The Crucian Finale...Probably.

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


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

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


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


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


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

LBJ

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

Four Two Pound Plus Crucians

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


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


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

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






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

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

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

Of Voles, and Dragonflies, of Carp and Crucians

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

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

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

Little Cruician

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

Tiny, but Colourful Rudd

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

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

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

Morning on the Pond, and the Little Patch of Lilies

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

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

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

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

2)  use of a baitrunner does exactly the same.

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

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

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

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

The First Of Many Mirrors

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

A Young Vole is Unable to Resist a Few Pellets

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


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

A Deep Bronze F1 Hybrid

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


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

A Handful of Gold

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

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

At Rest, Guarding its Territory

Mating Pair

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

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

On My Knee, Enjoying the Sun

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

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


All in all a highly entertaining day

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

Drowning Maggots Whilst the Clouds Remain Gathered.

The weather has remained typical tench, and it has been difficult for me.  Trying not to fish and to give the wife some of my time at the beginning of June!  I held out longer than expected, far longer.  In the good old days I would have been back on the bank, in the exact same spot, casting to that same square yard in an attempt to better the excellent tench caught on the last trip.   Not so this time. I held out for two whole days before finding myself back on the banks of the same water.   And not anywhere near the same swim. The water has so much obvious potential, and I feel any spot on its extensive banks could produce a fish in the same league as my recent PB tench, or perhaps even bigger.   And if it didn't: no matter. Nature has taken over the lake full well, and only its depth now reveals that the water is entirely man-made. Trees, shrubs, reedmace and rushes all disguise the old contours.   The birds and other wildlife have been equally taken in, and are present in some abundance. It is a pleasure just to be asleep near this water.

I arrived just as night started to lose its grip on the scene, quickly set up the rods and fed the swim with a small amount of mixed feed. Then waited. A couple of fish soon moved over the bait, as seems usual with this water.  Also as usual, there were no more rises and no immediate bites to follow the rolling fish.  It would be seven hours later that the first fish would take the bait, and a bright green tench of a little under five pounds tested the rod.  Blank saved, I relaxed, and having helped me out, the fish also relaxed.  They might as well have disappeared entirely from the lake.  It was so quiet that I even struck up a conversation with a carp angler, who had been glued to the next swim for the last three days or so.  Decent chap, for a carp centred angler,  one able to hold an interesting conversation without littering each sentence with the "f" word.  It was appreciated.  He, soon after, was also to land a tench, "one of those green things", and so started a tench v carp banter session.  I congratulated him on the fish, and said he must be pleased, for it gave him another chance to play with his toy boat.    Quite the reverse of course, for the whole point of anyone inventing the boilie, is that it enables a carp angler to fish, and to blank, for a week at a time without ever having the need to reel in.  The lake, in keeping with many others, is usually littered with carp anglers, and on this water, in over a dozen trips, I had yet to see a carp landed. 

This carp angler was fishing at distance (don't they all?) and his baits were in the one area in which I have seen more than the odd carp surface.   On a couple of occasions I have seen quite a few "half inch" themselves out of the water, in the way that only carp do.   It was interesting though, to see the lake depth profile displayed by his on board echo sounder, as his bait boat made its way out towards the fish. His swim was shallower than mine, and very shallow, as little as three feet in some areas. I was fishing into about 14 feet.   I sometimes wonder whether the spots where the carp are seen to frolic and play, are actually the best areas in which to catch them?  The carp anglers seem to be more convinced than I am.  But who am I:  but a mere and insignificant tench angler.

Several pairs of the grebes now have young, some already  3/4 grown, and several times during the day I saw the parent birds perform their head shaking dance.   One pair danced quite close to me, and the dance went on for quite a long time.   I know that I should have grabbed the camera, but I was travelling light and did not have the long lens with me.   Which is a shame, for eventually they broke off their dance, both diving away and when they came back to the surface, each had a beakful of weed, and they went straight into the penguin dance.  Wonderful!   Those birds knew, knew before their dive, that they were going to go all Antarctic.  It was a planned dance.  Better planned than my choice of camera gear.

But this mallard came close enough for the standard lens to be able to take the usual  "awww!" shot of its

dozen newly hatched young.  By the end of the fishing session there were less of these young, four ducklings having disappeared. Probably down the throats of pike and herons.  A pair of little dabchicks swam past, only a little out of camera range.   They now have that chestnut coloured head, colour which is absent through the Winter months.

