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. 

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.

Targets Rescinded and Ignored.

In my last missive, I wrote about my prolonged search for a two pound grayling.   I have fished for grayling on and off for 2 or 3 years, and on odd occasions before, and I finally and recently achieved that two pound plus fish...and it was from a local water that I had more or less dismissed as being incapable of growing fish to such a size.  I was very pleased to be able to prove myself wrong. Spectacularly wrong, in that I have now found swims where more or less every fish is a pound and three quarters, or heavier.

One of my readers  ( a rare breed indeed)  asked me what my new target would be.   After some thought I have to say that, although I did write about the hunt for such a fish, it was not really my ultimate target at all.  My ultimate target was to enjoy just being there, being out in the countryside amongst the trees and wildlife.   A secondary target was to try and catch a few grayling,  their size was not that important, although I would be the last to deny that I do enjoy a fish that pulls back hard on the rod.       In my youth, having achieved that two pound fish, my next grayling trip would have been to try to beat that fish with an even larger one.  It would have been the be all and end all target of ALL subsequent gray lady chases.  In those days I only had one target, and it was that, regardless of the species I was fishing for,  to strive once again to beat my personal best for that species.   But in that I was wrong, or at best misguided and it proved not to be the way for me to continue fishing.  Regardless of how much success I was having, and I assure you it was considerable,  the targets just got ever bigger, and in theory more difficult to reach.  In practice I kept on reaching many of them. making the next trip even more of a challenge. And therein for me, lay disaster, a disaster I only averted by hanging up the rods and wellies for several decades.   I doubt that I could have continued in that way without eventually driving myself insane.

There are anglers around who are able to continue to point their angling along those lines.  Phil Smith is probably one of the ultimate expressions of such fishing.  Seeking ever bigger fish.  His recent book is even called "Targets Set and Achieved".   Phil started in the big fish game at about the same time as I did,  probably about 1966, and he has kept at it, although his targets have become wider.  One of his aims now is to catch a double figure barbel from as many rivers as possible.   It is an interesting aim, but not one for me.  If you are continually going to set larger or more difficult targets then inevitably you are going to have to travel far more, the local waters will have been, for some time, no longer holding any fish of a size that you seek. Hence Phil's chosen nickname on his blog  "Travelling Man".  In effect his success rate is going to be related to how far, how often and how widely he is able to travel.   Such targetting of ever bigger fish is going to get progressively more difficult.   I don't want to go all the way to Scotland, or all the way to Spain in order to be able to fish for the next roach I would like to catch.   I wish Phil all the best in his quests but my own have not run parallel to his for the last few years.   I understand that Phil probably wishes to profit from his angling, to sell books, write articles, and to an extent that aim dictates how any big fish angling writer must fish.  I have no particular wish to become famous, but I do wish to enjoy my fishing, every day that I go out.  And I will.  By NOT having any very important big fish targets.  

So since that grayling, I have been fishing for...even more grayling.  It would be nice to get another two pound fish, but I don't have any need to do so. And oddly I have been rewarded with a whole stream of fish between 1-12 and 1-15 over the last two or three weeks.  Fabulous fish all, but I should not have been significantly more contented had they all been a couple of ounces bigger, for that additional two ounces would not have made the fish any harder to catch.  Indeed I almost expect another two now, once the floods have receded a little and the rain has eased off a bit.

That is part of what happened way back.   I had changed from hoping to catch good fish, to expecting that I would land them.   And having that certainty is just not nearly as much fun.    The more I knew what was going to take my bait, the less I found I was enjoying it. No mystery.   Just inevitability.

I KNOW that if I journey down to the Frome, or up to Scotland I will be able to quite easily top up my best grayling. It is exactly what I would have done in my past, but the reality is that it would not take any more skill than catching my recent few fish,  And I would detest the motorway drive to get there.  Sure I would enjoy the day's or days' fishing, but, because I no longer need to meet a sized target, I have no need to beetle off  there.

Oddly, since I stopped angling all those years ago, and returned to angling, big fish of almost all species have become so very much easier to catch. Few of my old personal bests remain unbeaten. There are far more big fish of most species, spread across many more waters,  they are even bigger, and the science of angling, baits, tackle and methods have improved so much that these days anyone can catch big fish.  And to an extent, almost everyone does.  Of course I have said all this before, and let me assure you, if there is any better way of getting right up the noses of today's specimen hunters, ( and some olde school specimen hunters), then I have yet to find it.   Some get quite prickly when anyone suggests that fishing can at times be easy, especially if I mention fishing for big fish can be similarly easy.

So have I any loosely defined, casual new targets?  Well, if I can tear myself away from the grey ladies, another go for those big roach would be appealing.  Or perch.  Which of my old records have I not beaten during the last 4 or 5 years?  Only bream, carp and crucians remain undented.  Carp would not be too difficult to improve on. Of all species, the number of big carp in our waters has rocketed the most. A fair chance of my beating that P.B. even by accident whilst chasing other species.  Bream I would probably have to give some serious degree of dedication to up my best fish.  Crucian Carp? Beating my best Crucian seems unlikely unless I too, become that travelling man, and go to seek a very big fish in a known very big crucian water, looking for that one named fish.   That is not going to happen, it is not important that it does.  Over and above all that nonsense is the overriding wish that I continue to enjoy the days.  Beating my personal bests would be nice, but not at all needed.  And so, occasionally, you may well...no sorry...you WILL find me under that old bridge just seeking a few gudgeon.

