Silt and its S-tench

 This blog entry will probably be quite short, and has been prompted by a couple of lines in a blog by SideStreamBob  down at Wordpress.com.  So I will get right down to the nitty gritty.

As does Bob, I have always preferred to use groundbait, and hookbaits that blend into the background. I have always tried to avoid anything brightly coloured, thinking that a highly coloured bait might put the fish off.   Bob uses black groundbait, manufactured by some company or other, I forget the name, but it is highly irrelevant.   I don't use much groundbait myself, but perhaps I should, as, suitably used it promotes an area of scent, without necessarily providing much feed.  I more usually go for particle baits, but I have also had some excellent catches on some of those few occasions when more conventional groundbait was in use.

But why black?  Bob provided an answer that I had not thought of.  It is possible that fish would avoid a light coloured area, strewn with a pale groundbait, on the basis that fish would feel instinctively exposed to predators whilst swimming above it.   I wonder if this is true though?  Evolution probably does not, and has not, exposed them to pale bottom of lake backgrounds very often, so why would they instinctively avoid it? Why would such get built into the DNA along with other more common reactions to danger. I stress here that I don't know either way. 

I read an article ages ago where the writer described attaching a blue plastic toy elephant near his legered bait. It did not stop him catching barbel, his target fish appeared unconcerned by the alien beast that had attached itself to the hooklink. So are fish worried at all by colour of the groundbaited area?   Are they even able to see in colour?   A quick google suggests that they can, and that many fish can also see in UV light as well. So the presence of a blue elephant in the swim was more ignored than un-noticed.

So what about hookbaits?  I admit to having been surprised in recent years ( having come back from many years spent away from angling) by baits of all colours and shades of the rainbow, anglers even catching fish on baits of dayglo colours. I would never have expected this, but it makes one think that the contrasting colours are actually attracting the fish.  In retrospect sweetcorn is also not a colour you would easily miss, but it is well known to be effective. In clear water a bright pink popped up boilie would be visible for a fair distance. And in murky water it might just be that extra bit visible at close quarters.  Anyway, I have just bought some pink pop-up boilies.  I don't really like using any boilies, but will give them a go.   I have never caught much at all with boilies, the odd bream or two.  So I have developed a Catch 22 cyclic bit of nonsense about them.   I have not caught much with them, so don't use them much. This in turn means I don't catch much using them, which diminishes the confidence to put one on a hair.  I know the cyclic argument makes no sense,  but there it is.   Adding a pink colour on top of all that, and my next cast will not have the usual high confidence factor that I generally have.

I mentioned seeing a bait in cloudy water just above in the text.  Many of the stillwaters I fish have a very silty bottom.   Thick black near liquid, almost toxic mud, acquired from years of rotting leaf fall, fish and bird faeces etc. Many anglers see this as a problem, and design rigs etc to try and deal with it, keeping the bait "afloat". SidestreamBob also mentioned that maggots  probably dig themselves into it and disappear rapidly from sight. I have never thought that they did, after all the Cheshire meres are largely bottomed several feet deep with the stuff, yet particle baiting with maggots used to attract the bream, when I fished for them there years ago.  

I put a camera into a tench swim a couple of years ago, and it was quickly obvious that feeding tench (and probably other species too) stir up the debris on the lake bottom quite considerably.  Certainly enough to render their sight pretty much useless. Other senses, touch, smell and taste have to take over as the main food finding tools in such lakes. 

I have a garden pond, which has remained unfiltered for nearly 30 years since I built it.  Its bottom had become a good 6 inches deep in lovely Cheshire ooze, thick, highly smelly, and very black.  I have been netting some of it out this year, a good dozen large bucketfuls to date. I am hoping it will not ruin the compost heap. And here was a chance to experiment.  Rain had added an inch or so of clear water above 10 inches of gooey gunge in the bucket. So I dropped in a dozen or so maggots. That was an hour or so ago.

Excuse me now whilst I go to check on them.......

Maggots on Mud

Aha.....the maggots are all still on top of the silt, moving rather less vigorously of course, but it seems that maggots do NOT bury themselves, even in almost liquid silt.  This is understandable; in water they become almost weightless, and are unable to get enough purchase to bury themselves. The best they can do is to wander under leaves or any other detritus that sits atop the mud.  But they don't have the guile to intentionally do this, and so all of my maggots have remained visible.  I tried the same experiment with a couple of brandlings. Initially both seemed to dig themselves in, but when the hour was up, both were visible on the surface.

Once a few fish get into this sort of situation, a baited area, and are hungry, their pectoral fins are going 10 to the dozen and everything turns muddy.  Maggots and bottom detritus are just swirled around, with little remaining visible.

Conclusions: don't worry about bait burying itself. If it gets buried it will be because of fish activity. Secondly, I must give a proper go to brightly coloured baits, even if the sight of a pink boilie annoys the hell out of me.

The Red River.

Ah yes, the Red River, but first: some photos I might have added last time, but didn't, from the Farne Islands.

