Mersey Salmon. Nearly Christmas, So I Feel Entitled to a Rant or Two First, Then the Salmon....and a Couple of Rudd to Finish.

It has been a while...again.   I wrote the title to this before Christmas.  It is now April, so my rant mode has long since evaporated.  Far too long since my last blog entry.   But sometimes I freely admit to not being bothered, too much trouble, watered down by the feeling that at times, I have insufficient of interest to say.   Writer's block, I suppose a professional might call it. I'll call it laziness, if that is OK with you?

I have spent quite a time trying to photograph salmon in the Mersey and in its tributary the Goyt.  Over the past few years, maybe a decade or so, a few salmon have been seen running up the Mersey.  This is very gratifying, another sign that the efforts to clean up the local rivers is working.  The salmon have not bred in the river, but are strays from other rivers, or so the EA told me.    Contrary to popular opinion, salmon do not always return to the exact spot where they were born. Some get lost on the way, and stray into other river catchments. The EA informed me, a few years ago that fish from the Severn, the Dee, and even some french rivers had reached the Mersey.   There are not huge numbers, but enough that, at the right time of year, spending a few hours at the "hot spots" for jumping fish, you are likely to see one or two.   I have tried to persuade the EA that they should stock a few thousand parr into the headwaters, in each of several consecutive years, to no avail. I suspect they wish to see and observe how salmon naturally re-establish themselves into a river catchment. They don't want to contaminate the DNA that is natural to the river.  BUT, as salmon have been long extinct in the Mersey there is none of the original DNA remaining. It is all foreign DNA, so I don't really see that stocking should be a problem.   Ten years on and I have yet to see a single salmon parr in the river.  In the River Dee, there are many thousands. Not one have I seen in either the Mersey or its tributaries.     

Salmon Parr. and a Young Brown Trout.

And I know of no-one else who can say reliably that they have seen or caught one. Many anglers would have difficulty in identifying them from young brown trout.   I know I did: I had caught several on the Dee before I realized what they were,  that they were different: salmon parr. But why do they not seem to be breeding in the Mersey catchment?    Several reasons spring to mind.   Some of the weirs are very difficult for fish to pass, one or two being impossibly high, even when the rivers are running a lot of water, thus restricting access to many ideal spawning sites.    I don't know how badly floods might affect the eggs, or the newly hatched fish, but heavy rivers flows have been a common occurrence.  Probably their effect has not been completely devastating, because brown trout, of which there are many, both above and below the larger weirs, seem to breed successfully.   Maybe the water is clean enough to allow salmon to run upstream, but not so good yet, as to be suitable for young salmon parr.  There is another factor to the equation: cormorants and goosander.   The local streams are small, and generally shallow.   Goosanders breed near these streams, and have large broods of chicks. The most young I have seen accompanying a single female was seventeen, most of which survived to adult size.  That is a lot of small fish disappearing down a lot of avian gullets, and is, in my opinion, likely to greatly hinder the full return of salmon to the Mersey. So come on EA, give us some help!     

I took a few videos of salmon, but have been having immense  trouble trying to link them into the blog. I'll try again, but am not hopeful.   Any hints on how to incorporate videos would be much appreciated. Most of the fish I saw jumping were trout, maybe less than one in a hundred being a  salmon.  So this is a link to a shared folder. It contains three of my videos. You may need to copy and paste it into your browser window.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AlLuA7bpQJftq1bN4YzqH8Rn2kef

A Mersey Salmon

The file "Woolston" is a concatenation of three salmon jumping at Woolston Weir. This is a condensation of over four hours spent with the camera pointed at the weir.   I consider this weir as impassable to fish, and the sight of a fish attempting to jump it, means that it has missed the fish pass. The weir is probably 80 or 90 yards wide, with a small zig-zag channel fish pass right at one edge, the channel being a foot or so wide.   It seems to me that this style of fish pass, on a very large weir, must be very inefficient indeed.  Two other video are of fish, one definitely a salmon and the other a good sized trout (I think) making it up a section of a newly constructed, and far better designed fish pass. I found it astonishing that the fish powered their way up INSIDE the waterfall, rather than jumping over it.

This still photo is of a Mersey salmon that was captured by the Woolston weir, when it was configured as a fish trap, rather than a fish pass.


I'll move onto the fishing now, and I would be the first to admit that the winter has not been kind to me.  The grayling have proved elusive, on the few days when the rivers have been fishable. No notable fish have fallen to my charms.  A few small ladies, the odd little chub and roach. All in all the rivers have been pleasant places to be, and so it has been lucky that catching every time is not really important to me.   But I even went carp fishing one day, successes in the flowing water being so rare.  I have not carp fished for over 40 years, and the 18 pound common I landed on the day did not thrill me the way it should have done, so I have to conclude that I am probably well over my carp fishing days. They are a species that appeals little, although I will probably have the odd cast at them, they are unlikely ever to feel important to me.   They used to have a "hard to catch" reputation, but these days that is no longer the status quo. They have become just another species, to me at least. Other than a couple of zander, largest maybe a little over five pounds, few other fish  have chosen to spend any of their time with me until recently. I would temper that by saying that the weather has been such that I often did not venture out, so I have fished much more infrequently than would be usual for me in winter.

