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.

Swifts, House Martins, a Lonesome Tench and Utter Rubbish.

Another trip to the tench lake, a 2 night session.   For much of the first day, the sky was thick with swifts, and if it is ever possible to estimate numbers of such fast moving birds, heading in all directions, then there were about two hundred of them.  Every one giving a superb demonstration of how to fly: none of that Red Arrows amateurish rubbish.   They were, I am sure, picking up a lot of very small insects, far too small for me to see.  They do sometimes take larger prey, and some years ago, up in the Lake District, I watched a large mayfly hatch and slowly fly up, no more than a foot from my face.  As it drew level with my eyes, there was a brown horizontal flash, and the insect disappeared, having been taken by a swift at full speed.  A solitary wing was all that remained, spiralling slowly back towards the water. Quite a moment.  Swifts must hit their food at quite a speed, and for large flies there must be a significant impact into the mouth of the bird.  On the second day of fishing, it rained, and the swifts disappeared. I wonder whether they were seeking shelter from the rain, or maybe protecting their eyes from it?  In order to take insects at such speeds their vision must surely be partly binocular, with the eyes pointing at least partially forward . Raindrops at speed are unpleasant, so maybe the swifts avoid them?  The swifts were replaced by some fifty or so house martins, flying happily in the rain, and for the most part, just an inch or two above the water surface.  Their wingtips, on the downstroke, were millimetres from the surface for much of the time, yet never did a single wingtip touch the surface.  Brilliant little fliers.

It was probably silly of me to spend so long by the lake, thereby getting in trouble with the wife, and especially as the second night proved biteless. Not so much as a line bite to suggest that there were fish anywhere near me.  But the first day did produce one reasonable tench, a little over five pounds, and two or three missed bites.      After the fish, I had beautiful, flat float bites on each of the next three casts, each coming about five minutes after the cast.  Obviously tench....or were they?

I was concerned that I had missed three easy bites, from a species that is normally quite easy to hook.  And after some thought, and a sanity check, I realised that none of these three flat float incidents were due to tench.  I like to fish fairly light, and, in order to get a light float rig out some 20 yards, I had moulded a small blob of loose groundbait around my shot.   This achieved two things: a longer, but  easy cast, and some bait very near the hook.   The groundbait was mixed just hard enough to remain on during the cast, but I am now sure it was staying on the shot, for a while longer: about five minutes or so longer.  It was then soft enough to  fall away the shot.   However it appears that I had lost one of my BB shot earlier, and the remaining two were no longer sufficient to cock the float.  Hence, after five minutes, the groundbait, which had been ensuring that the float remained cocked, melted away, and the float  slowly lay flat.   Missed bites, but no fish were present.  A lesson learned.  Had I not realised what was happening I would have written some rubbish about missed bites, had a minor rant, and been guilty of writing before thinking.   "Obviously tench" was complete rubbish.

But in angling a great deal is said, and written, without thought, or knowledge, or evidence.  And it is produced by all types, from novices to experts. More utter crap is written about angling than about all other sports added together...and yes, that does include football.

Following a couple of words in one of my earlier posts I will try to get across the full stupidity of one conversation I recently heard, between two carp anglers.   They had been fishing one particular lake for a year or so, and had taken, between them, some 50 carp, almost all doubles. the split was something like 26/24 to the two anglers.   The angler with 24 fish, had taken carp to 27 pounds.   The second guy had caught, amongst his fish, a couple of low 30 pound fish.  In the conversation he was crowing about how he was therefore the better angler.   Both 30's had fallen to his rod, and he had also caught more fish.  Total rubbish of course, and looks very much like a "luck of the draw", cookie crumbling result to me. But what amazed me most of all was that the second angler, he with a best fish of only 27 pounds, agreed entirely with his mate!