The Only Razorbill I Managed to Get in Shot.

Eider Duck...Just a Big Softie.

And I Am Sure No-one Will Mind Another Arctic Tern... I Didn't Realize That They Had Claws on Those Tiny Webbed Feet.

...And More Puffins.

So, back to the Red River.   I had heard about this river a while ago, its real name being the Medlock, but I had never seen it.   So I took a walk yesterday, as part of a keep fit project to go alongside the dieting.  Only seven more pounds to lose now, in order to reach my target. But every pound gets more difficult, as my body says "No more, that's enough" and my mind now has to fight back hard as it tries to override my gut's instincts. 

When walking, any signpost that reads "riverside walk" is likely to divert me, and yesterday, one such sign did just that.  I found myself on a long length of beautifully laid, Accrington Brick pathway. I followed it upstream.

 But it is not just the pathway that is composed of brick, the river bed itself, the channel, is made entirely in the same manner.  And the other bank has a second pathway, both pathways being about ten feet in width. Hence the "red" river.  By watching and timing a floating leaf, and comparing with my own known walking speed, I determined that the river, now at a fairly low level,  was flowing at about 7 mph.  

Far faster than is conducive to fish presence, even if the brickwork held any natural food.  There was nothing other than water in the channel, no weed, no shopping trolleys, no condoms. Anything in the channel would have been rapidly washed downstream. I don't doubt for a moment that, somewhere downstream, is a huge pile of rubbish of every description.  But the red river itself is the cleanest length of water I have ever seen.  Not one plastic bottle, not even a single football. Not that it does not get its share of rubbish passing through, as can be seen from this outflow pipe, largely blocked with sanitary product. 

Impressive Dry Stone Walling, with Almost Tropical Looking Vegetation.

The bricks on the curve at the interface between river bed and pathways have precisely tapered cross sections. Sculpted bricks to fit in place precisely. Alongside each pathway, one on each bank, are 8 to 12 feet high dry stone walls.  But they are built from huge stones, as much as three feet long and a couple of feet high. A fantastic example of dry stone walling.  Not content with that, at the back of the stones is more brickwork, strengthening the walls even more.  Wildlife was more or less absent, and apart from half a dozen grey wagtails, a species that appears to enjoy living on the edge, I only glimpsed one other bird, in the undergrowth nearby. I think it was a robin.  At various points old archways suggest bits of interesting architecture and tunnels that were once in use.

Nature Finds a Way.

 A few trees have long since invaded the walls, with heavy trunks and roots clinging into the narrowest of cracks. Graffiti artists have so far, apart from a single tag, completely ignored the place.  I should have been horrified by the whole reach, but it did have its own "atmosphere", which in itself was a fascination. And what terrific engineers those Victorians were!
At the end of the red bricks, was a short tunnel under a roadway, but no means was provided to climb up, and back out, of the brick valley, and I began to realize that this brick pathway was possibly...probably...certainly not the advertised "riverside walk". So I had to walk the whole way back, finding the gate I thought I had come through, was now locked.    Slightly worried, I continued downstream to the other end of the red brick road and found a second tunnel.   I also, fortunately, found another way back up the banking.    The red brick paths on either side of the channel are of course, just extensions of the river bed, and very definitely NOT the riverside walk, and with the river in flood those dry stone walls become the containing banks.   I looked up a bit of its history, the bricks being laid following a devastating flood back in 1872, during which the river level was so high, and the flow so great, that many tombstones and bodies were washed away downstream from out of the nearby cemetery.  If it is the same cemetery I saw, the nearest body would have been some 40 feet above the river bed. An impressive flood level for any tiny stream.

Old Arched Structure.

I read that some of the tombstones are still to be seen in the river far downstream. The downstream tunnel (or culvert) is some 600 yards long, flowing right underneath the car parks of Manchester City football club. Another man-made channel, but this time with an arched brick roof. It is one of quite a few subterranean sections of this river, before it finally joins the Irwell on the other side of Manchester city centre.   In 2013 a project was announced to remove all the red bricks, and the underlying concrete foundations, so as to re-naturalize the river. It was reported in the Guardian,  but I see no evidence of any work at all having been carried out.  In the mile long red section there are at most a couple of hundred missing bricks, each removal looking like the work of the river itself. But in general, there is no sign of any significant deterioration, and absolutely no signs of wear on any of those rock hard bricks, despite well over a century of river flow across them.  These 8 million bricks will weather a nuclear attack better than any cockroach.  The longevity and toughness of Accrington bricks led them to being used in some parts of the Empire State Building, and also in another building of rather less significance....my own house.   Above the bridge, at the upstream edge of the Red River, the channel looks far more natural, although its edges are still, in many places, constrained by stone or brick walling. And there are a few fish present here, I saw a small one rise.