But a couple of weeks or so ago, I went rudd fishing. Such pretty fish, and I have found that they can be very obliging, they look good, and often take a bait well. No need either, to resort to modern scientifically proved, chemically stabilized, weight balanced, vitamin and nutrition packed, and therefore highly EXPENSIVE, baits.   A loaf of Warburton's thick sliced toastie bread can often be all that is needed.  A quid from most good retailers.  Many anglers consider rudd to be a summer fish, and only a summer fish.  I have not found that to be the case myself.  They change their habits, and in colder weather are unlikely to be feeding on or near the surface.   Not being able to see them makes them harder to locate, but if found, they may still feed, albeit differently.   The water temperature being just 7 degrees, I decided that bottom fishing would be best, but  location might be a problem.   The first six hours or so were blank, completely so, and I was looking towards another session without any fish. 

Then the dough bobbin ( a Warburton's dough bobbin of course) on the right hand rod twitched. Just twitched, but it was enough to confirm that something was in the swim. I didn't think it was a line bite.   Warburton's bread has a confidence boosting texture. A texture that convinces me it is unlikely to fall off the hook, even after several hours. And so I waited.  A little later a two inch twitch had me striking, and missing, a bite. I didn't miss the next one. It too was a tiny twitch, no more than a half inch of movement, but something in that movement suggested I strike, and I was into a fish.  These little twitches were to be par for the course, and apart from a couple of fish caught on the float, all the bites on legering gear were to be very slight movements of the indicator, whether that was movement of a bobbin, or, as was sometimes the case, the rod tip bending slightly.  I suspect that the tentative bites were related to the low water temperature, with fish being reluctant to move at any speed in the cold conditions.  I was a little reluctant myself, and was well equipped with gloves, scarf and thick bobble hat. 

The First Rudd    2 Pounds 2 Ounces.

That first fish, a rudd, was my target species, and weighed 2 pounds 2 ounces. An excellent fishy reward  well worth the wait. But more and better was to come both that evening and during two more days spent chasing the rudd.





  






It was not long before a second fish, having also twitched the bobbin, was en-route and into my landing net.  This second fish was a true monster.  A huge fish by anyone's standards.   Three pounds ten ounces of beautiful, pristine rudd.

Three pounds Ten Ounces.

 That fish proved, unsurprisingly, to be the largest I caught over the three days, but it was not the only huge fish. No less than three (that's three!) more fish of three pounds plus fell to baits taken from that same loaf.

3-6

                     3-8

                              3-0














In what was to prove the most satisfying three days of angling I have ever experienced, I finished with a total of twenty rudd.  Four threes, the two smallest weighed 1-14 each, the other  fourteen were all over two but under three pounds.    All were caught on Warburton's bread, most on the leger but two or three on float gear, fished close in under an overhanging tree.    The fish then disappeared, bites drying up completely.  
Sad to see them go, but their disappearance could not lessen the elation of what had been, undoubtedly, my best ever catch of fish, of any species.  I know I should be back there, and do wonder whether a four pound fish could be on the cards, but I like variation in my angling, and the tench are now too big an alternative attraction. Too big did I say?  Hmmm, maybe not, as the first two tench this week were smaller than the biggest rudd.  ;-)
I have always liked rudd.  Sadly they have become either a rare species, or a species which has bred so prolifically in a water as to make even a 4 oz fish, a rarity in amongst throngs of tiny fish.  They have a talent for multiplying rapidly, especially in small waters.  Finding a good rudd water is never going to be easy, but I feel the larger waters are the places to go. 

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.

Four Rivers, Four Short Trips.

After so much time spent on stillwaters, tenching, followed by a couple of angling trips to highly industrialised areas, I had need to once again see moving water.  As chance would have it, I made four trips to four different streams.   Barbel were still in my mind for the first trip, and although the river is NOT known for its barbel, and has actually produced very few of them for anyone, I was determined to have a try. There are several swims that, were barbel definitely present in the river, would definitely hold barbel.   Of course it is still me, judging the river by its cover, or surface, whereas any barbel would be looking at entirely different factors.  So take the word definitely with that pinch of salt. 

To give myself the best chance on river one, I arrived about midnight, edged cautiously down the steep bank, and hurled lead at two different areas of the swim.   The noisiest thing that then happened during darkness, was the totally silent bats flitting past, and them occasionally tripping over my line.    No barbel, no chub, nothing.   

I had time to ponder, and started to think about galaxies, and spiral galaxies in particular.    The spiral arms are a sure sign that the whole of the galaxy is rotating, that it has a large amount of rotational energy. But when the galaxy first formed it cannot have then shown any spiral characteristics.  They could only have developed as a result of the rotation  itself.   Initially though, there must have been some structure, blobby areas of dust or gas clouds or some such, from which the arms might develop.  As gravity drew it closer, so any inherant rotational energy would have formed the flattened disc, and as the matter structures condensed, they would tend to string out. In a manner similar to the planets in the Solar System, as the stars/dust/gas clouds got closer to the centre, so they would tend to rotate faster, in order to preserve  constancy of angular momentum.  Hence the spiral would be generated.   The idea I then had,  which I realise is certain not to have been missed by astronomers, is that somehow, it must be possible to use the tightness of the spiral to measure how old the galaxy is?  The mathematics is way beyond me ( and I am myself no slouch with numbers),  but I wonder if this might be part of how they calcualted how old the universe is?   Are globular galaxies far older, their spiral structures obliterated by time, or are they galaxies with little initial angular momentum?  No doubt I shall spend other biteless nights thinking about this one...and getting nowhere.