I rarely watch angling on the TV, but occasionally lapse.   I quite enjoy the River Monsters, and The Robson Green series of programmes, probably because both are just intended to entertain, rather than educate.  The River Monsters gets quite funny at times, because "our Jeremy" seems to find ultimate danger everywhere he looks, the danger being exaggerated out of all proportions.  How he gets out of bed in a morning without a risk assessment is a mystery to me.  Educational angling programmes are another thing altogether, and often contain more of the  "utter rubbish" to which I referred earlier.  TV angling journalists are not exempt.  Consult Matt Hayes on how to hook maggots, and you are advised to carefully hook them through the blunt end, thus not damaging them.  John Wilson, in the same week's TV, said that it mattered not a bit how you put the hook in, and a bit of fluid leaking from the maggot would spread the amino acids about to entice the fish.  A or B?  You choose.    Another Matt Hayes programme advised how to tell whether a carp had ever been caught before.  He showed, on a carp he had just caught, a curtain of soft tissue just inside the carp's mouth.   The curtain was complete, unbroken, and, therefore, apparently, a sign that the fish had never been caught before. But...but...but...he had just caught the fish...and yet its curtain was still intact.  So he released a fish, curtain intact, and the next angler to catch it will also think it is a virgin fish, never hooked before?  And surely, if Matt had hooked and landed the fish, the curtain should have been damaged during the process?   Therefore you should never see an intact curtain?  Clearly matt should have said, that the more often a fish is caught, the more likely that the curtain will show damage.
 All of this shows it that those at the peak of our angling tree are just as prone to making stupid statements as the rest of us are.   I try to temper my wilder ideas with "possiblys" and "probablys", to provide me with escape routes, but will, I guess, still sometimes spout junk myself.  I apologize in advance for any such lapses, and please, feel free to comment.  I don't expect angling journalism, or pub chats to change, and the rubbish will remain as intact as Matt's Carp's curtain did.  I can only advise that, to think about the angling yourself, is as much likely to produce results as just listening to others.

Cheek! Caught a Tench in MY Swim

I fished a new water today, not really expecting to catch anything at all.  The water is big, very big, new to me, gin clear, and I knew little of it  other than its name and location.   But it looked good for tench, and to me that is always enough to get the juices flowing.    And indeed, catching nothing is exactly what happened. The trip became, as expected, merely a reconnaissance expedition.  As such it was not wasted, and as with most of my trips, there were wildlife moments to see and savour.

I cast in as dawn broke, to much birdsong.  I am not the best of people to identify bird species by their songs, and that is possibly as a result of being tone deaf and never singing myself.  When I was eleven, on my first morning at grammar school, I stood immediately behind the music teacher, who played the pipe organ right in front of the row of new boys.   After the first hymn, he turned around    "You boy!  Name?"
  I told him.
 "YOU, boy, are banned from singing for the rest of your life.  I consider it my duty as a musician, to protect the rest of mankind from your intolerable caterwauling."
I have never burst into song since.  I quote him, word for word, and to be honest he was right,  Even if I try to sing to myself, inside my head, silently, I know the notes are wrong.    I didn't pass GCE music.  Wasn't even entered for it.    Ah well, I just hope the rest of you are duly grateful for what you have been spared.

A Songthrush: Listening for Worms.

I did recognise the song thrush almost at the very top of a nearby tree.   After all the easiest way to identify this bird's very variable song is to count the phrase repetitions.  If he usually sings it three times: song thrush....simple mathematics...I was good at maths.



Massed Toadpoles

But let me return to the lakeside.   Soon after dawn a little dabchick emerged from the nearby sedges, and slowly swam right across the lake,   several hundred yards.   He, or she, came back about an hour later.  This epic journey was to be repeated about 4 times during the day.   Why there was no suitable food any closer, I have no idea.  The margins seemed to be brim full of all sorts of little bugs and critters.   Like every other place I have fished recently there were massed toadpoles.    Not seen any frog larvae as yet, but toads are everywhere this year.  Toadpoles are blacker than tadpoles, smaller, and with a shorter tail.  There was more life in the margins than I expected, several times a great crested grebe came, and pushed its way through the marginal rushes and sedges.   Not seeing me it often came as close as a couple of feet from my couple of feet.