I fished a very large water a few weeks ago.  The objective being, once again, tench.   I last fished it over 50 years ago, when I used to catch roach there. It was difficult fishing for a young lad then, long distance casting required to reach deep water, and then it was very deep, far deeper than my rod length, and the float fishing was thus; not at all easy.  Roach, but plenty of them was all I caught...maybe with the odd perch, but the water has, like many others, changed dramatically, and now has tench, a species unheard of in the water back then.  It is still rated a hard water by local anglers, and they may well be right. After forking out for three day tickets ( at a cost rather more than the old price of half a crown), I had just one tench, and a couple of small roach to show for my efforts.  The tench was somewhere between 4 and 5 pounds, I didn't weigh it, but the beast shown below, weighing a lot more, swam right across the lake as I fished.  A red deer, antlers still covered in velvet, and therefore probably still growing.

 In India I have had buffalo, elephant and crocodiles in my swim.  On the Shropshire Union Canal I once had a horse fall into my swim. Unfortunately it drowned.   But a full grown 14 point stag is a first for me.  Later, as I approached my van, he, and a dozen of his mates, in an all male group, blocked my path, being rather reluctant to get out of my way. I half expected to be charged by one or more of them, but it didn't happen. 

I Definitely Felt I Was Being Watched

Fishing wise, not much else to show. A few more tench, four grayling, half a dozen roach-bream hybrids, and two more small roach, these two being all I had caught during three failed sessions chasing bream.  But I was visited by this wonderful little grass snake.

So, a couple of bits of trivia to finish.  
I was quite amused by a sign on a camper van: 

"NO FOOLS LEFT IN THIS VAN OVERNIGHT".

And having watched a programme about the brain on TV, I was shocked to find out that BOTOX was no just a sort of plastic crack filler, as I had previously thought, but  a neurotoxin produced from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.  I suppose I might have guessed that the "tox" referred to a toxin, and maybe not that the "Bo" is derived from a form of botulism. But the very idea of injecting the most lethal neurotoxic known, into one's head, is just astonishing.   My son, a doctor, tells me it is only available by prescription in the UK, and that some doctors make a fair packet prescribing it for the clients of various Botox clinics, whose practitioners do not need any medical training.  Rather than filling in the cracks in the forehead, this stuff actually is locally paralyzing the flesh.  I wonder how many of the recipients of the treatment know just what it is that is being injected?  And surely someone could have come up with some far less dangerous, but equally effective, substance?

The various forms of such vanity treatments are continuing to diversify, but I was again incredulous when my lad told me that one of the latest male fads is a procedure to remove the wrinkles from the scrotum!  OMG...time to go fishing I think.         

Of Birds and Badgers....

Oh dear...I have been lazy and idle once again.   Not written anything for ages.   The paragraphs that follow were all written months ago, round about ten past Spring, and have lain fallow on the hard drive ever since, gathering dust...although any real dust in a hard drive would have spelled the death of any data on it.   My scribblings have instead just died of old age I guess. But here they are, exhumed from the coffin:
 River season approached...rather too fast for my liking.  It was almost an advantage NOT to have a whole slice of angling unavailable to me.   Even without the river, I felt I had too much to go at and too little time during which to tackle it.   Either I ignored all my life outside of angling or I missed  out on some things I really wanted to do.  Having ignored all other things, many years ago, I know it is not the ideal course to navigate...by far!  

Therefore, now that my full vista of waters is available,  I have done rather less with the tench than I had expected.  But I have fished a far greater variety of waters for the species than ever before, and the results, as I expected, have been equally variable.   The tench have varied in both colour and size.  Nothing huge, but some nice ones amongst them. Their colours, especially in fish taken from clear water, can be stunning, some with orange bellies, others very metallic green, and all having that super slippery feel to them.  Most have come to the float, and often when also fishing for crucian carp.  There is something very exciting about seeing a float slowly rise four or five inches,  and having the resultant strike hit something that is solid, and obviously NOT a crucian.    Having this happen near the lily pads that fringe the lake, using a light trotting rod, and similarly light tackle all adds to the experience.   I was sort of "told off" by a club bailiff this week.  He suggested, quite strongly, that I should be using at least 10 pound line, "because the fish are not shy", and "the deep reedbeds fringing most of the lake are a problem, with many anglers losing fish in them".  But I just cannot fish like that, I am old fashioned maybe, and like to think that the fight is a two way scenario, not one that I KNOW I will win.  Some of the scraps I have had, have therefore been a bit heart in mouth stuff, especially knowing that, if properly entangled in those lily pads I might also lose an expensive, custom built float.  I speak to many anglers who take the view that, once hooked, the fish MUST be landed at all costs. And so they use tackle that to me seems far, far too heavy.   I don't lose many fish myself to breakages, no matter how caused, and unless that changes I will continue to fish my own way, using whatever tackle I feel is suited.    But I will admit that, with a good tench on the line, and in the lilies, I have occasionally wondered whether that 13 foot trotting rod, three pound line, half pound test curve, the one I use for crucians, grayling and the like, is actually a bit under gunned for the job.  But I continue to extract the fish from the pads, if with difficulty, and so continue to use it. 