 Daylight, and I converted one rod to fish for smaller species.  This was a good plan and eventually I had landed 4 grayling, with a couple of the fish being about a pound.  Unusually: no trout.  In this area of the river I invariably see and hook a trout or two: but not on this day.  The river seemed far more devoid of fish than in any previous trip.  It also had more signs of angling pressure.   Worn banking, litter, and signs of someone being very obnoxious: toilet paper.  This was very near to a giant hogweed plant,  one of only two examples I have ever seen on this river.  I hoped, probably without much real chance, that the plant had managed to burn him seriously where it might hurt him the most. The first plant I had seen on the river was destroyed a couple of years ago by the council.  I destroyed the new plant myself, being very careful indeed to avoid the sap.

Trip two, and a different river, one I have fished very little these last two years or so.   I found a delightful little spot, and fished generally, not bothered as to the species I might catch.   Early morning dog walkers passed by and one stopped to chat, asking what fish the river held.   After a few minutes he asked whether he knew me.   I thought not.  But as he then appeared to correctly guess both my Christian and Surnames I concluded that, after all, he maybe  did know me.   He was on my university course, back in the late sixties!   I didn't recognise him at all.   Coincidence indeed, and a sign that my memory is not keeping up with others in my age group.  And he was a couple of months older than me.

The river is small, and I feel that, if I am not catching or getting bites, it is time to change swims.   As I prepared to do so, a large splash at the waters edge drew my attention.   I thought it a fish, but minutes later a rustling in the vegetation proved to be a mink.   No more than 4 feet away.  It wanted to get past me and move upstream.   I prepared the camera,   and when it did finally pass, took a quick shot.    Of course it is blurred from movement and poor focus, and is now deleted from the camera.  I was surprised that close up it was a deep brown, and not black.  Maybe a young one?     I was to see three more in different swims that morning, another single beast, and a pair that were obviously together.  They provided me with another blurred photo.   All were a deep chestnutty brown.    I am sure all I have seen before were black. Definitely mink though.   The last swim I chose was at the base of a very fast ripply section.  A "V" of fast water spiked on down into a large wide slackish pool, the "V" reducing in width as it went.    I decided to lob a bait into the far border of the fast and slow water.     It then started to rain: hard rain, and I sheltered as best I could under a standard sized gentleman's umbrella.   I was travelling a little too light again.  On the other side of the river was a concrete culvert, carrying little more than a drip.   Within 15 minutes this became a torrent, and I could see the river at the far side of the "V" turning grey from the new water.  It was motorway run-off: Grey and smelly water, made worse for being the first significant rain for some time.   I knew from previous experience that it would put the fish off, and so cast shorter, to the clean, closer part of the river. The first bite  had been some time coming, but finally a vicious bite.  On the strike a fair trout jumped, and soon a fish of a little under two pounds was drawn over the rim of the net.  The rain had stopped, but a goodly amount of water had been dumped in a short time.   Soon the rest of the river turned grey, as other motorway run-off slipways upstream, had added their own disgusting load into the river.   I knew it was time to go.    

The trip to river three nearly didn't happen.  I had planned an afternoon and evening session, but as I reached for my rods in the utility room, a crack of thunder preceded a huge short downpour.   Not knowing how long the rain would last I left the rods where they were, and settled down to read.  As I did so I heard a drip, then a lot more drips.  The ceiling over my bay window was leaking water...a lot of water. The rain soon stooped and I rushed to get the ladder and climbed up to find the two inch recess atop the flat roof was full of water.   The drain had become blocked, and the easiest overflow path was into my lounge.   Not difficult to resolve, but annoying when I had decided it was time to head for the hills and the river.  I arrived on the bank later than I expected. A young dipper, already free from the influence of parents, was messing about in the shallows nearby.  It did not yet have the white chest. All the characteristic actions of the species, but minus the uniform.

It was already 4 o'clock before my float made its first trot down.   Again grayling were my target.   A target  set and not achieved.  I could not get past the trout.  Around 16 or 18 of them, all between 6 and 12 ounces.   Apart from one.   I trotted the float down near the far bank , an upstream wind helping the light rod and centrepin keep the bait near the far bank, and as the float drifted under an overhanging tree, it bobbed and disappeared. A trout, looking all of 12 ounces immediately jumped, and then gave a truly virtuoso fight.   Down river, up the river, never showing itself at all.   I didn't quite understand how it had so much power and stamina.   Eventually it surface and splashed, and I could see I had underestimated its size.  But it was still no more than a pound and a few ounces, and the fight was more akin to  that of a four pound fish.  It didn't feel to be foul hooked either.   Once it had splashed it was to keep doing so, no matter how much I kept the rod tip down.  It ran back to where I had hooked it and splashed on the surface, quite heavily, for a good 25 seconds.  As I netted it a short time later, I had concluded that any more fish from the swim would be less likely than winning the lottery without having entered.     The fish though, had the misfortune to have been hooked in the adipose fin.   As a result the scrap was somewhat orgasmic,  it did not feel as if it had been foulhooked, and did not seem to get tired at all, always wanting more.   Even in the net, after an unduly long scrap it was still full of energy.   My very next cast though hooked another fish, also a trout ,in exactly the same spot.   The splashing had had no effect on the other fish at all, but seeing the float in the encroaching darkness was now getting too difficult, and I went home.  