A crèche of Canada goslings drifted across the lake, and came on land quite near to me to eat the fresh grass in the field.   There were 23 young, along with four parents.  I don't know why, but most of the Canada  geese  on a lake do not seem to breed, but often those that do guard their offspring collectively.  I have seen three such crèches this year, each attended by four adults.
 Swallows swifts and house martins flew constantly above the lake.   The swifts, so aptly named, flew rapidly, higher up than the other birds, their uniformly dark brown colouration and thin swept back wings clearly identifying them. The swallows, with their thin v tail flew mainly near the water surface.  A speed, and with many twists and turns, they never let a wingtip touch the surface, despite being constantly as low as an inch or two.  The house martins, with that conspicuous white rump, flew at an intermediate height, below the swifts, yet above the swallows.  No sand martins, the smallest of the quartet.  They will be over the river, near their nest holes, and enjoying themselves in exuberant flight, more than any other bird species I have seen.  I watched some flies hatch, emerging from the water surface, and venturing tentatively into the air.  Most were caught by the swallows, who slowed down only slightly as they take the insects in mid flight. Occasionally they would drink from the surface, but also, something I have not noticed before, they often took insects directly off the surface of the water. 

Great Crested Grebe Sharing the Fishing: One for Him, None for Me.

The weeds near my feet moved again, the grebe was back.   But this time, he came back to the surface, with a tench held sideways in his bill.  About four inches the fish was, and as slippery as all tench.  The grebe swam off, all the time struggling to turn and swallow the fish.  Eventually he succeeded, but it found it far more difficult than swallowing a roach..  But the cheek of it: catching a tench, in my swim, on a day I remained biteless.

Heard a cuckoo as well on the day, somewhere the far side of the lake from my position.  Of course that could mean it being a long way away, as the call seems to carry very well indeed.   Odd how the two notes, repeated incessantly as they are, remain enigmatic, and of interest, whereas the five notes of the woodpigeon get on the nerves after a very few minutes.   I did think about going to look for the bird after I finished fishing, but forgot all about it...and it was raining, so I hurried the wet gear into my car and drove home.

All Grebes, Swallows and no Crucians

Set out very early yesterday, still dark as I left home, no glimmering of daylight, although the heavy cloud cover may have blocked out the impending dawn.  I reached the lake, a pretty reed fringed shallow water, with the first rays of light now penetrating the cloud, and I could just about see my float, some ten yards out.  Rigged up in a sort of lift method crossed with float legering.  With bread baited  and bated breath I had cast out into the gloom.  On the grass, in a field to my left were a couple of rabbits.  Black rabbits!   Only seen one black one before, near Manchester Airport, on a grass verge, but maybe they are becoming more common now in Cheshire.  Too far away for the camera.

Bites soon came, tentative little knocks that I assumed were from my chosen quarry: Carassius Carassius.   Crucian carp, another species I have caught very few of lately.  Tenacious little scrappers, Carassius Clays which don't just float like butterflies when hooked.   Hooked? Not a chance, and I missed quite a number of bites before finally connecting with...a two ounce roach.  And so it continued, regardless of bait changes, all that came near my bait were small roach and bream, the best of which would have struggled to register a pound on a set of scales.  And the rest were far smaller. 

But it was a pleasant day, for a moment at least.  Swallows arrived with the light, and drank by gliding on stiff wings, lower beak scooping up water.  Later when the water became rougher, the birds changed tactics, and set down briefly to take that drink, causing a moment's hesitation in the flight, a minor hiccup and splash. They appeared to have a number of regular flight paths, along which they spent much of their time.   It became quite noticeable when swallow after swallow flew past, along the same compass heading, and always exactly over my float.  I picked out several other regular routes, some of which were parallel to the bank.    I wonder if they in some way choose their flight path along routes which optimises the insect count?    Later in the day they had time to play, and chased each other in pairs and at speed.   The reactions of the following birds were incredible, with changes of directions in the tag game, in order to follow the "on" bird seeming to occur with millisecond precision. Some military pilots can experience G-forces up to about 9 Gs.   I wonder how many G the swifts and swallows are pulling during their own aerial dog fights?   Whatever the value, these birds have a good life, certainly enjoying themselves, and each with a long African holiday planned for later in the year.

