Why does it never rain on me?

Miserable, cold and dull last week. And dry. Hot and gorgeous at the weekend. Still dry. But much more bearable. I am very shallow indeed.

Thinking the Very Local Water closed headed off to the Barely Blue Lagoon  on Friday past a busy car park indicating the VLW  wasn't closed. Resisted the urge to stop. Spent a pleasant hour or so tying pva bags to feed to a string of skimmers. Need to get on the donkey chokers

Biggest of the bunch and clearly has a gut full of bait. Oi, the fish not me. Mine is mostly beer and pork pies.

Time to make more hay on the VLW whilst the gates remained open and the island as usual. Saturday night and the Rather Jocular Agrarian down the valley had  an outdoor band on. Loudest of the night a cover of She Sells Sanctuary. Down with the yoot then.

First up a mad for it tinca. They do pull the string a bit.  I've notice the bites are more and more shown as the little loaded float dipping then making off for the cover of the pads.

I'd bought my old DX40 for the mat shots, think the sensor is knackered as everything is quite sepia. That is a green unhooking mat.

Continuing with the cropped theme..sometimes I do gurn a fair old bit for the selfies.

And just as the park keeper was jangling his municipal keys another little snottie succumbed to the Sourcery. Not much string pulling with a fairly hooked snottie to be fair

Dad, why is that big golden fish lying sideways?

No point in  beating round the bush. It's dead.

 That fish is smelly. Buy us an ice cream dad.

I knew it would deffo be the last for a while on the VLW on Sunday. For those of you who take any notice (nearly 50k page views just in the UK, just saying.)  I usually fish to the left pads (sepia again) but I have been feeding the right and often it's a mud pig that seems to come over the bait so I did start a bit half heartedly to the right.

When the float made off and the tip slammed over on the strike  I did hastily flick off the anti reverse but after the initial surge was halted it became clear  it was a tench. Which produced a gurn of hideous proportions.

Point sort of proved so back to the left and this bream was almost instant. It had been in the mouth of  a pike fairly recently. That or someone has slipped a Wels in. Only minor gurnage so crop averted.

Still  a good half hour of light left and fish on the prod but I've been pushing my luck with the park keeper so I was pleased that the first 'last' cast  was spot on as the float settled, dipped and slid away just like that. Into the pads though relentless pressure from the Drennan 13 footer meant it was only going my way in the end.

Right. We now really do need some rain. Buckets and buckets of it. Then there might be some water back in the Very Little Water.

Lost some of the old mojo.

Just realised. I haven't been fishing since Sunday. I'm home late tonight and its grey and grim. I've repented to the parched pot plants. Doesn't  look like I'm going fishing tonight either given the closure of the very local water. Which is shrinking daily.  We need rain. Days and days of rain.

Still, there's always tomorrow. Might call on these little chaps on the commute tomorrow and see if there are any brownies under their bridge.

Selfie stick

Island hopping late on over the weekend. The pond is visibly shrinking and probably no fishing for a while to come. I made a little hay though. And decided to have a go with some remote shots.

This lean machine will have the pike police reaching for the vitriol. No, it didn't wolf down a deadbait. Nicely hooked in the scissors on a static mini Source.

And just the one on a very brief late Sunday sesh. The cheeky bugger is clearly rolling it's eyes at my pink shirt.

It rained yesterday. Well, three spots as I got out of the car in Cromer. Grey cloud and cold wind all day today but no hope of anything falling. Except most of the Cabinet. Good riddance. Go on Maybot. You wake every day just waiting for the sky to fall in. Just give up and haunt some barley field like the hooded crow you are. Even then the Corbyn deniers in the Labour Party will contrive to keep him out of Number 10. And someone please egg and flour Trump. 

The bream ticket

I needed to calm my fish soup frazzled brain and soak away the heat of the fantastic afternoon I'd just had with the Zanderlander. No better place to do it than back on the big platform on the faintly blue lagoon just as the church bells tolled 7.  In contrast to Zanderlander's cane, pin and quill of earlier out came the big guns and due to lack of holes for the back rests tips up it was.