    But the tench fishing has not been without its problems, and I have had about four very good ( but unseen) fish, shed the hook well into the fight.   I feel this is unusual for tench, their thick rubbery lips should retain almost any hook hold.   But I have changed my hooks this year, to a model with a much finer wire and a micro-barb.   I don't venture any final opinion to the barbed/barbless arguments.   I feel that an experienced, caring angler should be able to extract a barbed hook without creating any damage to the fish.  It might take experience, but it is perfectly feasible to unhook a fish well.   I don't hold with another common belief either, that barbless hooks move around in the mouth of the fish, as it is played, therefore causing damage.  I see no evidence for that at all.    I do think though, that match anglers, who let's face it, need to fish quickly, should be using barbless hooks at all times.  For matches I think they should be compulsory, matchmen do not have time to battle a hook out, and so the more unscrupulous may well damage some of their fish.  But using barbless should enable them to extract the hook very speedily indeed, with no risk of damage.  

   But what of my problem?  Well, I have been wondering whether, in a long fight with a good fish, a fine wire hook might just cut its way through the flesh.  I need to study the hook holds in my landed fish, to search for any signs that the hook is acting like cheesewire.     I like these hooks, and would like to keep using them, but may find I have to revert in the future.   Certainly, to use them with ten pound line, and with a rod capable of applying that kind of tension, I might well be damaging fish...and would certainly be straightening a few hooks too.  In my opinion, if you straighten a hook, then the line you are using is too strong for that hook, and I am still surprised that hooks do not come with a recommended line strength.. Hook/line combinations can be tested easily at home before use, but you must try to emulate a genuine hook hold. Putting the hook point on a block of wood and pulling on the attached line  is not a good way to do it, as most hook holds are on the bend of the hook, not its point...another reason why the barbed/barbless argument is often a lot of people talking without thinking,  without any real knowledge of what is actually happening down at the hook.   

I don't like being TOLD how I must fish, preferring to work things out for myself.  I will be ignoring that bailiff's comments for the moment.  Many of the clubs' rules are a little unreasonable.  I fish waters where you are banned from taking any glass or cans onto the water.  The theory is that with no cans in the tacklebag, none get thrown in the bushes,  In practice, the kind of angler that is likely to drop litter, is the kind who will ignore the rules, take his 6 pack of Stella anyway, and then throw the cans into the reedbeds before the bailiff sees them.     Every winter the departing greenery reveals the rubbish thrown into those out of sight spots. And often, out of sight means out of reach too. The trouble with anyone writing about litter, is that those reading it will already be the converted.  It matters not how eloquent we are in discussing and bemoaning the subject, if none of the litter throwers ever get to see our output.  Only the stick is likely to work, but too few seem willing to wield it.    

Here endeth the stuff I wrote months ago.   This that follows is all new, although the events inspiring the text may not be so.

I have continued in the main to fish small waters for tench and crucians.  I could have equally said "fished waters for small tench and crucians, for apart from a few six pound tench early season I have had none over about five pounds since. But as I have often said, size does not overrule everything.   Catching 2 and 3 pound tench on light line, fishing near thick lilies in swims also bordered by trees that have fallen into the lake is quite adrenalin inducing.   Trying to turn a male tench, determined to reach snags only a yard away, on a centrepin, light rod and that three pound line takes skill, and is often more exciting that reeling in a leger caught 7, 8, 9 or even 10 pound tench from a swim where the only chance of losing a fish is through a hook pull. So: lots of tench, a goodly number of crucians, some of them over two pounds, and stray rudd, roach and carp have filled the sessions so far.  Less sessions that usual, for we have had a couple of relatives from the Far east visiting, and so I have been allocated taxi duties, and tourist guide duties.  Some walking in the Lake District. We circumnavigated Buttermere, upon which my wife asked whether it was called "Buttermilk, or Buttercream?"   Oh well!   Earlier in the day we had walked most of the way around Crummock Water.    All the way THINKING that it was Buttermilk.     It was thus a very long day and quite exhausting.

 I was fairly well bored by Hadrian's wall and a couple of its hill forts. But one trip I would highly recommend to anyone in July is the Farne Islands. Seabirds in vast numbers as well as grey seals, gave me a good opportunity to play with the camera. Three thousand or so incredibly graceful  Arctic terns that completely ignored us, allowing ultra close approach, unless we ventured too near a nest with eggs, in which case they dive bombed us, attacking the head.  This sent my wife and guests running for cover, with only myself being daft enough to stay still and suffer the onslaught. Probably my only chance to get attacked in this way, so I was determined to enjoy it.  They drew blood from my scalp... through my hat!  But beautiful creatures.   With such tiny red feet, which is, I suppose, indicative of how rarely they need to use them.

Arctic Tern

 

Plural.