Yesterday, trip four , river four.   Another small stream, one new to me.  I had walked the bank once, but without a rod to hand.   Most of these small stream are shallow when the flow is low, and, using polaroid sunglasses it is often possible to become absolutely certain, that there are absolutely NO fish present.  Odd though it seems, the fish have the ability to completely disappear at times.  Subsequent fishing will often completely dispell that, and swims that seem vacated of fish, become alive with them once a bait is stealthily introduced.

A pool below a rapid seemed as good a place as any in which to start, and a large lump of bread accompanied a single swan shot leger, was tossed in just to the edge of the fast water.  After a while I decided to recast, and as I started to reel in I thought I had a little knock.  My reactions were too slow, I was already winding in.   So I cast back to the same spot.  and a short while later the rod end rapped a couple of times, and a hard fighting fish shot up into the rapids above me.   It proved to be a chub, a little over three pounds.  Blank saved.    Next cast a little further downstream.  Whilst I waited, a dipper, an adult this time, did an upstream flypast,   followed a few minutes later by the return trip.   The bite, when it came was a small trout, maybe a half pound or so, but one that liked bread.    Time to move on, and things did not continue so well:  one swift, missed bite trotting maggots down a shallow run.  A couple of kingfishers flashing their way past.   I moved on, finding a deeper swim below a dangerously overhanging big willow.  The bread remained untouched, and I could just about see it on the bottom in the clear water, three or four feet down.    Any fish would have been invisible: havont not the colour contrast to highlight its presence.   The rod was resting immobile between my fishing stool and a willow branch.  There was a lot of hogweed nearby, some of the smaller plants being within a foot of my feet, and I confess that, after all the recent hoo-hah in the press about the dangers of hogweed, its presence made me quite nervous.

A sudden voice behind me, belonging to the guy who looks after the stretch of river, startled me, and

Sandpiper, White Wing Stripe Visible.

caused me to turn around.  Looking back, a couple of sentences later, the rod tip was curving downstream, it was bent but static.   Something had happened as I spoke my greeting.  I think it was a fish, the rod had been unmoving for far too long, but if a fish, it was already in the tree roots, and eventually I pulled for a break.   No more fish, but it was pleasing to see a sandpiper flying up and down a couple of times, to and from a bank of gravel, displaying a distinctive white zigzag across its wings, as I walked back to the car and the end of the session.    As all sandpipers seem to do, it flew fast and low, with very stiff looking wings.

Finally, did everyone see that match report in the Angling Times this week?  New match record.   Over half a ton on carp in a 5 hour match won the prize.   Half a ton of carp, averaging 8 pounds.  doing the maths, that is one 8 pound carp every two minutes, allowing the odd moment for rebaiting and casting in.  The fishery owner claims his fish are well looked after, but a carp every two minutes sounds like skull dragging to me.   Anyone wish to take bets on the lips of those fish still being irresistably kissable?
A quote from the article: "sometimes 75% of the stock is caught in a match"  So are we saying the fish are all caught every two or three days? Again and again?   Yet they are still hungry, despite hoards of anglers "feeding every 30 seconds...or else they move next door"  which was one quote I read.    It all defies realistic description.

 I am wary of being too critical though: when all has been said and done, waters like these keep the match anglers well away from the places I want to fish.

It has taken me a while to publish this and for that I apologize.  In the meantime a few more small river trips have materialized, and the catches of grayling have been improving, and the trout have been ever present.   More, maybe, in the next sermon.

A final, final bit:  one other blogger recently reviewed some tackle on sale at Aldi.   He particularly liked the cheap, small one man shelter.  Another item, unreviewed, was a case of floats.   My wife has just gone to the Ear East for a couple of months, and although she disapproved of my fishing whilst she is here ("The smells! The smells!"), it would seem that she is encouraging me to fish whilst she is away.   So she bought me the tube of floats.  Do I sense a suspicious woman? I shall not make comment on the floats themselves, but, included were some hooks to nylon and a circular, 8 segment box of lead shot.  7 different sizes.  Wonderful.  Look at the photograph.     Each segment contains exactly ONE shot, no more, no less.  I find that rather amusing, taking economy to its very  limits.