Post script:

The local rivers have spent some considerable time, water levels too high to fish, at least for grayling.  The run up to Christmas, a bad dose of some evil throat infection, and Christmas itself have restricted my angling to just three trips to the river.   And secretly I might admit I could not be bothered with any stillwaters recently.

Trip one produced just a couple of small trout from a high river.   Trip two, still with the river high , and snow lying on the hills either side of the valley was just a midge's better.  There was a distinct snowline about 100 feet higher than my spot on the river.  Above the line the ground was white, below it remaining the scruffy green of winter. Dippers were executing the occasional fly past, but they didn't stop to watch me fish.   The half day session produced three fish, a couple of trout and a third fish that fought brilliantly, taking line, holding solid in the current, and generally behaving like a good male grayling, which it wasn't.  It was a half pound spotty, Foul hooked fish do not behave normally, their effect on the rod is very different, so different that it is usually possible, with experience, to tell that a fish has been foul hooked well before you get to see the fish.  Normally hooked fish, are hooked at what is effectively the end of a fishy lever, and can be steered, and often  pointed in a direction you wish them to go.  Once facing up the line they may actually help the angler by swimming towards him.   A foul hooked fish will rarely do that. A fish hooked on the dorsal, or pelvic fin will feel very lumpy and leaden, and will not respond logically to a pull on the line.   And carp especially, with their big sticky out fins are very prone to becoming foul hooked, especially when float fishing on the bottom for them.   My trout was hooked in the pectoral fin, close to the body and immediately behind the gill plate.  It did not show any sense of awkwardness when played, but for some reason I do not understand, it felt much much bigger than it actually was, and I had been sure it was a very big male grayling.  That small trout's fight though, was such that I was not disappointed at the outcome.
Trip three demonstrated the prophetic nature of some of the above text.  Three hours, one small trout, and three grayling all over 1-12, with the best being my second two pounder....that expected fish!   All three grays gave a magnificent scrap on the light three pound line, at times remaining quite stationary, against the pull of the line, the float being suspended, immobile, in the air whilst a fishy tug of war ensued, neither team gaining any ground.  Grayling are the only fish which seem to be able to do this stationary fight trick,  sometimes for nearly a minute, aided as they are by the strong current. Good to get out and amongst the grayling one final time before 2015 cuts in.

The Pound Shop Swim

About ten or twelve days ago I fished for a little over three hours on one of my regular rivers.  The river was quite low and clear for a winter's day, but I had a really good session.  No shortage of fish, rather a surfeit of them, although a couple of dozen of them were out of season brown trout.   The trout were being a little suicidal.  None were over a pound, most much smaller. But the day was made by 14 grayling.   The grayling in the river this season appear to be in one of two size bands.  Between 8-12 ounces, or over about one pound two ounces.     I might simplistically say that there are two year groups present, the result of two separate, very successful spawning years, but I suspect it is a little more complex than that.    I don't know what sort of ages these fish might be.     The odd scientific paper I have read about grayling relates length to ages, and in that respect do indicate growth rates, but will in any case be specific to the river that the fishery biologists were sampling.   So I don't  really have any idea how old these two groups of fish in my river might be.     That I don't catch any smaller, or many in between these two size groups suggests that spawning is not very successful every year, although the numbers of fish suggest that if spawning is successful in one particular year, then it is very successful.   I read something else that described grayling as prolific breeders.   Maybe floods, or other river conditions largely wipe out the deposited ova in some years.

Of those 14 grayling, the last two were taken in what I have started to call my "Pound Shop Swim". The first time I fished the swim I landed  five grayling, all over a pound in a fairly short session.   I now quite often drop in on the swim on my way home, and it usually gives me a fish or two, and if I do catch, there is always at least one pound plus fish landed.   It is a useful end of day confidence boosting spot.

A couple of other trips elsewhere on the river also produced a few ( far less) fish, but then plans had to be abandoned.  I became ill. Very ill.   So ill that I stopped fishing for 6 days.  I spoke to the lad, who as a qualified doctor said  "Sore throat".  I mean:  5 years of medical school, Over two years as a hospital doctor, and the best he can do is a sore throat?     After my phone conversation things became worse overnight and I was struggling to swallow anything, and the throat was ever more painful, deep pain on swallowing, a prickly sensation on top if I actually succeeded.   So next day: see the GP.      She quickly summoned up all her years of experience and concluded I was not at all well, and prescribed for tonsillitis.   A diagnosis she was forced to revise when I revealed that my tonsils went over half a century ago, and I doubted that I have grown new ones.   But it is a little worrying that a GP, dealing with flue, sore throats, coughs and colds on a daily basis, cannot, even with that modern instrument of torture, the "tongue depressor", is unable to determine that I have no tonsils.  Now even I, as an ex avid consumer of TV cartoons know what tonsils look like: they are those those flappy things that you see in Tom's throat, dangling down and wobbling about frantically when Jerry has just done something else horrible to poor old Tom.   Maybe medical students don't get to watch Tom & Jerry as part of their training these days.  Oh yes: tongue depressor...wooden spatula to you and me.  So it was antibiotics to attack a mass of nasty material blocking my throat.   Except that I could not swallow them, even in liquid form.   Had to visit A&E overnight as, if I could not swallow the medicines, I figured I would not get better.   Additional stuff prescribed and I could then just about swallow the prescribed doses.   Eight days from onset, my throat remains sore, but I have picked up my rod and walked...several times now actually.   So all over bar the shouting....not that I feel my throat is quite up to shouting just yet.