With Young

And how on Earth do puffins manage to catch seven or nine sandeels in their beak, without the fish wriggling free, or being dropped?  A friend said he believed that they held them under their tongues, thus releasing the beak for the next sandeel to be caught. Obviously this beakful is intended for a chick or it would have been swallowed, but I was surprised that the bird was just standing around, almost waiting for a neighbour to steal them.  I can only guess that the bird had forgotten where its burrow was.  Maybe it had some age related problem...I saw a program that said the oldest UK puffin was about 38 years old, and that they often live to be 30 plus.

Puffins.

The Somewhat Unfortunately Named Shag With its Dramatic Green Eye

Deep Throat.

Guillemot

Black Legged Kittiwake with Young..

All of the seabirds were astonishingly tolerant of the close presence of visitors to the islands, luckily for them for tourists were present in quite large numbers. The National Trust keep a close watch on the place ( maybe aided by the RSPB).

Having returned home, with the photography bug somewhat rejuvenated, it was time to have yet another try to get a badger in the frame.   As an angler I see badgers more often than most , but trying to photograph them has always been fraught and has never produced any good results, apart from one that I caught asleep by the roadside once.   But this week's efforts have borne very ripe fruit.

Old Brock

With a Stray Fox.

Male, Female?    Female, Male?  

The badgers were very tolerant of the camera flash, even the autofocus pre-flash, which lights up for at least a second.    they did show some nervousness, but only when they had picked up a large item of food, such a as piece of bread.   When taking peanuts they ignored the presence of the camera, which was no more than four feet away, completely.    I was a few yards further back, with a remote camera trigger.   One last tip for night observation, before I sign off.  I was surprised to find that using ordinary binoculars (8 x 30) at night, actually made the view so much better. I had always assumed that they would have magnified, yet dimmed, the image.  Something I had simply accepted, rather than actually thinking about the optics involved.

The Crucian Finale...Probably.

I felt like I needed a couple more sessions after those crucians. Even following recent successes, I was not fully satisfied with my performance and so returned to the jinx lake.   The idea was to make  a last trip, or maybe two before veering off to seek another species entirely.  I was better prepared this time, all my old schoolboy crucian knowledge was back, and very much to the fore in the tactical plan.   The weather forecast was not at all bad,  very cloudy, prospect of a little rain, but not so much as to make life on the bankside unpleasant.  And as is more and more often the case these days, the forecast proved to be spot on.  No longer is it more accurate to simply say " Today's weather will be similar to that of yesterday".   Even weather forecasts are no fun any more.


My first cast hit the water not long after dawn.  I had decided to ignore other anglers' suggestions that I fish just three or four feet out from the reeds.  They, and the bailiffs, all recommend this, and say most of the crucians come from very close in.    It had crossed my mind though, that cause and effect may have become confused here.  If everyone fishes close in ( and they seem to do so) then it is inevitable that all the crucians will be taken close in.   So the advice may be self fulfilling.  I decided to fish a fair bit further out, 6 or 7 yards, and would see what happened.

Nothing for quite a while, but after the obligatory couple of small roach, a fish that was better.  The rod stopped dead as the line tightened to the fish. That is always quite a pleasurable moment, when on the strike, the rod stops suddenly and the fish holds solid. It didn't initially move much, very typical of one species. Crucian thinks I.  But it soon became apparent that it was not a crucian, the fight, once it got under way, bored too consistently deep, and was lasting too long.  The fish nearly had me in trouble in the branches of a part dead alder that drooped into the water, and on light crucian gear it was heart in mouth stuff as the tension in the line was necessarily increased to a fairly unsafe value, one getting very near to the breaking strain of the hooklink.    But all was to be well and a scrapper of a tench about three and a half was landed.


The mass of house martins that had spent the early part of the day milling around over the pond had now departed, leaving just a few swallows whose presence I had not noted earlier in amongst the general melee of birds.  A couple of swifts also paid a short visit, but the dozen or so of swallows were to remain throughout the day.  I didn't have too much time to look at them, for the float once again lifted and the "rod stopped dead" situation was repeated.  But this fish was different, it didn't charge about the swim madly, as had the tench.  It set off for the other side of the lake, at a fairly steady and slow pace, largely unaffected by the best I could do on my three pound hook link.  It managed a more or less perfectly straight line swimming away from me at  right angles to the bank. I was not worried, for I was not expecting there to be any snags out there, and fully expected to land the fish in due course.  I should have worried though, for, when some 15 or 20 yards out and counting, the hook pulled.   I will never know what the fish was of course.  I suspect a much bigger tench, although a carp could have been responsible.    I do doubt that, for I suspect a carp would have been travelling at a far greater speed.  Far too many hook pulls this season for my liking.


The voles were back, sneaking bits of food.   I am told by a birdwatching friend that this has been an excellent year for voles. He appears to be right. It should, in consequence, have been a great year for owls too.   But the wet summer has restricted their hunting, and so owls have not fared well at all.  Breeding successes have been limited by unsuitable weather.  I am not too impressed by the blackberries this year either.   There have been trips in other years when the blackberry brambles near my swim have provided much of my food and drink for the day.   Ripened and ripening berries seem rarer this year, although the few I have picked and eaten were wonderfully tarty.   A week in nature can be a long time though, and I hope the fruits may become more prolific soon.