Apocalypse Last Week

It has been a long time since I did any serious walking,  a mile or two, quite often, but anything longer seems in the dim, distant past.   So I decided to have a far longer stroll, and chose Salford Quays in Manchester as the destination.     I'll tell you the end result, here and now, rather than at the end:   serious aches in the legs and ankles after walking about 12 miles.   But after a couple of days I definitely felt better for it, and will have to get back to taking such longer walks more regularly.  The Quays is Salford's old docks, served by the Manchester Ship Canal. Locks close off the canal, and the Quays are unlikely to ever again have much, if any at all, boat traffic. A few ships still use the canal though. So the Quay lock gates have been closed for years and the pounds, or basins as some are called, are effectively cut off from the Canal itself.     As a consequence there is no water flow through them, only rain and very minor seepage between the lock gates ensures a steady water level.   The level in the canal itself is controlled by additional huge locks further downstream, and is, I think kept fairly constant.   I say downstream because the start of the Canal is in fact really the River Irwell, dredged out to some 25 feet deep, 36 miles long and I would guess some 90 yards   wide.   Nearer the sea it follows part of the route of the River Mersey, of which the Irwell is a tributary.   Together with the steady water level, comes great water clarity, and provided that the algae is not "breaking" it can be easy to see a good 12 feet or more deep into the basins.  So fish can often be seen.  I watched a carp of about 10 pounds idling away its time near the basin wall.   As I left the Quays, an angler was just unloading his car.  I admit to being surprised at how much gear he had with him.  A very large piled up wheelbarrow carrying of all sorts of stuff, enough to enable him to survive an apocalypse.   He was after the carp.  One of his bags contained his beer, he said.   Another had in it an electric battery powered drill.   I guess this was to drill anchor points into the concrete banks for his bivvy.  But also all the gear, several thousand pounds worth I suspect,  looked to be brand new.   How on earth he keeps his tackle so pristine I have no idea.   Mine always looks battered and used.  Maybe because I use it and don't worry too much if the rod hits the odd tree or two as I change swims.

I walked back into Manchester along the Ship Canal.  One good fish swirled as I passed, maybe it was another carp. I didn't see it, and I don't think it had seen me.  I determined I should fish it soon.  But first, the next evening, I watched a small fishing match, on the Piccadilly basin of the Rochdale canal, right in the city centre.  The match was won by about three pounds of roach, including some nice half pound plus fish. The winner had to cope with a bunch of youths behind him, break dancing and generating some interestingly and highly scented puffs of smoke. Roachpole fishing is something I have no experience of and it was rather educational to see it. I can appreciate the advantages, but for my own style of fishing I suspect that it is all too much of a bother.  Too much messing about for me.  Or as the locals might say: "I can't be doing with all that."  But very good to see goodly numbers of fish so near to the centre of Manchester.

This Week's Rant:

At sometime during the fishing match my mobile phone was sabotaged.  I have never been an expert with a mobile phone, despite my life-long computer industry background.  A situation that my son takes great advantage of, in order to poke fun at me.   He suddenly had an ally.  That damned woman in my SatNav, she who must be obeyed, or perhaps argued with, had moved, and set up home inside my phone.  When I pressed the "go" button, she started to read my screen, quite loudly, and very annoyingly.  "Twenty-one thirty two":  she announced was the time.    "Battery seventy eight percent full",  and so on.  Worse still, as soon as I touched any on-screen key, or even just the screen itself, she announced my actions to the world.

"e key pressed".

As I typed my password, she made a vocal confirmation with every key pressed.  Being security conscious, she did say: "full stop", "full stop"  rather than repeat my actual password letters.       Worse was to come.   She took great delight in telling me, whenever I  touched the screen,  exactly where I had touched it, whilst not allowing me to slide a finger across the screen to accept a call.   I was unable to answer the phone.   What is the point of my having a mobile phone if I cannot answer the very occasional calls that come to it?   I concluded that some special feature must have become enabled, maybe a switch to help a blind person, and that all I had to do was to go to the "settings" screen to revert it.   She shouted "settings" as I touched the key, and I found I had to then make two more quick taps in order to action the key.   Up came settings,  but the first screen did not contain the required change.  And then disaster:  slide would not work here either.  I scraped off several layers of skin from my forefinger, desperately trying to scroll down to page three of the "settings" screen.  Every time I touched the screen she would again tell me which part of the screen I had touched:

  "Wifi", "Data usage", "Bluetooth".

But would she allow me to scroll down? Not a chance.

My son was off in the Far East, swimming with whale sharks, and I was quite jealous of the lucky so and sod. Huge beautiful fish, up to 35 feet long, exclusively plankton eaters.  Pretty yellow spots.  I had texted him the day before, suggesting he use two krill on a size 14 hook, but didn't get a sensible reply. But he was not, being under water, and 9000 miles away, able to help me kill off this loud mouthed smooth telephone operator lady.   By this time my wife was joining in, taking the Mickey at my total incompetence.     Desperation had set in, and I plugged the phone and its resident woman  into the computer, praying for 240 Volts, then upgraded and reloaded the phone's system software.  That procedure might have actually impressed my son, had he been able to watch,  but it didn't deter the lady in the phone.  Instead she got even stroppier, and it took me a good 30 minutes just to figure out how to re-enter my security codes, whilst she was rabbiting on and intercepting my every key stroke.   Eventually I got past both the phone password and the SIM password, but to no effect. She remained.  I was getting increasingly annoyed and frustrated by this time,  calling Sony and the Three network all the names under the sun. So I finally bit the bullet and went down town to the Three shop, where none of the five staff were able to resolve the problem.   But they did put me in touch with Sony support, and the gentleman on the line had seen this once before.   And he revealed to me what must be a closer kept secret than was "Little Boy" during the war.   You can also scroll by using TWO fingers at the same time.   I did so, with my two fingers configured so as to show the lady exactly what I thought of her.   It worked and I was able to scroll down to an "Accessibility" icon, under which a feature called "Talkback" had mysteriously been turned on.  "Accessibility"...really? It had rendered my phone totally out of bounds.  How on earth a partially sighted person would have coped defeats me.  I had not changed it to "Talkback" myself, and had no idea that the feature was there.    But sanity returned, the world order was re-established, and I was already wondering whether the wife might have a similar off switch, as I rode the bus back home.

