Saturday 31 August 2013

Walcott Wall

Not a big sea off the wall at Walcott this weekend but some variable light. Last weekend car covered in salt spray (and new specs!)

Waiting for little-un to wake up captured ubiquitous sea bird on the sea wall shot.

No fish caught whilst we we were there, in fact I have never seen any one catch from here.

Not even by this dreadful creature "croaking in on an unfriendly east wind". Keep here on the coast, where you belong. A few months back there was what can only have been an osprey on that groyne. No camera that time.




Monday 26 August 2013

I can see clearly now.

Over the last year or so I have been finding it harder and harder to see close up, i.e: to tie a hook, even thread one  and read the paper. Over the last month this has got even worse, and I have discovered that it is no more 2 pairs of specs for £69 pound for me. I turned down contacts, I am a clumsy bugger and certainly could not see them if I dropped them and left Specsavers £240 worse off. Not even a second pair.

Life is now HD and I can actually read, and tie an eyed 16. One of the first things  I did was go to the Library. I came away with a varied selection and the first to be devoured in a sitting was Beneath the Black Water, Jon Berry. A fascinating subject, the ferox. A man obsessed. I find it hard to resist Bailey in his purple patches, and we have all now discovered Aston. Not for  me those dizzying heights but still a gripping read. 

 I have now picked up the next which is well removed from Shin and Veyatie but again an obsessive, driven and singular minded expression. A fishing book not a writing book. Which is not to say this is a bad thing.


I can count the number of all nighters I have spent behind 2,3 or 4 rods , certainly without troubling my thumbs and days trolling for ferox without using any digits at all.  I can however understand why these two have, and more importantly imagine where they have done it. Which at the end of the book is why it was worth writing. I have more hopes of that from The Fishing Box (Maurice Genevoix) than In Pursuit of the Largest (Terry Hearn) but that is probably because the Genevoix is a Medlar, with the nice hardback and stuff and line drawings by Richardson. There you go, chalk and cheese again.

Having found I can see small things again it was up the road to Captains  yesterday  for  a couple of hours with a litre of hemp and some crumb and corn. I  took advantage of  some previous raking to fish the corn over crumb and hemp off the second stage. I did put out a foul white chocolate pop-up, partly because  this carroty ghostie or koi  checking out the float was quite active in the swim
After a few rudd the bream had come in closer and two rudd type bites  resulted in this small, hump-backed bream

and a "proper" skimmer.

The carrot had been joined by several carpy brethren and at times the swim was a bit of a cauldron, certainly the hemp is attractive to the carp in Captains.
No doubt the bubbles were carp, the bream tend to send up smaller clumps. Given the weed, and the shallowness the bubbles were often fish turning rather than troughing in the silt but  the float was showing signs of life, mostly liners. I had not spooled with  heavy enough line for the carp on the waggler rod, one fish did take some corn in the drop and move off but I somehow didn't connect.The line tightened on the pop-up a couple of times, perhaps my primitive hair off the eye didn't make for a self hooking rig. Now I can see close up I must think about the knotless knot. How do you get the loop so small?

There are at least 4 carp in this frame, right off the rod tip. One much bigger fish did appear, but hung back and I think in the end there might have been another lighter, bigger  fish as well as the carrot. I did eventually pop the white blob straight off the lead as a mini zig, and think that on a couple of occasions a nice piece of slowly sinking flake could have been taken. The carp were attracted by the hemp, crumb and corn and a heavy maple or black-eye and hemp combo, certainly at this close range was running through my mind. Strange then that Theobald seemed enamoured with a hemp and black-eye combo as I discovered when picking up his book later with a glass of Shiraz...

Wednesday 21 August 2013

Yare, Yare, Yare.

Impromptu after work fish tonight. Chose Yare behind UEA as 5 min from work. Never fished, it's free. Walked previously,  plentiful small chub nice roach and dace,. Very different in character from Bure ,lots of shallow runs over chalk. Big estate nearby, on the outskirts of the city. Planned to trot meat or flake for the chub.