So it was time to try yet another river. I chose one that I have fished very little.   As a kid my parents took me to picnic near it, and between banana sandwiches I fished for big minnows, one a cast...brilliant!    But then one day I tried a lump of cheese and was astounded to catch a decent chub.   Later as a teenager I fished it three or four times, catching bags of roach, dace and plenty of gudgeon.  There may have been some chublets in the keepnet too...cannot really remember.  So it is at least 50 years since I fished it.    

Male Pheasant

Nostalgia cut in deeply, and so I decided to fish near to where I had caught that chub.   As I walked down towards the river, I disturbed a couple of pheasants in the undergrowth, the flurry of wing beats being as diagnostic as their croaking calls. I didn't see them though.  In summer their croak is always followed by a short wing flutter, but I have no idea why they do it.  Maybe either linked to mating or territory I suppose.   The chub swim gave up no bites, and I hadn't really expected it to do so.  Even at the time, all those years ago,  I was surprised to find a chub there.  So I moved higher upstream, to a deeper spot just below a shallow rapids run, and was quickly rewarded with a decent gudgeon, and a couple of tiny dace.  Pleasing to see some of the  gudgeon remain despite cormorants, goosanders, mink, and if I am informed correctly, the odd otter.

Gudgeon

A little later, another fish, silver with black mottled spots.  It was, as I was swinging the fish to hand, looking like another gudgeon, but no: a small grayling.  Grayling of an ounce or so could easily be confused with gudgeon...but only until you get a closer look at them in your hand.    Later I was to catch an even smaller fish, no more than 4 inches long.  A silver sliver of a fish.  And it was a dace until in my hand ...when the typical grayling snout and therefore the true identity of the fish was revealed.  Nice to see all these small grayling as it demonstrates good breeding success.   My usual river never produces any grayling for me of less than about 7 or 8  ounces.  Why it doesn't is an unanswered question, but suggests that in some years breeding success is minimal.  The day continued, with several more grayling...eight in total and four inevitable trout.   The trout all looked a

Small Grayling....Gudgeon Sized.

little thin, a surprise after a long summer, and so near the breeding season, although one was nevertheless well over two pounds.  Conversely many of the grayling had quite portly stomachs.  Back the next half day for more of the same, and as the grayling total for the two days reached 15, with no fish over about twelve ounces, I started to think I was again on the wrong river.   But yet another swim change produced five more grayling, each of them being a pound plus, three in the first three casts.  Maybe I have found another pound shop swim?   Somewhere else to drop a float in as I walk back to the car.     Two more half days, and two different stretches of the same river and my total grayling count was 43, with 6 of them over the pound.  Some of the grayling came from very shallow water under some overhanging

A Dark, Thin Spotty About to go Back.

trees.  Another similar swim gave up the largest trout.  Out of season but a very dark and heavily spotted thin fish, that looked as if it needed a good plate of fish and chips.  A couple or few more trout, and a solitary three pound chub completed the list for the four short sessions.   Very nice indeed.  

But it is not all about the fishing, especially when the weather has turned cold overnight.  But a welcome gang of a dozen long tailed tits, marauding up and down the banks of the stream, stopped to forage in a very nearby willow.  Some were as close as 6 feet away from me, their pink, black and white plumage very much on display as they acrobatically hung from the branches. 

My Wallace casting was briefly on display...luckily there was no audience.  Most of the time I was managing without any major tangles around the reel, and I had no need to cast any distance.   My first attempt though was nearly a significant disaster.  Having travelled light, I was seated on a small folding stool, and the cast unbalanced me.  I was heading towards the water. And as the old joke says: it was deep too.    But, calling on my skills as a unicyclist, namely a precarious sense of balance and blind panic, definitely not in that order, I regained my seat and remained dry.   But it was quite a close call.  The cold water of a river in winter has never seemed quite so near.