The next morning, early, having travelled light, I set up two rods by the side of the Ship Canal,  or "The Shippy" as it is known locally.  I did not think that it was worth my while to try for a carp, especially on such a big strange water, so I put in a smallish amount of bait and decided to look for a bream or two, or some roach.

Manchester Ship Canal by Night

The last scientific report I read about the Shippy was a technical evaluation of its water quality, and its flora and fauna.   It was said that the roach lived in the upper layers, and, holding their breath, dived to the bottom to quickly search out a bite to eat, the lower levels having more or less zero dissolved oxygen.  This report was maybe ten years ago, and I feel things might be better now, so determined to bottom fish.  The depth was not the anticipated 25 feet,  maybe little more than ten.  Probably, because I was fairly near the Irwell, a spate river,  any sediment carried during a flood would tend to settle out once the flow rate decreased, so I think I was fishing over a good 15 feet of slowly accumulated sediment.

One rod breadflake, one maggots, both with a maggot feeder.   As daylight dawned I could properly see my surroundings.  The bats disappeared.

Ship Canal Decoration

The carp angler's apocalypse had occurred.  As far as I could see, every square inch of the substantial concrete banks and walls was covered in graffiti.    More paint than the spray can manufacturers could have made surely? And how do these people summon up the cash for so much paint?  People who create graffiti are either artists or idiots.  There were a few artists on display, and many of the idiots who "tagged" their own names over the good stuff.   I quite like good graffiti, and certainly there was little real harm done in it being here.  It would require considerable work by the council to transform this post Hiroshima bombsite type environment into something nice, and into a state where graffiti should not be tolerated.

But I did see a kingfisher flash past me, and a kestrel hovered over the far bank. So maybe the devastation is not so bad as mine eye thinks?  A good three dozen swans sailed past, followed by the usual Canada geese, and the odd mallard. Swallows and sand martins also cavorted over the water.  The advancing light soon revealed a number of old car and truck tyres around which I would have to steer any fish hooked. A cormorant, one of many that live on the canal, sat on a floating barrier.  It rocked uncomfortably as every wave passed it by, and looked well fed.

Then I had a shock, my rod tip rapped slightly.  I admit quite freely that in this environment I was not expecting any action at all, despite rumours of there being fish. I waited, but nothing.   But over the next hour or so half a dozen smallish roach took the bait.  All very cautious bites.    Less cautious was my last bite, and a heavier fish was hooked.  Most of the fight was typical...of a bream, although it did manage a couple of sharp pulls as well, which briefly impressed me.  After being steered around the tyres it was netted.

My Swim on the "Shippy".

 A bronze bream of  6 pounds 12 ounces.  I would not usually have bothered weighing a bream of this size, but on my first expedition to the Ship Canal, I thought I should.  Surprisingly it was a very healthy individual, a nice shade of gold, a thick deep fish.  The photo is a little disappointing, but I did not have an unhooking mat with me, and the photographic options were concrete, or in the net.  So the picture is a little blurred and the fish in the net.           

Impressed by my first encounter with the Ship Canal, I decided to fish in the clear water of the Quays themselves the next day.    Similar amount of concrete, but without the decorations.  A few hours saw me catch a few small perch, and eventually another bream.    This one was most unlike the fish of a day before.  It was VERY dark in colour, super-slimy, was still recovering from spawning, remnants of the head tubercles still being present, It was thin, side to side, and quite shallow.    I had expected the opposite, that bream from the clear waters of the quays would be very good looking fish.   But I suspect that they spawn later, in the deep water, that they do in the canal itself, which, fed by the Irwell undoubtedly warms up faster.   The Quays fish was certainly male.   It prompts me to wonder, whether the golden fish are all female, and the dark ones all male.   I have caught both "varieties" gold and black, from several waters now, and it makes some sense to see them as the males and females.   Speculation at the moment of course.

A Depressingly Ugly Quays Bream.  A Definite Male.

A Far Prettier Canal Bream.  A Female?

The Odd Fish or Two and a Lot of Irish Crows

I fished a small club pond recently, mainly to provide me with a change from the river, a session without having to travel to the ends of the earth. Wildlife was minimal: too many anglers turned up once it was way past their  breakfast, and only herons and a couple of moorhens added much needed variety to the usual woodpigeons.

