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.

I'm in a rut..

"I'm in a rut and I can't get out of it out of it out of it.." The working title of this post was Just the three Mrs. Wembley but that was several days ago now and I just can't get that song out of my head. A corker off the heavily dub influenced The Crack by The Ruts from a very long time ago now.

What rut? Well, a certain swim tucked  next to a silver birch on an island  the Very Local Water is becoming some what familiar. I can have the chores done, and been given the nod by the sentry and be fishing by 7.15pm. Rod rest holes are there,  slip a small loaded float on, push the Korum needle and stop through the 12mm Source ( I really want to drop down to 10mm but I have have  a quarter of a bag left), over cast and wind back, spread some pellets and a handful of the Source and admire the view and the relative peace.  That is from the back of the island and still virgin water. My curfew is just gone 9 (wine o'clock) and that's do-able if I am in the car by just before 9. It's that close

Back to Wednesday.Same old, same old I guess. I'd started a bit late and it wasn't long before 8 before any real activity. I'd been wondering why I had not caught any of the gorgeous rudd x bream hybrids from this end of the lake when the float dipped and on the strike a golden shape surfaced. Strong determined and  the classic hard fighting hybrid. I had stopped the determined rush under the pads to the left, and had averted calamity in the pads to the right when the hook pulled. Oh bugger. (I am using some short method hooklinks with an almost circle size 14, barbless. Perhaps the hook is just a bit small for the 12mm?) 

Out again to the plaintive last ditch calls of a cuckoo. In quick succession I tempt, hook and land three  fish. No hook pulls and nor foul hook ups either. Am I over thinking, going through the motions or enjoying what I've got so close?

Nasty split to the vent of this tench. 

.

Flash deployed so I probably got a black mark from the sentry. A wineglass is being chinked so my musings have been ended briefly at least.

A game of two halves

Monday and  a quick drop by on the commute ticket, this time on the adjacent Wensum. By now the stretch  is mostly weed but the shallow bridge pool is worth a go.

It's almost stalking as you can see shapes sidling out to intercept loose feed or  approach the bait, under  a very shallow set float. Dace were first to show.

But pretty quickly spotty things muscled in. Some were quite small.

And a few were a bit bigger. Either way most spent more time out of the water than in, they were all incredible to look at and all wild bred.

Some of the views were quite ornamental

And others a bit more urban. The town stretch is free and in autumn comes into its own.

I slipped in untroubled by the sentries and was told more or less to bugger off out fishing as Ton Ton Macoute wanted to watch England uninterrupted and that I'd get a steak  when I got back. Never look those gift horses in the mouth I say.

Island it was and an hour and a bit on the Source under  a waggler. Again. Wind in same direction as last night but several degrees warmer and more slashy rudd surface action than porpoising bream. Managed one of the tench with a pinky hue

And a last gasp bream. Spawning bumps again. It's been on and off for a couple of months

Got home to thumbs up from Ton Ton Macoute as Kane had just sealed the win and  a juicy steak with a simple pepper sauce. Result.