I had kept moving over those four sessions, having found that a few fish taken put the rest down...or maybe I had caught all that were there?   In one swim, I cast in, but then saw, in the overhanging trees on the far bank, a long dead bird. Probably a sparrowhawk.   It had become entangled.  I could not see any fishing line, but I am sure it was the cause.   Now I am not going to cast the first stone here, for I feel that the line was simply the result of a bad cast...actually a very bad cast given the location of the bird in the middle of the tree.   But tell me the angler that has never lost a float, nor a lead, in a far bank tree and I will show you an angler who never takes any risk, never tries for that bigger fish that just might be lurking in that little barely accessible corner, I will show you an angler who has far less fun.  But seeing the stricken bird does make me wonder whether I should continue to make all those risky casts.  Only the other day, I pulled a length of line from a bankside tree.  On winding it up into a ball for safe disposal, I found it had a small fly on the end of it.  A green colour.  Fly anglers also get caught up in the trees. Not sure what fly imitation it was but I'll call it a Greenwell's Glory.   One of few fly names I can remember from way back. Others were the Muddler Minnow, and the Hairy Mary.  I do wonder whether Hairy Mary was ever a suitable name for a fly, and just what materials it might actually have been made from?   But I don't wonder for long.

On seeing the dead sprawk, I was unable to fish that swim.  Too upsetting to see the bird hanging in

A Buzzard

front of me, so I moved twenty yards upstream.  A plaintive call high above improved my mood no end.   There were no less than five buzzards circling above me.   Five that the gamekeeper in today's news had not poisoned.    I know what sort of suspended sentence I myself might have given him,

and it would not be anything like the suspended sentence the judge gave out.  Late in the day I had a very unusual catch: a stone, a smooth pebble.  My hook had somehow slid into a caddis fly larva's case, and the caddis was attached sufficiently well as to lift the stone, remaining attached as I reeled in.
Late evening and a flight of cormorants in "V" formation passed over. Don't know where they were headed.  Some years ago I saw a flight of an estimated 3 or 4 hundred of them flying over Stockport.  I don't know where they were  headed either, but they would be trouble for some angling club or other.  

A Flight of Cormorants in V Formation.       ET   Eat Your Heart Out!

....and then the rains came.

    

Missionaries etc.

After failing with the mullet in the last episode,  I drove back from Wales, eager to get stuck in and get the blog up to date.   I didn't succeed and it took me the best part of two weeks to get up enough enthusiasm to write the previous entry to this, by which time there was more than enough material for this new post.   I didn't take the direct route back from South Wales, but instead programmed the SatNav for "shortest route".  Always a risky selection, it can take you through fascinating places you did not know exist, and equally to just as many spots that you wish did not exist.  My route was to take me past Erwood Reservoir up in the Welsh Hills.  And due entirely to the times of the tides a few hours before I neared the water in the early morning.  I didn't see it.

Erwood Reservoir is in There, Somewhere.

   It was covered in a mist that seemed almost as thick as the old pea soup fogs we had to endure when I was at primary school.   Anyone remember those thick yellow smogs, those that showed actual texture as they swirled about you?  The texture always reminded me of those white swirly marbles, the ones you just hated to lose in the school playground. They had a name, but it escapes me now. Would any modern mum today allow their healthily and safely groomed little boys to crowd around a dirty old grid in the school playground?  So thick was the fog that crossing the road was a hit and miss affair. If you were born after the clean air act, you probably cannot imagine, not even remotely, how bad those smogs were.

This second picture demonstrates just how wet and humid the air was on that Welsh morning.   It shows small bushes leaving condensation trails in the light wind.

I arrived home in time to prepare for visitors the next day, three of them: a cousin, his wife, and sister in law, who were to stay for 10 days.  10 days with 

NO FISHING

Those of you that know me well, and some that have perhaps drifted past me at rather greater distance, will know me to have no vestige of religious belief. An atheist from about 5 or 6 years old,  when I first shocked my grandma, by telling her I did not believe in Santa, and then compounded her horror by adding "and I don't believe in God either".  So to have a missionary for a cousin is a bit of a genetic deviation for the family.   

My cousin started out OK,  running away from home at about 15,  into drugs and drink, became a snooker/pool hustler to survive.    After a few years something went seriously wrong.  He met a girl, found God and even joined a church!  Religion, in any of its forms will always be a mystery to me, but there is no doubt that it can have very beneficial effects on some people. I admit to being astonished by, and full of admiration for, what he has done with his life. 

The girl is now his wife and together they have spent the last 12 years in the Philippines, actually living in a tiny one up/one down in the squatter area.   When the squatters have no water or electricity, neither do they.  They are funded by their church.   They build churches for the locals, construct small lockable houses in the squatter area, help them get jobs, run bible study classes, arrange burials, train up locals to do the same sort of jobs themselves, provide medical help...even as complex as getting doctors to do cleft lip operations and similar for free.    All they have to do in preparation is to feed up the patient so that he/she can survive the operation, and then get them to the theatre.  As medical procedures, hospitals and medicines all cost money in the Philippines, and you can buy all medicines, prescription or not, from the chemists, they have learned how to treat quite a few conditions themselves.   Healthy mother...healthy baby schemes etc. etc.   They are very busy, and it is all very, very commendable what they do.   120,000 people in ONE square kilometre.     I had the odd discussion with him on religion of course.  Not quite sure if he was so keen on the bible as to actually think the world was made in 7 days, but not far off.   He got up at 6 am to read the Holy Book, and after leaving here is going off preaching in Denmark!  Heathens, those Danes.  I would have liked to have asked him exactly what happened to make him suddenly see God so clearly, but felt it was too personal a question. 