Whilst on the topic of wildlife variety, I am sure that you will forgive my making a brief return across the water to Ireland. Ireland being the "Emerald Isle", it has lots of green spaces with relatively few built up areas as compared to England.  I had expected to see masses of wildlife, many different birds.  And there certainly were fair numbers of seashore bird species, gulls, curlews, oyster catchers and so on,  but further inland the birdlife seemed quite sparse, with very few different species showing themselves.  Almost all the birds I saw were crows: carrion crows, rooks, jackdaws, hooded crows and magpies. They seemed to make the most of photo opportunities though, and posed well for pictures.

A Rook ... Note the Pale Coloured Beak

    Very little else, but these species were ubiquitous, being present in large numbers almost everywhere. On a recent short day trip to a Yorkshire river I saw buzzards, a peregrine, kestrels and a sparrowhawk.   In Ireland, a full week of touring very suitable geography revealed just one solitary kestrel.  No other birds of prey at all.  I thought that the locals must shoot the buzzards and other raptors, but, I am sure if that were the case, there would have been far less crows flying about.

Hooded Crow in Flight. Very Obvious Grey and Black Coloration..

Jackdaw in Ireland, a Smaller Crow Species, Blue Eyes

That the crows allow people to get so close suggests that not many of them are acquainted with shotguns. The Irish do not like the crows, that is fully apparent.   I do not know what the shop in the picture was selling, but the shop name speaks volumes. I see all these species, with the exception of hooded crows, in England, but in much smaller numbers. The hooded crow I have only seen in Scotland, but they are very common in Ireland, and are referred to as grey crows by some of the locals.
The farmers in Ireland also do not seem to be in love with  the crow population. I would have liked to thank the farmer for his hard work,  enabling me to take this photograph:

But to return to that pond: I knew that if I caught at all, I would be unlikely to land anything huge, so made it a centrepin trip, with a light Avon rod to complement it.   Biggest fish was a F1 carp, not huge, but it provided a decent enough scrap on the light gear, and some much needed centrepin practice for me.  I made a mistake when buying this centrepin reel, two or three years ago.  It had never crossed my mind that such reels could be right or left handed.    So my set up is not ideal, and I have had to compromise by winding the line on to the spool in the "wrong" direction, in order to still utilize the additional features of the reel, such as the variable clutch. I don't use the clutch to play a fish, not to provide resistance when it runs, but it becomes very useful when transporting a made up rod. The downside is that it means I have to reel in anti-clockwise, but I shall cope. I am one of those awkward sods: a right handed angler who fishes left handed.   Next up: the Wallace cast.  Was Wallace a left hander?  A cack-handed caster?

The highlight of the day on the pond was in watching a guy with a roach pole in the adjacent swim. Now, I do have a roach pole myself... somewhere. One of those silly impulsive Aldi purchases, as I thought, "Good God, that's cheap." I know it is probably rubbish, a dreadful pole, but at the price it instantly became a "must have".  "Must haves" are for me, quite simply: "must haves", and so out comes the plastic. I have even used this pole once...only once.   So, as with my fly rod, it has yet to produce a fish for me;  not the fault of the pole, just a result of my impatience. I should have stuck with it a little while longer than it took to eat that sandwich.  So I am almost without any valid experience of pole fishing, especially using one for carp, which is what the guy next door was catching.  So that explains the need for the pinch of salt that I suggest is to be taken with what follows.   The said fisherman landed three carp, float fishing under the pole tip.  Watching was quite an education for me.    The elastic was stretched considerably with each hooked fish, and for a total period of time that might significantly dent that elapsed since the Big Bang...or at the very least the time that has elapsed since Fred Hoyle first coined the name. I believe he was taking the mickey out of a theory with which he disagreed, but the Big Bang name stuck.
It was taking an absolute age to land each of three fish,  yet I could see that he knew what he was doing. He was not, like myself, a pole newbie.  I eventually figured that the reality was simply this: he had no choice at all in the matter. He had to let the fish tire themselves out completely.  Why?  You may well ask.   With a conventional rod and reel, when the time comes to steer the fish into the landing net, there is an optimal length of line one has to keep between the fish and the rod tip.   The angler controls this length, he knows from experience how long it should be.    Too short and he is unable to draw the fish close enough to net it.   Too long and the fish becomes uncontrollable, once the rod is raised to the vertical in order to try and net the fish.  A vertical rod cannot exert effective control over a fish close in to the angler. Experience shows that the perfect length of line makes netting that fish quite easy, and any variation from that makes life more difficult.    Now to return to that pole. It is no longer the angler that has control of the line length.  It is the fish.  The angler can take off a section of pole, or add one on, both of which actions have an effect, but that stretchy elastic, with a heavy fish pulling on it removes precise control of the line length from the angler.   The fish,  even with their "last legs" amount of strength were wreaking havoc, Pole sections were being rolled out and rolled in, added on and taken off, but that outstretched elastic made it repeatedly difficult to steer those fish towards the landing net.   So the carp were taking so long to land, that they were very, very exhausted, and to be honest it did not really seem fair on the fish.  It was, all in all, quite a Fred Karno performance, and one by an experienced angler.   I had been thinking that the biggest carp must have been an upper double or a twenty, but as he left, the angler said his biggest fish was only about 8 pounds.  That fish was being played for a good twenty minutes.    I have abandoned any plans I might have had to try for a carp (or a barbel) with a roach pole.   It is just not right that fish should need to be played to such a standstill. 