There was a family of great crested grebes on the lake as well.  Four birds in total, although this was just one adult, with three 3/4 grown chicks.   Another lake I fish also has four, but that family comprises two adults and two young.  There I quite often see them in pairs, with both adults often having just one of the young in tow. And that lake has plenty of suitable fish, together with very clear water to aid the grebes' fishing. I saw as many as 40 or 50 fish fed to the young in a single day, and probably missed others.  The single adult on the other lake has life far more difficult, as the water is quite turbid, with maximum visibility as little as 10 inches. The small fish population in the shallow water is also probably less, so with three mouths to feed the adult was having a hard time coping with the incessant cheeping of three hungry young grebes.
  
After a couple of hours the largest of the three young attacked the smallest and drove it away.  The bird tried to return, but was again attacked by its eldest sibling, which literally had it by the neck, possibly trying to drown it.   And then the adult joined in to chase off the chick.  The youngster made one more attempt to return, but then wandered around the lake keeping a good safe distance between itself and the others.   Later in the day, the adult was to drive away the second chick.   The largest stayed very close to the adult, even making some amateurish attempts to dive and follow the adult. The youngest grebe kept wandering around the lake, coming quite close to myself and other anglers.  Which gave me an idea.  I offered it a 4 inch roach that I had caught, held the fishlet flapping in full view of the grebelet, which was maybe 5 yards away.   And it showed some interest.  I thought it was going to come and take the fish but it shied away when only a couple of feet away from my hand.    Maybe my camouflaged jacket has its limitations.   The roach was allowed to swim off. But it was all quite encouraging and I prepared my camera for a second attempt to entice the bird.  But it then kept a safe distance so no shot of me hand feeding a grebe. Instead, a shot I took a few weeks ago, before the eggs hatched.


I then suffered the first of 5 or 6 heavy and short-ish showers.   Cowered underneath my brolley and prayed for an absence of bites.   Momentarily, once, just once,  I dozed off...I had been up since 2:30 AM !   As I dozed a fish bit sufficiently well to drag line off the reel.  I struck, and was in contact with a good fish for 20 seconds or so before the hook pulled.   Damn!     As the light faded slightly, more due to heavy cloud than the lateness of the hour, a mink swam across the lake, and took up residence in the willow immediately to my right.   Mink do not seem very strong swimmers to me, and I doubt that they would have much success in catching fish.  This one did dive briefly once or twice, but I remain unconvinced that it had eaten many fish suppers.    But perhaps it did account for the second adult grebe?  So I staked it out for a photograph, but made an error.  I thought that, with the poor light I would need a flash.   The photo is dreadful, and a test shot I did a few moments later, without the mink, showed that I had errored in switching the flash unit on.  Oh well.  But I did get to see the mink quite well as it wandered through the lower part of the willow.

A little later a crow flying over the lake descended, and delicately, with its beak, took a small dead fish from the surface.  It scarely got its feet wet.   I have seen a crow do a similar thing on the River Trent a year or so ago, so maybe it is a quite normal behaviour for a crow.

After the 5th, or was it 6th, short shower, I decided to pack up, and as I reeled my line in, a pike grabbed the bait.   After a short tussle it either let go, or else bit through the line.   Either way, my float rebounded into the alder, from where I was just about able to reach and retrieve it.  

This is one of very few waters on which I have not seen coots or moorhens. Neither revealed themselves all day on this typical coot lake.   More mink action I fear.   The  willow had also harboured a pair of small birds, flitting about from branch to branch. I watched them for ages, thinking they were probably some sort of warbler, but the leaves were always obscuring the birds from my view.   I gave up hoping for a photo, and moments later they were sitting in good view, in the alder to my left.   They were very young, extremely fluffy, blue tits.   One other bird, a bird of prey, had flown across the lake, but with my poor ID capabilities of such birds I do not know what it was. Female sparrowhawk size-ish, but rather paler, and with a grey look to it, but I don't think it to have been a sparrowhawk.  Not an eagle, nor kestrel, nor kite nor buzzard, although one buzzard did show itself as I drove home, landing on the grass near the hard shoulder.  The red kite I saw last week over the same motorway, was no longer to be seen.

All in all, a poor day's fishing, with just  a dozen very small fish to report, but a day rich with other experience, and a day well spent by the waterside.  Just wish I could convince my wife that the time was not wasted.  Any time spent without a paint brush n my hand is time wasted...or perhaps  time to be avoided!