River Dove

I did no fishing but we did walk up the River Dove in Dovedale, seeing a couple of fly fishermen
( upstream dry fly) and a very few fish.  But one was a large grayling, well over two pounds, making me wish I had a rod to hand.  I have no idea how much it would cost for a season ticket on this very famous stretch of the Dove.   My pension would probably not cover it, and, as far as I could see with my polaroids, the fish population is not at all prolific.   But the scenery...wow!

Fly Fishing on the Dove.

Spear Fishing on the Dove

So, ten days acting as host, hotelier, tour guide and chauffeur.  It was far better than I expected, no arguments, no awkward moments, and I actually enjoyed the visit, despite the lack of angling.  Anyway the three of them have buggered off now, leaving my atheism undented.

Since the departure of the missionaries I have had four short sessions on the local rivers.   Quite a few fish, including a couple of good dace, maybe 7/8 ounces, fat little dace.   The 4 hour session a few days ago produced , all from one single swim:  4 grayling, the best going 1-5 and 1-7, and no less than 26,   yes,    TWENTY SIX,  T W E N T Y   S I X,     brown trout.   None over a pound, but they certainly have become prolific.  Hard to get through them to the grayling.   Maybe time to make a fool of myself with the fly rod.

Nice to see the kingfishers and the dippers again though.  And on the same trip a peregrine was making a few flights near me.  At speed, not chasing anything but flying up river, under the footbridge, then turning, gaining maybe 50 or 60 feet of height and flying along the top of the tree line and out of sight. As it flew it seemed to jink, ever so slightly, side to side.  Photo:   not a chance in hell.  A birdwatching friend suggests that, from my description of its looks and flight characteristics, the bird is

Young Mandarin Ducks...Male at the Rear?

more likely to have been a hobby, and not a peregrine.  Also have been seeing quite a number of young mandarin ducks,   obviously recently abandoned by their mothers.   4 on one river, a pair and two singles much further downstream.   I don't know, but strongly suspect that they all start out looking like females when young.  But one of them was getting a reddish tinge in its bill...so I suspect a male there.   Saw one on the River Dove too, in Dovedale when walking with the missionaries.    

From That....to This

   



I suspect that they are breeding so rapidly in the UK that they would be considered invasive, were they  not so completely gorgeous. Note also in the first photo, just how well they are camouflaged against the gravel. The drake should enjoy the ability to hide whilst he can, for it will not be long before his camouflage will be replaced by an utterly outrageous costume.

The last of these trips was again chasing the grayling, and produced three small ones, and ten brownies, one of

Deformed Brownie

which was a very deep individual, looking as if it had a serious genetic defect. The final fish hooked was one of those to which the mind instantly thinks  "Hello, hello, hello, what's this then?"    It rapidly informed me that it was a much better fish.  Initially I wondered whether it might be a very large trout.   Four years ago in the same swim I caught a wild brownie of 5 pounds 13.   A huge fish.   This time, although I had the size about

A Nuisance Barbel  ;-)

right, the species was incorrect. It was a barbel, about six pounds, which on  a light Avon rod of ten feet ten inches length, gave quite a spectacular scrap.   The upstream half of my swim had a tree trunk lying across it, some 4 or 5 yards out, and the fish swam very near to it more than once.   One thing you cannot do with a rod is to push a fish away from you or away from a snag lying in front of you.   You may be able to influence its depth and direction but only slightly.  Of course with the light rod and three pound line intended for grayling, the fish stood very little chance.  ;-)  !!!!  

Let's get all controversial now.

Being serious, playing a fish such as that on very light tackle really ups the adrenalin level, and makes you think out every moment of the scrap. Keeps you worrying, and knowing that at any moment you may well lose a fish adds greatly to the event, and I think it a great pity that so much angling is done these days with very heavy lines, lines that the fish has no chance of breaking.   It takes the skill out of playing a fish entirely.  I would recommend ( probably with much opposition from many others) that all anglers should have some light tackle sessions.    It is quite simply far more fun.

It is not all that simple of course, for different anglers have different views.  We seem to have a lot of anglers these days who I might describe as being somewhat primitive in their wishes.  They just want to hook and land fish, one more to the tally, one more photo for the mobile phone  (does anyone ever print photos these days, myself excluded?).  They care little about their surroundings, little about anything but their tally of fish.  These anglers ( mainly carp, pike and barbel anglers) will often use a line which is so strong that, once hooked, a fish can only escape by a couple of means: a hook pull, or by reaching a snag.  The fish is just not powerful enough to be able to break that line.   Some, a little less primitive maybe, will seek to justify this by saying they have no wish to leave tackle in the fish's mouth, no wish to leave it trailing line.  It does not solve the problem of snags, and a hooked fish, reaching such a snag may well become entangled, remaining so even after the angler has pulled for the inevitable break.   I have read of carp skeletons being found, near snags, with guilt-ridden heavy line being seen nearby. With lighter lines that snagged fish might have been able to break free.   That argument will always be seven of one, half a dozen of the other.  I will continue where practical to fish with lighter lines than most others do.  The thrill of the fight is greatly heightened when you know that the fish is able to beat you, on its own terms,  if you mess up the playing of the fish. The fight somehow seems fairer. The odds not stacked greatly in favour of the casino owner. On heavy line a visible snag is no problem: you just stop the fish, easy peasy.  On lighter line you have to think quicker, and act intelligently, ....and for the odd fishing missionary, there might be a prayer or two to resort to too.    The rest of us have to employ skills not needed by the users of heavy gear.   Whatever method the angler chooses to use, one essential is that the hooklink be lighter than the other sections of the end tackle. It there is to be a break...it MUST be on the hooklink, so that any fish, whatever line it is hooked on, only has to carry a hook and a small length of line.