Whilst sitting there, not catching much, or even catching the odd small tench and carp, the mind wanders.   Mine wandered back to bullheads, and the apparent amazing coincidence that the only bullhead I ever caught from the canal, in several years of fishing it, was my first fish from the venue.   But is that really so astonishing?   Of course not.    It is a rare event, but in this world so many events happen, that rare ones will occur, in total, quite often. Coincidences are to be expected!  A couple more from my own life:  
When I was about seven years old, my dad had a black Ford Zephyr six, a big old lump of a car.   Its reg was PMB 201.  One day whilst driving through a nearby village, we spotted, approaching us from two different directions, two other black Zephyrs,  having number plates PMB 203, and 204.   Coincidence, but not a miracle. Today it might be,  there were far fewer cars on the roads then.
I was once down in Mevagissey, Cornwall, and saw, on the dockside, a Marcos sports car that I recognized.  I left a note to the owner to meet me in the Ship Inn, at 7 PM.  At 7 PM, there he was, in the Ship, just as I expected. But he did NOT expect to see me, for he had not been back to his car, and hence had not seen my note.  Coincidence that his car was there, and more so that he randomly chose the same pub and time that I had chosen myself.  I always thought that he, coincidentally,  looked rather like Graham Hill, the racing car driver.  Now, with the wisdom that comes with age, I realize that he was probably, as a sports car driver, actually trying to look like Graham Hill, cultivating the 'tache and hairstyle, rather than coincidentally looking just like Graham.
Finally, I was listening to the radio last week.  Coincidences are all around us. A history program, in which two dates were mentioned   A.D. 2012, and 79 B.C.     We have two methods of indicating years:  A.D.  or B.C.   How much of a coincidence is it that those two methods collectively use just the letters A,B,C,D?    This one can be worked out mathematically and, if my mathematics remain trustworthy, comes out to about one chance in 15000 if just 4 letters are involved.   Coincidences DO occur, and there are so many events in each of our lives that such coincidences should be expected, rather than be seen as a surprise.  That bullhead was not really such a surprise at all.

With the rivers still low, it would have been very remiss of me not to have had another trip...or two..or even three for the grayling. I think I had four.  And there have been some successes, although that two pounder remains as ever, swimming about in my dreams.   Pound plus fish have almost abounded though, with about a dozen of them sliding into the landing net from various small rivers. Grayling, far more than barbel, seem to need our help when being returned to the stream. But whilst recovering they do provide that chance for yet another grayling photograph.

However I decided not to publish it, as I am sure that one or two of you would rather see something else.   One particular day was not so successful with the grayling.  The river had resumed its normal winter level, and was running a foot higher than it has of late.  I chose to fish a completely new area on the river and found "one of those swims". One of those swims that just looks perfect in every way.   Superb flow down the middle, large eddies on both sides of the river, a slack between two willows that seemed to grow as much in the river as out of it.  The swim looked magnificent and so I settled in. Initial expectations were fulfilled, with two half pound grayling and an out of season trout of about a pound and a half in the first three casts.   I was expecting, at that moment, to catch grayling all day long, the swim looked quite capable of such a feat.   It was not to be, and the next three hours produced just one more trout.  How can one's prospects nose dive so rapidly?   The day became worse, with heavy rain, blasted at me by an absolute gale, and conditions were quite miserable. Putting up a brolly,  I abandoned the grayling hunt and toyed between flight home, and chucking a bait into the eddies for a chub. I had to hook my arm over the brolly ribs in order not to have the wind wrest it from my grasp, depositing in on the other bank, or the next county.   I was glad I did change tactics, for about thirty minutes later my suffering was adequately compensated for, by a chub of 5 pounds 3 ounces.  Its size was rather nice, but what I most liked about the fish was its fantastic good looks.  By far the best looking chub I have ever landed, even if it was not a personal best.  Fish that look like this are in themselves a reason to go fishing, even without all the other reasons provided by just being there.  Unlike most chub, it was not a one rush wonder.  Many chub make one initial powerful rush on first being hooked, and then largely wallow their way back to the net.  This fish was a tiger throughout, and did not give up.  Another worrying minute or two for the barbless hook!
A friend recently caught his largest ever barbel, and published its photo on facebook.  A very good fish and I was very pleased for him, but I really did not like what followed, which was a series of posts about other people that had caught his fish, both recently and somewhat less so, together with what was almost a statistical analysis of its weight changes over the years. My chub looked so pristine that I am certain it had never seen a hook before.  Many large chub seem to have patches of scales that look badly arranged, and are not placed in  neat and tidy lines, suggesting that they have been caught before many times, harassed by a predator, or maybe damaged themselves during spawning or by accidental contact with underwater objects. I find extra joy in catching a perfect specimen, especially when I feel safe in the knowledge that I am the first angler ever to see and touch the fish.

A Superbly Stocky and Fit Chub