One down the side and a good spread of pellet in front with biggish  leads and wafters on both.Small PVA bags as anti-tangle devices and to deliver a small enticer. I hadn't packed the stove and certainly had no barrow or bivvy so no carp were expected.

One toner to the right hand rod, and a game but small tench introduced itself to the top of the pads as the standard speccy net handle wasn't quite long enough. A lot of knit one perl one and I got it in.

Soon followed  by one from the rod in front that came in directly for the pads at a rate of knots then did a lot of lunging before  deciding to be more bream like and wallow into the net. Good lens work from Tony (or Gary as he is sometimes known). A very solid and pleasing 7.09.  Home just after 9 as well. 

Fortune favours the bra(ys cottage pork pi)ve

RV at the Dabbling Duck 12 15 ish  with John of Two Terriers fame. Pint of Broadside for me and  a Ghost Ship for John. Apparently Lord Amstrad made an appearance  courtesy of his chopper but I didn't see him. We shunned a second and headed for fish soup just across the green.

Don't think John was expecting quite the heaving cauldron  in front of him...

He tried manfully to avoid the little torpedoes in favour of the roach with wheat mostly and did notch up a reasonable tally, and claimed to have got bored of counting those torpedoes that did fall to his rod.

We took a brief break to tuck into the promised pork pies. And what pork pies. Bray's Cottage Pork Pies. Far too good to stop eating to take poncy pictures of. No tea today but next trip the world's best pork pies will be accompanied by scalding hot tea and later fruit cake.

I caught no roach, sticking to little pellets and ended up casting further out with minimal feed and letting the carp hook themselves.

They were mostly in top nick and all bar one  of the 50 odd we caught were commons.

A cracking afternoon, in lovely surroundings and under a gorgeous summer  sky.

No bivvies, barrows or buzzers were harmed making this blog.

Keep the tenchon on

I needed some head space and I didn't think my nerves would take the footie so of to an empty very local water for not that long. Long enough to lose  a tench, get pointed by a mudpig and  land a skimmer that had been on the sunbed or grow up way quicker than it should have done.

Back home and the last 15 minutes of extra time. I really did think Dier's pen was shocking but it went in which was all that mattered. Saved that slack jaw Henderson's blushes.Booooooooooooooooooom.

Quick look at the very weedy water on my travels. Much weed dragging and grass cutting so didn't stay. Did winkle out a brown gold fish, a chub and a slightly bigger common. Lots of orange, grey and blue jobs milling about so think a species challenge on the whip  is called for.

Dropped by the Wensum at Bintree in fine summer garb.

Still felt in need for some inner calm and a trip to the faintly blue lagoon fitted the bill.

The real reason though was an urge to get some buzzer action down the edge on a nice clear and clean spot where the lead thumped down hard.  A 15mm wafter over an assortment of pellet and a little bag as well. Product placement or content as it is now known?

I had left a barbless hook on and several lifts and taps but no solid takes so on with a barbed hock and almost straight away a stuttering but actual take. I thought the Pond bream was punching above it's weight but this one must have only just weighed as much as the bomb, hook and bait.  It had a couple of thug life bredren too.

The water over the spot was gently rocking though and  to the sound of church bell  practice and clooping carp the bobbin slammed up and remained up. Not a lot more resistance than the little scamps to be fair but a lot more water displacement and a bronze dustbin lid was guided round the pads into the net. All spawning bumps and milk warm to the touch. I should have got grass carp Dave to do the honours but went for some mat shots instead. 7.05 on the scales.