The swim depth was irrelevant through the night, neither of us having a nibble.  I had not originally intended to fish through the night, and was not really comfortably prepared. A folding stool was going to be my seat for the night until my carp angling friend loaned me his "guest chair".  Yes, it would seem that bivvies these days have accommodation for guests, and presumably spare bedrooms.  So my night, was completely undisturbed by

A Woodmouse. Ears and  a Long Tail.

fish, and was a little more comfortable than I had expected.   As dusk approached, a young woodmouse kept me company. It seemed tame enough to have been someone's pet, and largely seemed to ignore my presence, sitting just a foot or so away. The rain fell fairly consistently through both the evening and the night, but my brolly kept it, and the light wind, at bay.  Indeed it was the weather that prompted me to spend the night, in the erroneous expectation that it would be filled with fish.   Not to be, and by 0700 hours I had not has so much as a line bite.   In contrast to the evening, my morning pal was a little vole, a bank vole I think.  Less obvious ears and a shorter tail than the mouse. The vole repeatedly stole the odd bit of  

A Vole, the First I Have Ever Photographed.

groundbait that had been dropped as I baited up the evening before. 

There had been a few early morning splashy rises, fish the carp lads seem to think are tench.   I am not so sure and strongly suspect good roach might be involved.   There are few of them, in unpredictable spots, and short of casting directly at them when they rise, I cannot really see how to choose where to fish for them... if they are indeed good roach.  

At 0703  my right hand indicator slowly rose to the rod ring and I struck into a good fish, one that felt and fought identically to the big fish of a couple of days ago.   Another big tench was heading my way.   The fight continued to scream tench at me, I could feel it burrowing through the weed, the line coming at times in little jerks as the elodea stems broke off. It was a good tench right up until the moment I saw the fish. A mirror carp.  As a tench it had behaved itself impeccably, keeping to its own side of the swim. As a carp it decided to cross the other fishing line, and my 7 pound breaking strain was unable to prevent the attempt to exit stage left.   Luckily though, the lines did not become entangled, and soon the fish was in the net.

For the Carp Anglers Amongst my Readership

I weighed it at 15-6, and disturbed the sleeping carp angler in the nearby bivvy for a photo opportunity, but mainly to take the chance to add some more banter.  I wondered whether it would also have taken him three minutes to get out of his B&B ( bed and bivvy) if his own buzzers had gone off.  I complained to him about nuisance fish and having to recast my three maggots after landing the carp.   I said that mirror carp all look to have been built by amateurs from incomplete kits of parts, but that common carp, if painted green and photographed without the red-eye reduction set on the camera, would actually be quite pretty.   He admitted that I had taught him something, namely that carp could be caught in the margins, even on this water.   Margins!  I was fishing 35 yards out!   Almost as far as I can cast for God's sake!   Mumble, mumble margins!

As I write this I am listening to "Just a Minute" on Radio Four.   And I had to take a short break.  I love radio comedy, and occasionally they can, on these spontaneous shows, crease me up something terrible.  Today, the minute topic was "my favourite view" and one of the contestants, Giles Brandreth I think, said:
"As the great actress, Maureen Lipton once declared; "The worst thing about oral sex is the view.""  This caused quite a hubbub in the audience and also made me completely unable to type accurately.

Back on the lake, by ten in the morning, the light wind had abated, and the lake was nearly flat calm, with that almost oily look to the surface.   This enabled my to see two small patches of bubbles.  Small, but certainly caused by fish.  And a good  eight or ten yards closer than my hookbaits.  So one rod was recast, shorter, right on top of the bubbles.  Maybe even I  had been fishing too far out.  And maybe I had, for ten minutes later I was playing a tench. A tench I think may have been that bubbler.

Male 6-6, Post Spawning

 The fish was a spawned out male of 6-6. An excellent fish, and very big for a male, if I can say that without a snigger.  It had a small wound, spawning damage just in front of its pelvic fin, visible in the photograph.  After a small injection of bait into the new area, another tench, this time an excellent female of 6-14 was introduced to my landing net.

Another superbly shaped fish, with but a little spawn in it.

6-14 Female

I do wonder why the fish seem to be at vastly different stages in the breeding process.   The male had already spawned,  my biggest female was probably caught just moments before heading to the weedbeds, yet some females seem hardly to have started to develop the egg mass.  We have had a mild Winter, and I wonder whether some fish spent those months in deeper water, water which warmed up more slowly, and therefore held fish which first became active days if not weeks later than others.  Either way it means that I look like always having some tench to target, which are not bloated with spawn.  Some will be heavily gravid, but they seem not to come to any harm, surviving capture well, whereas bream, or male bream at least, do not look as if the close season should have been scrapped on stillwaters.

  

 

Better Late Than Never.