P.S.  You might well be wondering why my Avon rod is now a couple of inches short of its original eleven feet.  Well, a certain idiot, whilst climbing an embankment tried inadvertently to harvest some blackberries with its tip.  Result:  a repair, at the 1st joint down from the tip, and a rod a little shorter, two sections of which no longer fits the travel case, having been repaired with superglue.   I think that might be the 3rd or 4th rod I have broken within 12 months.   Clumsy or what?

Time for a quick 5th trip down the river before finishing this article.   Hang on a bit, would you.....

Something odd just  happened on the river. I had landed a good dace, using the same tackle which landed the barbel the other day. The tackle had not be dismantled, the rod had just been folded, line and end tackle intact and thrown into the car.   So I trusted the tackle.    My next cast resulted in one of those three inches rapid raps on the rod tip.   Just that, nothing else, and so after a couple of minutes I reeled in and found my hook and 12 inches of hooklength entirely missing.  I did not feel a snag, and to move the rod tip three inches would have taken no more than a couple of ounces of pull.   All I can imagine was that as the fish bit, it dragged the line around a sharp snag, cutting it.  So I then moved downstream.  This river is an old industrial waterway, full of the rubbish of centuries.  The bed is littered with the bricks and stonework from long demolished riverside buildings. Modern idiots and companies have added innumerable shopping trolleys, old tyres and other rubbish to the mass of old tree limbs and trunks, the sanitary towels and condoms, that also litter the river.   The river is probably the snaggiest in the UK, and the swim I chose next was undoubtedly the snaggiest on the river.   Willows 4 or 5 feet above me, and others a couple of yards to my right together with a huge overhanging willow reaching far out above the water greatly restricts any casting into the stream.   Knowing I will lose tackle here I always set myself a target.  Today's was  "when I lose seven quid's worth of tackle I am packing up." I rarely fail to reach such a target in this swim.   But by going over the wicket, throwing a curve ball and casting carefully, using a downstream wind to bend the line like Beckham around the overhanging tree, I was able to fish a bit of the swim that previously had always been unreachable.  And it worked well for me. After a tiny roach and dace, three grayling were landed, two well over a pound with one at 1-7.   I was well pleased, both with the result and with how I had fished.  Tackle wise, I managed to keep within my limits and the trip only cost me £6-40 in lost end tackle.
 A passer by stopped to chat, saying he often spent a few minutes just sitting quietly there.  I asked whether he watched the kingfishers and dippers, but he said he had never seen one.  I explained how best to look for kingfishers ( I had seen a number of kingfisher flypasts earlier), and whilst I was explaining he spotted one himself.  The first he had seen in his 45 year lifespan.  I was thrilled for him.
But still the two pound grayling evades me.

Silver Bream and Back to the Rivers

In my angling log books, dating back to 1960, I have recorded all my catches in some manner or other.  As a 12 year old I was very heavy on the data and the statistics, recording all sorts of mainly useless information...even yearly counts of each species of fish caught.  The first book has ***stars*** against biggest fish of each species, first fish ever of each species and much more that, at the time, I thought would be useful.  What it does list though, in amongst all the hieroglyphics, are the first 52 bream I ever caught, on various occasions, from various venues. 52 yes, I was being that accurate!    However many years later, on re-reading all this tripe I note that 51 of those 52 bream were listed as being silver bream. From five different venues included the Witham, and the Macclesfield Canal.   Today I have to doubt the accuracy of the fish identification.  Silver bream?    A fairly rare fish as far as I now know.   And who would trust a young teenager with the task of identifying a silver bream  correctly?  Certainly not me.   And so I came to the conclusion that I may never have actually caught such a fish.  But after reading Jeff Hatt's blog, and his successes with silver bream I decided some time last year, that I really had to catch one.

My first exploratory trip to a club pond had produced one very pretty little bream, but it was a common or bronze bream. And I suspect that club members have been mis-identifying these as silvers.  Today though, I visited another small club pond reputed to hold silvers.   Another new venue for me.   Small, shallow, but a good looking pond.  All the weed was marginal though, and the water a little cloudy.   Three feet of water was the deepest that a short exploration found.  But I cast my float in, the hook baited with good old Warburton's bread flake.    As has happened to me before, a fish splashed a couple of feet from my float.  No others splashed for the next hour, but I did have a bite, which was missed.  A kingfisher made a couple of circuits of the pond, but did not land in view, and a young heron was fishing rather noisily close by.  It jumped in off the bank a couple of times, but I did not see it catch any fish. Its inexperience showed. A

Silver Bream and Common Bream, For Comparison.