In the doldrums

Saturday and I was back on the river after roach.  Not particularly seriously as I'd only taken maggots. They took a while to find and were too far over for the pin really though the 15 footer helped.  It didn't take the dace long to home in either and some were coming to hand like greedy old chub, spewing maggots out of their gills. Did have one net roach and what a belter. Not big but what a frame. I did find some deeper runs and spots that had cover and not much streamer weed for future reference And some perch showed up which was a good sign. Perhaps not so good was a persistent and not at all shy otter mooching about. All to the soundtrack of rooks and shrill peeping oystercatchers which do like our Norfolk water weadows. The sea is not that far away.

I must have had this float  from almost schoolboy times and probably bought it at Wassies in Colchester.

Sunday I continued my noddying about on the faintly blue lagoon and caught a stack of skimmers and small  hybrids, with a few roach all on corn. OK but not that exciting. 

Now,  for plums with some custard or ice cream. And ginger of course. In the garden. With the swifts wheeling about.

Done him with the eyes

Oi Southgate. Don't fall back into the same old negative Engerland rubbish. Sort it out.

As predicted scorchio so onto the commute water with some dog biscuits. Moist ones so easy to hook and float nicely. Until you put a hook in.Size 8 anyway. On with a shocking pink strawberry pop-up and game on.  Only a quick sortie so I was pleased that one drifted into the pads with an upside down chubber presentation  drew a solid strikeable response and a nice little scamp of a common was on the mat after an enjoyable scrap.

Not that long a widow post chores so put the roaching on hold and made the short trip to the very local water Same old same old and ended up with a rather tame tench and the hybrid I'd been after.

Not one of the hybrid variants with lovely maroon fins but a corker anyway and a very reasonable 3.12.

This little corner is pond skater territory.

The dark side

Over to the dark side. Sometimes I stick one down the edge on some basic shop bought rig. Knocks and occasional runs and tench. But often a tangle and the shortest rig ever. Stick on a small pva bag and no tangles. Simples....

I did use my standard in a rut tactics on the faintly blue lagoon whilst wag and magging on Saturday but you just can't fish two floats if they're not close together. Still, there was some interest on the Source rod and I suspect they were roach so even more reason to find out some decent 8 or 10mm baits.

Sunday barbie. Cooks perks here though you can usually keep barbie burgers in my opinion. The barbie is Mk 2 and built by my engineer  brother-in law. Built to last in fact.

With Two Terriers accompaniment. Fen tastic.

The very local water and the rut I am getting too comfortable in. Not that I'm struggling that hard to get out of it

I did venture on to one of the stages last night for a change of view.

Sun is beating down today so think it might be floater time on the commute water tomorrow. And possibly some river roach.

I haven't heard  otherwise so I guess Engerland and the Stella boys are both contriving to loose so they can both somehow finish 2nd in the group and get the better draw for the last 16.

What was that knob of a German keeper doing btw? Ball playing keepers/centre backs my arse. Hoof it in the stand.

Fish soup.

As a slight diversion from my rut I slipped off the A149 just before the crawler lane and into the chocolate box village in the shade of an ancient willow and a copper beech where the kids and parents stopped to wonder on the away home from school. "Why's that man fishing? Why isn't he at work?" No the Essex Scribbler wasn't there, he was off on his tour of Germany via France  and Belgium. And yes, I had TOIL. 

It's just what Brian from http://www.pikeblog.com recently described as fish soup.

The meaty chunks in the soup virtually crawl up the duck and geese cropped grass to get at a bait.
In half an hour I'd landed 7 and pricked and lost slightly less. Nothing of any size but game scrappers to the last. In this case the bait was a smaller pre-drilled spicy sausage pellet but they'd have taken anything.

You get the idea. A couple of hours tops is all you need to be honest.

Slipped straight back in the rut again though once chores done. And got my nose well and truly rubbed in it. Quick reward in the shape of a rather tame bream with a gob full of my bait.

Then a horrendous run of five, yes five lost tench in a mad half an hour. All hook pulls, one at least foul hooked, if only briefly. Tench do have very, very tiny scales. Wine was certainly taken on return to barracks. Think the sentry knew to turn a blind eye.