Some days the warblers have constantly given voice, both in the rushes and the nearby trees.   Warblers tend to be amongst what most average birdwatchers call LBJs.  LBJ stands for Little Brown Job or in English, unidentified small bird. In summer the presence of young birds, often not in full adult plumage, serves to confuse the issue still more. Some can be so similar that only the most advanced and experienced twitcher can be sure...or risk saying that they are sure.  All very reminiscent of our own trout/sea trout problems.  FSSF.  Fair Sized Spotty Fish?   But I managed to photograph one bird that repeatedly came quite near.  So this is a photograph of an LBJ.  What is it?   You tell me.  I am guessing  reed warbler in a (pear?) tree.

LBJ

But to return to the crucian carp.  The dull day seemed to have stimulated them, and having returned to the tactics of my youth, that is to fish lift method very sensitively, they decided to play the game, and although the bites were not 100% hittable, by some wide margin, plenty of bites came, and quite a few were hooked.   Of those 13 were landed, with no less than eight weighing over two pounds.  But 6 or 7 were either pricked or lost to a hook pull.

Four Two Pound Plus Crucians

Again, the fish were very much of a size, the smallest differing from the largest by just a pound. The light and precarious hook holds must be fuelled by the way the species toys with its food.  I have only had one crucian that I remember needed the use of a disgorger, and that hookhold was only just out of reach of my fingers.  I can say the same about barbel, rarely do they seem to be hooked anywhere other than in the lips.  The difference of course is that once hooked, barbel rarely manage to get rid of the hook.


I do wonder for the future of crucians in this water.  Are the pike, of which there seem to be quite a lot, removing all the smaller crucians, leaving an ageing population with no younger fish to back up for the future?  Or are we, for some unknown reason, simply never catching the smaller fish?   Should the club consider a stocking programme?  The fish though, do look young, and so maybe there are quite a few years yet before we need to worry.  I saw an interesting note from someone who has his own carp lake, but added some crucians about 7 years ago.   These are now of a very good size indeed, with some approaching 4 pounds...at only seven years old!   I don't know what he has been feeding them, but if details he has given are accurate, it is a food I suspect would ruin my own dieting plan.    So how old might the fish I am catching be?   And how long might they live?  Peter Rolfe suggests that some top 20 years. I don't know how many of those that remain healthy and avoid predation will actually reach that sort of age.  The average is probably considerably less.  10 years?  12 years?   I will probably not have many, if any, more sessions for crucians, on this lake this year.   But it would seem a good insurance policy to add them to next season's target species.  Who knows how long a good thing will last?


Late in the evening , the kingfishers which had performed several fly-pasts directly over my float during the day, appeared again.   One of them did three straight line typical low flights across, and then along, the full length of the lake. As it did so though, it was pursued by a swallow, which appeared to be chasing it, its zig-zagging flightpath contrasting with the ruler straight path of the kingfisher, yet keeping in close if variable formation.   The swallows had earlier been chasing each other, and I can only imagine that the kingfisher was seen as adding a brightly coloured extension to the game. I don't imagine there was any other reason for the swallow's behaviour.    Intriguing though: there may be more to a birdbrain than many think.

One of the swallows came to watch me fish.  I think this is one of this year's youngsters.  Probably exhausted from chasing after the kingfisher.  The photo is not the greatest, but chances to get a swallow in the picture are quite rare.   When using my small "fishing" camera, although it does have auto focus, it is none too bright at picking exactly what to focus on. There is no manual focus ring. I usually end up focussing on something I think is equidistant from me, and then swinging the camera around, with the shutter half pressed.  Not ideal.






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

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

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

Not as Good as it Would be if it Were Better.

It was my first day in grammar school.   Being a "fresher" I had to stand, with other first year students, right at the front of the school assembly hall.   I positioned myself at the back of the organ, and joined in at the first hymn.  I wasn't an atheist then, probably because I had never heard of atheists.   After the first hymn, the teacher playing the organ turned around and said:

"You boy, what is your name?"

I told him and was instructed to remain behind after the assembly. He then told me that my caterwauling had severely upset him, and quite put him off his notes.   He had no idea of why a benevolent God would have ever allowed me vocal chords. The tirade continued awhile, and he finally banned me from singing...FOR LIFE.   I was quite proud to have been banned in such a way, and probably boasted about it to my new classmates.    Sadly the teacher suffered a fatal heart attack a few weeks later.  Although I am fairly sure that my singing was not instrumental in causing his death I have actually, partly in memory of him, but mainly because his assessment was entirely correct, never sung anything since.   The teachers in the school were well practised in the art of the put down.  School reports were littered with juicy comments. I would like to have been able to say that "lamentable progress" had been written in my report by that music teacher, but it was from the art teacher.    He also used the phrase:

 "This work, boy, is not as good as it would be had it been better." 