second bite was not missed, but the fish, and another like it moments later, was bumped off unseen.  The 4th bite was obviously a bream, coming to the surface and splashing just moments after setting the hook.   It was a little common bream of perhaps half a pound.  Confidence in the pond'a ability to produce silver nose dived.   But the next cast produced a far more silvery fish...the almost mythical silver bream.   Its large eye, close to the nose, and reddish fins left no doubt in the mind.   And it struck me that I have certainly had such fish before, although I could not remember when. Maybe those 51 fish.... A short time later I had landed another two small bronze and one more silver bream. The two species appear to have been shoaled up together. I have added two pictures, one of each bream species. It may help some other anglers to correctly ID the species. But to be honest, once seen and appreciated by the adult eye, the difference is quite stark. I am unlikely to return to this water again.   It no longer holds the mystery, and I feel its fish stocks will be of mainly quite small individuals.  I don't mind catching small fish, but I like to have fresh venues in which to do so.

Back to the river:

The greeting of the grayling and the meetings with the minnows did not go well.   I took about three hours one recent evening, to go to my usual grayling river to try and catch one of its grey ladies. I was highly confident, having found a new spot on the final day of the season back in March, which had given up 5 grayling, all over a pound, in just 90 minutes fishing.   My confidence was somewhat overstated, and I found no sign of any grayling at all.  Not that I had too much time in which to look: the trout were ravenous and somewhat suicidal.  During those three hours I was to catch no less than twenty brownies, mainly small, with the largest being about a pound and a half.  3 others, all at least as large as that, shed the hook, or, in one case, snagged me. It was a highly pleasing way in which to totally fail at my objective.   Some dozen of those twenty trout were 6 or 7 inch fish, an excellent sign for the future, and indicative that 2,3 or maybe 4 years ago there was an excellent breeding season on the river.

I was surprised indeed to catch no minnows.   When you need minnows for a perch session, or for the garden pond, they become somewhere between surprisingly elusive and totally extinct.   As a 12 year old kid these were so easy to catch that they were almost tedious: different river, different age.

So, back to those roach, and another couple of trips were planned and executed.   Having set up for an early morning until lunch session, I hovered over the rods, sitting inches from them.   It worked, and I hit no less than 4 from the seven bites I was to get in the session.  Sadly I was outflanked again.  The roach were peas in a pod, at 4 ounces each. Immaculately coloured, silvery scales ever so perfect, but 8 or 10 times smaller than the hoped for specimens.   Dare I say 12 times smaller?    Very probably not!  But big roach are never easy, and that is as it should be.   I was joined by another little vole, collecting odd particles of

Young Robin, Recently Fledged.

 dropped bait, and a young robin, very fresh from first flitting its nest.  It was incredibly trusting, coming within inches of my feet to pick up the odd straying but very seductive red maggot.  A parent robin hovered nearby but was far more shy than its probable offspring.  I am not sure whether the youngster had still to learn that there are dangers in this world, or whether  it was just very naturally trusting of human presence. Less trusting of human presence, and very much keeping its distance was an auto-gyro.  The second I have seen within a year.  I will not add its picture, taken at extreme range, it occupies about a couple of dozen pixels in the middle of rather a lot of sky.  My view of it was not much better than yours  ;-)

I am Quite Good at Bruises

The next day I had to attend a Summer Fair.  The juggling and unicycling club I run had been invited to attend.  I had taken a couple of my silly bicycles and a set of fire juggling clubs.  The idea was to allow kids and others to have a go, and hopefully to attract new members for the club.   I was surprised to be approached by two people with whom I used to work a few years ago.   One tried to persuade me to join the Rotary Club, for which, unfortunately, I really do not have the time.   The other asked me about the oddball bikes.    I suggested he try the reverse steering cycle that I had bought second-hand from a circus some years ago.  Of course he wanted a demonstration. Now I can ride this thing, but usually do so on the flat, smooth surface of the local gymnasium.  The fair was being held on grass: sloping grass, bumpy grass.   Forgetting that the cycle has no brakes I accelerated more than expected, and fell off, bruising my ankle very badly. The bruise extends the whole way around the leg, and half way along my foot as well. The wound hurts still, some 18 days later and is restricting how far I can walk to the fishing.  The healing process is still taking place, evidenced by the discoloured areas feeling very warm for the last two weeks. I was a little worried at times, that there might be permanent damage, but it seems to be clearing up well now, if very slowly. Typical me though, continuing my accident prone year.   And on Tuesday evening...no new members for the club.  A damaged ankle completely wasted..
   

          

Early Morning Roe Deer

Another try for the grayling, and another dozen trout in about the same time.  This was a morning session, rather than an evening trip, and the dipper and the kingfisher were both in evidence, out of camera range as usual. As I drove to the river, a deer was briefly visible  a couple of hundred yards away, as it headed back into the woods. Probably a roe deer, of which there are a few locally, although they are shy and very rarely seen in the daytime.