This post is not about the funeral I attended last week, the funeral of a distant, occasional, acquaintance.  I felt quite guilty during the ceremony, as, for some reason, I was unable to stop thinking up some rather black jokes.  One was, as the coffin was carried in, dead on time: "It's not like him to be late".  Wondering why the crematorium only switched on the central heating as people were leaving, was in equally bad taste, but I suspect, that had he been able to hear, Dave would have appreciated the jokes. I did feel bad about it, but sometimes the mind wanders, especially on a day when I was completely unable to penetrate the thick Irish accent of the officiating priest.  Such is life, and death I guess, and I do hope that, as I finally go myself, that people are able to watch with a smile on their faces...even if it is a smile that says, "Thank god we finally got rid of the old bugger".

Sand martins Nesting Near the Mersey

In contrast to the ceremony, the swifts on Monday were having a wild time. They were constantly flying at great speed, with many an instantaneous change of direction, often so close to the water surface that it was miraculous that they never made the slightest mistake. They remained dry at all times, never even scraping the water surface. Their flight was pure perfection. They did make a few sounds, but not the shrieks and screams that they sometimes utter when chasing each other.  They seemed to be using me as part of their aerial games. As I sat by the lake or walked the bank, birds would often zoom past me, at full speed, missing me by inches, so close I could feel the backwash of air as they passed.  As I fished the tench lake again, it was obvious that these birds were enjoying both life, and their ability to fly, to the absolute full.  About twenty swallows, a handful of  house martins, and a couple of sand martins joined in the spectacle, each species flying in their own distinct style, styles which even change with the weather, with the rain, the wind or even the sun.  As I said last week, house martins seem to fly very low in rain, and swifts sometimes disappear completely. I usually only see sand martins near rivers, where they nest either in sand tunnels they build themselves, or if feeling lazy, in man-made drainage pipes, or gaps in old brickwork.

I had arrived at the lake fairly late myself. On the journey down, notices on the motorway signage, suggested that there had been a bad crash, with resultant major delays, a few miles before my intended turnoff. So I had placed my whereabouts into the hands of the pleasant lady who sits in my old Satnav. I don't argue with her very often, and on this occasion she guided me along unknown, but interesting roads as we got ever nearer to the water.  The journey took an extra hour, and, having baited the swim, I finally cast the two rods in at or around 6pm. I had the lake to myself, probably over a hundred acres of flat calm water. By ten o'clock it was becoming evident that I had the lake more to myself than I thought: for, despite constant flat calm conditions I had yet to see a fish move. Fish are also affected by the weather, and change their behaviour to suit.   But here I had fish that had changed their behaviour compared to their habits of last week, and under weather conditions that looked very similar.  It was thirty minutes later that I saw the first fish ringing the surface. Too late for any bright water, a roach or other small fish, it surfaced about a hundred yards away. The next fish to move was a good fish, of unknown species, which rolled just three or four yards from my baited patch.   This was a great confidence booster: rolling there, so near to my bait, it must have been a feeding fish. Ten minutes later a similar fish rolled, 30 yards off, and moving away.  The confidence level dropped a couple of notches. Confidence in a feeding fish was replaced by the thought that, in reality,  only coincidence had governed where that fish was.

Dawn, and Not a Ripple to be Seen.

The night passed, warm and still, with only two line bites to show for it, and those were caused by Daubenton's bats hitting the line, rather than by fish. Very few fish moved overnight, or at dawn. Those that broke the surface did so in a very disinterested way. A shame, for they would have seen a rather nice orange sky as the sun rose. The swifts returned and continued their wild games. I have no idea how they gain so much energy from just the odd midge or two.  They constantly seem to fly at full speed on their swept back sickle wings. Their flight is so efficient that I cannot understand why so many of our early aeronautical pioneers ever thought that pairs , or even trios of wings on their early biplanes and tri-planes were a good idea. Why did they not just copy the birds?

By oh seven hundred hours I was ready to give up, and slowly started to pack away my gear.  The rucksac was packed, the chair folded, umbrella (unused) packed away. Bait was packed.  Everything but the two rods and the landing net was packed.  I had even removed the screw in rod rests from the bank sticks.  The rods were then simply resting, butt rings atop the bank sticks. My glow bobbins, a variation on a device I invented 45 years ago were returned to the tackle box. I had previously used dough bobbins, made from real bread pinched onto the line, but dark nights and the availability of beta lights had triggered a burst of creativity.  Maybe I should have patented the idea all those years ago. But no doubt others would have had similar ideas at the same time. I might have called them glough bobbins...or if I fell into the modern trend to reduce everything to absurdity: Glo-Bos.  Yeuck!  These days I use Star Lights instead. Modern betalights are very dim by comparison.  My old betas are still brighter than their modern equivalent, 40 years on. Tritium gas has become scarce, and so much less is used in each glass vial. The half life of Tritium, at a little over twelve years, suggests that only a tenth the quantity of the active gas is now used.  Go check your old GCE Physics books for an explanation of that.  :-).   To compensate the price has increased tenfold.