Those two phrases adequately and accurately describe my tench angling to date this season. 

   Plenty of tench from the smaller venues, during short sessions, but nothing over about three or four pounds.   A few carp and crucians have slotted themselves between those tench.  Delightful fish, all of them, but not entirely within the plan.   I even resurrected the Sunday Challenge: you may remember that, in the 45 minutes of my wife's church service, I challenge myself to drive to the water, tackle up, catch a fish, and get back in time to drive her home.  ~~The result this time was two tench, a carp and a roach. 

None of these challenge fish would have weighed as much as four ounces, but there is something quite wonderful about tiny clearwater tench. Nice to have a moorhen for company too. I understand that the seasonal yellow tip of its bill acts as a target when the young are pleading for food.

 My longer sessions, after bigger fish, have so far resulted in seven consecutive blank sessions.   I came close, contacting a fish that shed the hook, and my best guess as to its identity is that it was a good tench.  But I don't give up that easily and expect my final school report for the year to have some better grades. 

The blanks did give me a chance to test out my theories on line twist, and I can say, certainly for short casts up to about 30 yards, the process for removing twist does indeed work well.   On longer casts the twists do not seem to  equalise along the length of the line quite so easily, but results there have remained encouraging, if not quite so good. It may be that I need to allow more time for the twists to disperse along the line, or else perform the process on land, rather than in the lake.

The birds have been rather more co-operative, the herons in particular have posed quite shamelessly for me.

 

  

 The bird below was catching quite well, swallowing something every couple of minutes, but they seemed to be very, very small and although he had to turn his take-out prey items, I was unable to determine what they were.   The pond abounds with tiny rudd though... and tadpoles. I shall make no further comment about this heron's photograph in the blog. Work it out for yourselves.

 The local pair of peregrine falcons are again nesting on the old mill by the river.  I understand they already have two chicks, but these have yet to be visible when I visit with the camera. The birds are of course nesting quite high up, and having to stand some distance back means that I cannot  see any of the actual nest site, just the cavity containing it.   Distance is a problem too: my camera even in bright sunlight cannot really capture the majesty of these birds at such distance, and so the shots remain slightly blurred. I have not seen them catch any prey yet, although there are numerous local feral pigeons that seem rather keen to get themselves eaten. I shall remain hopeful on this one, and visit as often as I am able to.

 

 As I drove to the pond one morning, still a couple of miles away and on a main road, a female mallard was walking along the middle of the pavement, trailing, in a line behind her, six quite small ducklings.  Right down the middle of the pavement, and so confident and law abiding ( no jaywalking here!) that I expect they would have been aiming for the nearby pelican crossing.   Unfortunately due to traffic, I was unable to stop and take a photo.

Reaching the pond had minor compensations: a couple of morning trips ( back home before 9) led to

Plump Little Common

 a total of three tench, a couple of nicely coloured middling roach, a rudd, a perch, and a carp. I don't mind common carp so much, they do at least look like proper fish, not some oddball creation designed by man for the food or aquarist trade.  All the fish on the centrepin which was quite satisfying. A second hooked carp headed along the bank, passing through two stands of lily pads.   With the 4 pound line I was a little restricted, but managed to get the carp back through one set of pads before the hook pulled free.   Better than the day before when, during the Monday Bank Holiday, I had taken a tour around the pond.   A few picnickers and non serious anglers were around, together with a group of guys passing the time of day.   One, who was a little worse the wear from drink, pleasantly enough, but he greeted me as "Pops".   Never been called "Pops" before, and I admit I hated it.   I know I have a few miles on the old clock, but having told my lad to keep it in his trousers and not make me a grandfather any time soon, and struggling with the "pensioner" thing anyway, I really detested being called "Pops".  Especially by a drunk.  I keep thinking about it: it being one of one's life defining points when you are first called "Pops".  I knew I should have worn my woolly hat,  that would have prevented being called such.   Anyone else calls me that and I will hang, draw and quarter them, not necessarily in that order.    

More Birds Than Fish

Well, it was time to take my wellies back to the Wye. And why not?   It is a long trip, but I

The Wye

determined, this time, to be there as the first light hit the river.  Most of the trip was motorway, and in darkness.   Far too many heavy goods vehicles for my liking, as I remain nervous of them still, after my near-death crash a couple of years ago.   Sometimes, when one travelling at 60 mph passes another moving at 59.9, they can block both inside lanes for minutes.  If I therefore have to pass them both I find it quite unnerving.     Most of the time I sit at 60 mph myself to reduce interaction with the trucks to a minima, but I don't like to be too near the trucks, so occasionally have to pass and find a new space between them.  Eventually I left the final exit ramp, and had only three or four miles still to cover.  As I nearer the river the roads became narrower, eventually becoming a single track, with grass growing down the middle.  Rabbits scattered every few yards as my headlights disturbed them. One of them did not move, but stayed sitting in the middle of the road.  I soon saw that it was no rabbit, but an owl.  It stood in the road, no prey with it, looking at my lights.   After 20 seconds or so it flew up and into a tree above my head, where it stayed...stayed until about a second before I was ready to click the camera shutter.
I am fairly sure it was a tawny own.  Definitely not a barn owl or little owl.