So continuing the alternating theme, an all nighter after those roach was next.  A carp angler had already occupied the swim to the left of my chosen spot.  I noticed his rods were all aimed well to the right, a great deal to the right, and so asked him where his right hand bait was.   Using the compass application on my new-fangled phone, and a little mental trigonometry ( learned whilst measuring the school field for 'O' level studies years ago), I concluded he was probably fishing in the right hand side of my swim.   I suggested that he was therefore in effect occupying two swims, and he quite pleasantly agreed to move his baits to the left.   Later he sent out his bait boat and asked if it was positionally OK.  I suggested he come look, and with a grunt he conceded that it remained much more than half way across my swim.   His new spot was still to be in front of me, but towards the left and so far out as to be no further hindrance to my own fishing.  I was pleased to have resolved the matter quite peacefully: these incidents can at times, I understand, become quite traumatic.  Once again I hovered and was rewarded with another half dozen 4 ounce roach, and one good tench was hooked which was lost, just five yards out due to a hook pull in the ever denser weed growth that the clear water encourages here.   Next trip will be with PVA bags rather than with feeders I think, and just a small lead for weight on a rotten bottom link.   I don't really like PVA in stillwaters, being worried about what sort of chemical residue it leaves near to the hook bait, but I do need to reduce the weed threat and consequential lost fish.   A fish, by itself, unencumbered by feeders etc, probably slips rather more easily through the greenery.

I was visited by a passing carp angler, who stopped for a chat.  He said he had hooked a two pound roach on a boilie last year, but didn't weigh it.   These carp anglers seem to get quite macho-man about fish they landed but did not weigh:

"I had a couple of bream, didn't weigh them,  they were doubles I think. Unhooked them in the water rather than getting my net all wet and slimy"

"I had a tench about eight pounds, didn't bother weighing it...and my dad's bigger than yours."

And the ultimate I heard myself was 

"Yes the tench was about twelve pounds.  Sometimes I wish I had weighed it."

It is hard not to take some of these unweighed weights with rather more than a pinch of salt, but the problem is that I know that some of them may actually be fairly good guesses.   It is hard though to understand, why, in a three day long, and otherwise blank, carp session, such fish arouse absolutely no excitement in their captors.  I wonder whether they are similarly calm and cool when they finally do land a carp?  They stay asleep in a zipped up bivvy much of the time, or lounge about half asleep on their bed chairs for much of the rest of the time. How can they be so disinterested in all that goes on about them?  How can they be so single minded?  Yet there are many anglers who fish this way. To a large proportion of the anglers I meet there is only one fish that matters.  Either the carp in stillwater, or the barbel in the rivers.   To them I say: 

"There are other species out there.  Appreciate them...and occasionally peer out at the world outside the bivvy."

Another grayling session was taken over by those trout, a dozen or so, although this time I was half fishing for them   Mainly small fish again but one went to a pound, and a second was a good fish of exactly three pounds.  This was an old friend, a fish I have caught before, distinguished by its very spectacular spotting patterns. I had been fishing around the edge of a tongue of fast water. I could imagine the trout lined up in a large 'V' shaped pattern at its edges, where the water became a little slacker.  The three pound fish, on being hooked, rapidly headed up into the very fast, rock strewn areas in the middle of the 'V', and gave me a few quite worrying moments on my 3 pound line.  It once again did not seem pleased to see me, and swam off rapidly and vigorously when released, without ever once looking back and waving.

Sandmartins, With a Lazy Nest Site.

I did finally get my first grayling of the season, a twelve ounce fish, but welcome. I had to visit my "hard" grayling river to catch it though. ( A couple of days later I did manage a better grayling of 1-5 from the same river)  The river also provided 15 or twenty minnows. Even these were not easy to snare though, and I had to work quite hard for my small rewards.  But sandmartins flew about me entertainingly as I fished, and dived in and out of their riverbank sand tunnels.  A pair of young female mallards harassed me the whole time I fished, repeatedly trying to eat my float, or chasing my bait.  There was one shallow spot on the river into which they kept duck diving. Initially I could not see what they were trying to feed on. But eventually one surfaced with a four inch silver fish in its bill, which it then swallowed.  Dace or roach.  Recent videos on Youtube show Wels catfish grabbing pigeons off a sandy beach on a French river, Rather in the same style as killer whales chase seals in Patagonia.   Maybe the mallards had been watching the same video as myself, and decided to turn the tables and attack fish in the river.  I have never seen mallards act this way before, and was almost shocked by them.  Forget the cormorants and goosanders...we must now exterminate the mallards!  Exterminate! Exterminate!  We urgently  need a quack Doctor Who.

Young birds in the garden seem to be quite fond of a bit of sunbathing.  Several species: robins, magpies and

Young Robin, Roasting Gently on a Bed of Sunflower Seeds.

 dunnocks have all had a spell on the patio.  As for myself,  I detest the sun.  Hayfever and the sun's bad effects on most of my fishing. If I were able to walk about in the sun wearing gloves and balaclava without fear of being arrested as a suspected burglar, then I would do so permanently.

Finally my apologies if this week's missive has been a little understated, without much drama or too many big fish.  I don't always seek out large fish, I like to take great advantage of the wide variation that exists in our sport. No other pastime has such a breadth and depth of experience, and I want to stretch my arms within that.  Occasionally, and probably this week, the writing has also had to suffer, time being in short supply sometimes.