Flake? I haven't ever really seriously used flake to trot. Trundled meat under a float is en vogue and  a plan tonight but I want some bites to start with.Walking the top of the stretch down lots of fish, even amongst  the paddlers and dog bathers including some very noticteable, decent roach.

So trotted flake to start. First trot and I thought I had a small Yare chub. Right up to taking the selfie picture.
 Brief interlude, this balloon very nearly did end up in the tree, before gaining height

Flow quite minimal, had a couple more dace and gudgeon but decided on a move  a bit further into the bend to search for more flow and cover.

That's more like it


Not  loose feeding meant searching for the fish, including this nice roach, and one lost that would have troubled a pound on the scales.
A very relaxing 2 hours, lovely warm evening and a new place to consider, particularly for the roach, into dark in the autumn.

Sunday 18 August 2013

Wot you looking at?

A rather imperious herring gull on a post at Salthouse. In this crop you can't quite see the tips of the blades peeking over the shingle defences from the  massed array of turbines that make up Sheringham Shoals

.What a beautiful afternoon in what is now officially......


Ice cream from the van in the lay by by the duck pond at Salthouse (Blakeney car park was  rammo and we were turned away) and  a look round the Church, high upon the glacial ridge.  What an imposing, square jawed  building, looking out at and standing up to the North Sea and centuries of winds blasting in from the Steppes. Rather haughty like the gull above. The sea does come in though. through any gap it can force in the shingle. I have seen the coast road closed under a deadly salt incursion, tainting the soil  and killing the coarse fish in the lagoons and starving the bitterns.




Norfolk red brick,flint and pan tile cottages.Hollyhocks abundant.

and produce to sell
It's been a topsy turvey year with spring a month late at least but summer is here, and what a summer so far.

Saturday 10 August 2013

Life in the lower echelons

Off down the A140 today for the first home game of the 2013/14 League One season for Colchester United vs. Port Vale. The U's chalked up an away 0-1 on the first day of the season but have the league to concentrate on following a nap hand from our new nearest rivals the Posh on Tuesday night in front of a woefull 2.500.
Mind you, pitching up at the theatre of dreams  on a regular basis isn't  likely to get the jumpers for goalposts  juices flowing that easily. Just how more out of town concrete bowl can you get?

Hence the thronging masses at the ticket office.
I hope the live act had a good rider. Perhaps fat oldies in replica shirts like me were not her target demographic or were they enticed by the cosmopolitan al fresco pint and burger stall? With tables and everything.
Let's be charitable and assume the Valiant's player at the end of the Respect line-up is not;looking to avoid a handshake.

The slightly (ever so slightly ) less woeful 3 and  a bit thousand included the Port Vale faithful spreading themselves a bit further than really necessary around the North Stand.


 The game? The U's seem to have learnt to pass the ball, but remained timid with the final shot. Some myopic officiating  (why do linesmen have to wait for the referee  to indicate which way the throw went?) and a few hearty challenges along the way..
and the introduction of England's most cherished player Lee Hughes  precipitating some witty banter....
before this move led to Gavin Massey stabbing the ball home from 2 yards for another 3 points.
 A somewhat dejected keeper has picked the ball from the back of the net as the back four inquest begins..

Well. I've seen a lot worse from Colchester over the years. Not one player remains from that magnificent first season in the Championship side as Big John White has gone to Southend and we still have no obvious goal outlets. Sears ran the show from midfield today but predictably didn't get the usually baffling man of the match award.

Saturday 3 August 2013

English pastoral

Lovely afternoon in Sheringham Park. Repton at his finest perhaps? What would Norfolk look like with out it's feudal past?



Looking out to Kelling and the shingle ridge.


Tadpoles in August?


Someone in the National Trust has a sense of humour...