  But having broken the line I had to re-tackle, and whilst I did so, after four hours of inactivity, I had a bite on rod number two.  Missed it due to messing with rod number one at the time, tying on a fresh hook.

My worst errors were the other three bites, which came on 2 maggots topped with three casters.   These bites may well have been roach, possibly very big roach.  My mistake here was to try and fish such baits when I was far too tired to sit and hover over the rods.  The indicators were moving about 12 inches and then stopping. I should have been hitting these bites sooner, before the guts had been sucked out of the casters. Legering casters for stillwater roach is an artform, and I am fairly convinced that I was metaphorically asleep in Tracey Emin's unmade bed... if not actually asleep... which I also may well have been.  I was just too tired to fish in that way.   Maybe shorter sessions chasing these  roach might be better tactics?   Trouble is that after a long drive, I don't really want to fish for just three or four hours before facing the motorway again.

On the way back, I stopped to look at a club pond that was more or less en-route. I had heard that it held great crested newts, and hoped to be able to photograph one.    No chance.    But I did see quite a decent fish stir in the rushes that encircle this very small pond. It is no more than 40 yards by ten, at its maximum dimensions.   So I determined, next morning to have a go for the fish, and also to have another look for the newts.    4am start, because I actually managed to wake up...and get up when the alarm rang,   cast out a float with my light Avon rod, and 4 pound line, expecting that the fish would be a carp of four or five pounds.   I don't often target specific fish, but it seemed a nice challenge for the morning.   Three six inch rudd, brightly lit little fellows took the breadflake on the first three casts.  Then I saw a good sized fish cruise across the pond to my left, heading in towards the rushes.  I predicted (OK, OK I guessed) that, on reaching them it would turn left towards me, and so cast six feet nearer to me and about eighteen inches out from the bank.   After just a minute the float started to glide away, and I struck into a heavy fish.   A heavy sluggish fish, and I was at first quite confused.

Grass Carp

Grass Carp Head

  Too heavy to be a chub, roach, rudd or bream, and too slow to be a carp.   And I was surprised that, although it maintained its depth well, it seemed to have no wish, or ability, to take line.  The fight was all taking place no further than 4 or 5 yards from me.   I found it quite easy to turn the fish, several times.  Of course I had not expected that it would be a grass carp.   Two other grassies I caught last year fought very poorly too.  But this one was far bigger, and a personal best, out of the three members of the species I have now landed in total.    It weighed thirteen pounds seven, and was a very pleasing fish.  A handsome fish but it was never one that was going to go to a second round with Tyson. You might have thought that a fish that was shaped very much like a salmon, might fisght something like one. But no. The head, around the eyes and mouth area is fairly featureless,  leading me to gain the impression that it is a quite gormless creature.  Anyone else think that this is a fish that looks to have less than the usual quota of intelligence?

I was in a bit of a "job done" situation, so decided to return to the other pond I fished recently, to do some bit bashing.   It was still only 5am.  As I nearer the other pond I realized that, in my euphoria, I had completely forgotten about the newts.   Another time maybe.  Pond 2, after a slow start fished well for small fish, and  by eleven o'clock I was starting to get a little bored.  the score stood at about 20 small tench, 15 small crucians, the odd mini carp and F1, a couple of small roach,  rudd, and what I think was a tiny ide.   The largest fish was a two pound crucian/goldfish cross...or maybe it was simply a brown goldfish.   Not sure which.  I was nearing the last cast stage when I had a tangle around the spool.  The 4 pound line has done some serious work, gaining a few twists in the process, and as a result of the tangle, my float dropped quite short, nowhere

near the baited area and the mass of small fish in and around it. I was helped in untangling the line by a fish pulling at the rod tip. Tangle now gone, this fish was putting up a considerable scrap.  I was having trouble keeping it from a close in snaggy area in which I had lost another fair sized fish earlier in the day.  The fish was moving around the swim at speed, always seeming to stay around mid-water, but just would not reveal itself.   On the 4 pound line and Avon, this was quite exciting stuff.   Eventually, after quite a long time, the fish was mine.   I don't usually like carp much, especially mirrors, but this was a common carp that was quite lovely, even by tench standards.  Probably spot on ten pounds, with a great looking tail, and perfect scales.

And see. Blogger has done it once again, rotating my carp this time. 90 degrees anticlockwise.   Well I am sorry, but it is far easier for you to rotate your head, or turn the screen on its side than it is for me to fix this.  I have tried four times, but Blogger keeps beating me, and four attempts is enough. I give up!

Not having had enough of ponds yet, and needing a short session, I visited yet another small club pond.  I had seen the pictures on the club web site, taken in Winter, and it was nicely shrouded by trees, and with very clear obstruction free water.  I nearly decided NOT to fish it because the water itself looked fairly featureless.  What a mistake that would have been!   The pond is now, in high Summer, absolutely lovely, full of lilies, both common yellow and fancy whites.  It was also an "Oh My God" moment, as I realized that hooking anything of a size would present serious problems.

Lilies...Everywhere.

Pristine Mini Tench

Not a Silver Bream

 

The pond was like an estate lake, but made 15 or 20 times smaller, whilst retaining every last clump of lily.  There were hundreds if not thousands of white lily flowers, what my Chinese friends would call lotus flowers.  The place looks absolutely fabulous, and I cast my float into one of the gaps between the lily beds.  Not too long before something took the bread, and the first of a dozen or so tiny immaculate tench came to hand.  I had read, in the club handbook, that the pond contained silver bream, and to be honest their presence was the main reason I chose to fish the pond.  It was not long before the first of a few immaculate but tiny bream joined the tench.  A couple of small and also immaculate rudd and perch were to take red maggots later.  The bream were however, as far as I can tell, just little common bream, and I suspect that their bright shiny condition may have confused other anglers who have caught them in the past.  There MAY also be silver bream in the pond, but somehow I doubt it.  All the while I fished, the wildlife was up and about.  A fox slunk away just outside the pond fence soon after I arrived.  It is probably a fit and healthy fox, for there were many pheasants nearby.  I regularly heard their double croak, followed by that quick fluttering noise of wings that seems to follow each croak.  A small predatory bird was flitting about over and around the pond. I feel it was probably a sparrowhawk, but did not get a good enough look.   The not good enough look was disturbed by my rod suddenly trying to leap into the pond.   I had taken my eye off the float, and a good fish had grabbed the bait, and was diving deep into the lilies.  The light line broke before I could pick up the rod.    Not the first time bird watching has lost me a fish.   The odd carp was now moving, and so I lobbed out a piece of anchored crust, some six inches to the right of the densest lily bed. Having travelled light, the 4 pound line and light rod was all that was available to me, and it was with some trepidation that I chose to fish with floating bread.  After just a couple of minutes a carp showed interest, and following three unsuccessful attempts to slurp in the bread it succeeded and the hooked carp did exactly what I did not want it to do, by diving straight into the thickest of the lilies, just a few inches away. It went in deeper than just the peripheral floating leaves. The densely packed vertical leaves were disturbed too.  Luck was however greatly on my side, and I managed to persuade the fish back out into open water, and after a few more hair raising moments a six pound mirror was netted.   At this point I decided that I could not trust to get such luck again, and packed up. No real point in risking the certain loss of other fish.  Another trip to the same pond would need to be backed up by heavier gear.
But for the moment I feel the need to go greet a grayling and meet a minnow or two....Bye.