Sand Martins Nesting in  Pipework

I reached the river a couple of minutes later, parked up and headed for the deep swim, hoping to make fresh contact with the lost fish from last week.  I soon had a chub in the net, a fish of something a little under three pounds.  From the angling perspective, all then went silent. The river was even lower than last week, and much clearer too. Not so much as a twitch followed the chub, and I spent a lot of time watching the swallows and sand martins.   The sand martin is, in my opinion, the ultimate, low over the water, flier.    I didn't bother trying to photograph one, but will add a photo I took three or four years ago.

Green Woodpecker: At  100 yards Plus.

The green woodpeckers continued to mock me, several of them were "knocking about", flitting from tree to tree, occasionally hammering at the wood, but always obscured by branches or by a leaf or two.  I nearly flattened the camera battery, hoping to be ready when one finally  posed for me.   None did.   Very late on, one landed on the footbridge, some 150 yards downstream, and just for the hell of it I put the camera on maximum optical zoom and took a couple of shots. Applying maximum digital zoom to the image I could indeed see the red and the green of the bird, but distance and the sheer obstructiveness of the bird meant that this was the very best I could do, the much magnified image being over pixillated..   Another day, another time perhaps.

Female Demoiselle

I did take this photo of a female blue banded demoiselle.  Not a trace of blue on the females. I didn't manage to get a photo of one last week, so as to be able to show the differences between the sexes.

My hope of a fish rose as the evening neared.  A few chub raps started to up the confidence levels a little, but all were too fiddly to strike at...not that I didn't try one or two for luck.  No such.  As the last half hour of legal fishing approached I finally hit a better pull, and was playing a barbel.  A nice enough fish at about seven pounds, and a quick re-cast gave me that extra hope.   The farmer drifted by, and asked if I had caught.  Told him about the barbel, and, remembering him from last week, mentioned my only having 30 minutes of daytime fishing left in which to catch a second.  He replied "Yes, it is already half past nine," and I was left in no doubt that he was actually making damn sure I did not intend to overstay my allotted time.  No more bites, so I packed up and drove, via a chip shop, to another stretch where I would be allowed to night fish.    Got some sleep, intending to fish from mid-day the next day.   Instead I finally decided, on

Egret

waking up, to fully check out the stretch by walking along it.   Three other anglers fishing, all convinced that the low water was causing their overnight blanks. I was tempted to agree with them.  Buzzards circled overhead, and an egret vied for my attention as it perched in a tree opposite. The only other bright moment was when three Canadian canoes full of topless young ladies, paddled past on a "hen do". Well, some were paddling, others were knocking the booze back. Although the camera did accidentally click a few times as they passed by, I am sure that you, dear reader, would have no interest in the resultant photos. So here is the egret instead.

Oddball Greylag?

 Nearby, amongst a group of Canada geese, was this odd individual.  I can only guess that it is some form of domesticated greylag goose,  escaped and gone wild.    It is neither one thing nor the other, so maybe there has been some reversion to type in its history.   Seeing the river so low, I decided to cut my losses, I was not expecting to catch much, even during darkness, and so journeyed part way back, determined to fish a tench water, one I have ignored for a couple of years.    The Wye is a fabulous river, and so very clean.  I don't think I saw a single item of human rubbish drift downriver all the time I was there. And the flotsam/jetsam piles of stuff left by floodwater, all seems to be completely natural in its origin: trees, branches, weed.   But sometimes I have to move on, and on this day, it was towards the tench.

Again it was to be more birds than fish. No fish were to dampen my landing net at the lake.  I only saw three fish break surface, one fairly early on, a hundred yards away: a carp.  And then nothing until, during a break in the rain, following a quiet night, I was packing up.  As I dismantled the last of my gear, two fish rose in my swim, right over my baited area, a carp and a tench.  

A Bunch of Proper Greylag Geese

Oh I was so tempted to rig up again, with the only fish showing being over my groundbait.  The lake is large enough for the fish to have easily avoided the area all night. Maybe they had just moved in?  But instead of staying I decided to punish myself for my poor performance on the trip, and go home.   Time by this stillwater was spent watching bats, reed warblers, terns, a group of at least fifty grey lag geese and an oystercatcher.   The sand martins and swallows of the river had been replaced by house martins and swifts. Most of these species will only pose for the cameras of the most highly paid professional photographers.  I tried my best but the results were not really worth the hard work.

The tern photo is also not the greatest, they were so fast and changed direction unpredictably, but as I have little ambition to become another David Bailey, who cares.   I'll keep trying for better photos, but am by no means confident of great success.