As I reached out to pack the first rod, its tip twitched, and I struck into a nice tench of just over five pounds.  It fought reasonably well, right up to the net.  I still, working on old school fish sizes, weigh any tench I think will make five pounds, and detached the net from its handle to do so.  I then carried the fish, still in the net, back to the water and watched it swim away. As I did so the second rod lurched sideways off its precarious stand, and I was into a second fish.  A far better fish to judge from the dogged, solid fight.  It held deep and slow, characteristic of a big old tench, rather than a carp. I walked backward up the bank to retrieve the landing net handle from 15 yards behind me, and with some difficulty, re-attached the net as I played the fish. A superb scrapper, a female tench of exactly seven pounds was landed, weighed and photographed.  Two very late fish indeed, but better then than never.  So I stayed on, figuring that my baited area had at last been found, and that more fish were headed my way.   They were not, and the two fish were to remain my total bag.  Not a bad haul though, late as it had been in the session.

I did manage to watch a little vole, of unknown species, but chestnut in colour, messing about in daylight near some unused groundbait.   I failed to photograph it, as the battery pack in my camera had given up on life just after the fish photos were taken.   I have only seen voles twice, and on both occasions they have avoided my camera.  This little beast did manage to chew through my bait bag whilst I was not watching though.  I have also only seen one shrew, many years ago now.   Again in daylight.  I caught a movement in the grass, and saw the shrew.  I approached closer, and it ignored my waving hand, and appeared not to understand me as I told it to "Shoo shrew!". Eventually I was able to get very close, and stroked it for twenty or thirty seconds before it unconcernedly ambled away into the undergrowth.

So in short, an interesting expedition, very much up and down, with a couple of good fish very late into the bag.  We all tend to have that last cast, and that "final" last cast, and maybe even one more for luck.  This day's fishing showed how important those last casts can be.

Mystery Roach

I had decided to spend last night on a gravel pit, with those gorgeous green tench and the slightly less lovely bream as the primary targets. No problems if a carp or two should get in the way of the peace and tranquillity of course. It proved  interesting,  with bream rolling all night, fairly near my groundbait,  carp splashing about in the distance, and with the odd tench ever so casually breaking surface close in amongst the prolific elodea pondweed.
 I had gone with the intention of photographing some little bank voles that had kept me company right through my previous night shift on the water.  I had not knowingly seen voles before, but didn't take the big camera last week, and so had the SLR in tow this time.  Inevitably, as a result, the bank voles made themselves completely absent for the whole night.  Not one appeared on the platform from where I fished.  But five or six wood mice darted about onto the open area, grabbed  morsels of groundbait and then returned to the grassy bank.
The mice most people are acquainted with are house mice.  I remember seeing them in my grandmother's terraced house.  She used to catch them in the kitchen.  None of these new-fangled traps for her.  She coated one side of a sheet of brown paper with treacle and left it on the floor.  In the morning the mouse would be trapped, its fur solidly glued to the treacle.  She would then wrap the mouse up in the paper, hit it with her solid cast metal flat iron, and consign its remains to the bin.  The house mice always looked very dirty creatures to me, but wood mice always seem to have a glorious sheen to their coats.

  Two Woodmouse Photos Taken Near My Feet
 

At times they stayed for minutes, confident that I did not intend to harm them, and the most in view at any one time was five within a yard of my feet.  They sit upright on huge pink hind legs when feeding, their big ears sticking up like miniature Sky aerials, whereas the voles I saw last time seemed to prefer being on all fours. The voles were also much slower, and I cannot help but wonder whether the owls, that are quite common in the trees around the lake, have fed well during the last week grabbing them as they leave their holes for the fishing platform.  Vole-au-vents?
I don't propose to describe the fishing here and now, but shortly after the first rays of daylight there was an unusual event.
To my right, and above some fairly deep water, maybe 20 feet plus, covering an area of at least 80 yards square, there were fish rising.  A lot of fish rising.  But the rises were almost all very splashy, and I suspect they must have been roach.  Much too small for carp, far too frantic for bream or tench, and the lake does indeed hold a good head of roach, as I had proved a couple of weeks ago. The splashy rises continued for  30, perhaps 45 minutes before stopping completely.
I have absolutely no idea what these fish were doing.   A local told me that the splashy rises happen almost daily, and certainly at this time of year.  There was little or no surface fly life, the lake was flat calm.  So what were all these roach doing? And why were the rises so splashy?  Why were they all congregated in that one area?  There were few, if any, elsewhere on the lake.  Had all the roach assembled in one area?  Or was it just in that area that the roach behaved thus?  Other areas of the lake have a similar character. It is a mystery that has me flummoxed.