Pond pigs.

Lovely treat taking someone for a couple of hours on a commercial this morning. Dead keen but for the purposes of this post anyway camera shy.

Keen enough to beat me 3-2 and went away with his head buzzing with new ideas.

A double up on a new style for him, the method feeder. They were on it pretty quickly and he played them really well. All mirrors. The smaller one especially really deep colouration.

I did bag a couple in betwen netting duties, on more standard bag tactics and both were commons.

It's quite well managed, i:e not to manicured and in most spots you can't see the next peg and the no keepnet rule means they are pretty well fresh looking still.

Of mixed heritage?

On the river this arvo, a bit of a down-streamer  so  mix and  match with the Greys 15 footer and pin and Drennan 13 footer and an infernal winding machine. Not sure which worked best to be honest and I'm not that sure about the provenance of some of the fish but after a recent dewatering good to see they had found a refuge somewhere. Once noted for it's big rudd this stretch between two mills and some of these do have slightly off-set dorsal and ventrals and a golder sheen so might be inbetweeners.

That's deffo roach.

I find that after a while the roach back off and the dace move in. Didn't up sticks this time to to find some more so had  a decent run of dace before heading off the floodplain and a wine or two. And the footie.

Corn dog

Brief afternoon on the Quite Green Lagoon, windy enough to leave the pole at home but overcast enough to pack the caster and corn. Got there to a flat calm and bright sun. My intended spot covered so settled along the noddy train bank.  Opted for corn and hemp and mostly roach or brids, but hard to find  a spot where there wasn't pond weed. Only one netter but what a lovely fish. 12oz 8 drm which was just off the 13 oz I predicted.

The mini Source down the edge, just at the bottom of a ledge came up trumps with this lovely fresh slab, a little bigger than predicted at 6lb 9oz. It thrashed about quite a bit on the way in as well.

Wasping

Bit of a rush about on Tuesday but I snatched few moments...

Only a very brief point the camera out of the car stop at what turned out to be a very well known spot indeed. I give you Three Holes. Plenty of gold and silver action in the pads.

Just had to turn the car off the main drag once work had been turned off and  a pleasant hour on the roach, rudd and indeterminates. Clear, shallow, often weedy and with a slew of swan mussels. The terrapin was in hiding today

On with a worm and a veritable swarm of wasps fell victim to the worm's wriggly charms. Tench are still resident though reportedly small so it's very tempting to just lace a couple of spots with a good old particle mix. No chopped worm though..

Chores done it was off to the now Quite Green Lagoon to melt a few pva bags for an hour.. Good choice as it happened. Lost one tench of about 5 lb noddying about with the teaspoon net pressed into service and a very tiny little fella (it was a male) that would have found it hard to hit 2lb. Any size tench makes me smile hopelessly.

Shrinks when dry

With almost indecent haste I responded to the all clear on the now Very Little Water within half an hour beating another member by the time it took for him to wolf down his tea.  Not much water over the silt under the bridge to the island paradise but enough water (just) in front for the fish to swim upright.  The mini Source was taken on the drop but the flappy old bream didn't stay on long. Just as soon as my post prandial brother of the angle had settled on the somewhat marooned end staging my loaded puddle chucker dipped and slid to the left hand lily cover. Tearing about and bashing the line with its paint brush tail and everything I had my intended tinca target  in the bream stinky pan net.

A bit parrot beaked (not from my barbless #14 QM1)with some raspberry blotching but a tench.

A month off the VLW has seen Lighting Up time come down considerably and a Stygian gloom meant the last fish on the stroke of 20.30 needed some flash assistance to pick out a familiar line of enlarged silvery scales down the right flank. I hadn't seen this fish for a couple of years when it had become almost Kevin-like in its friendliness. I have always wondered if some carp care product had been applied and promoted advanced scale regrowth?

A couple of evening's grace before I could bear it no longer and back to the VLW  and my island paradise, this time alone and fairly late.

I was hampered by a slipping lock shot and the float wouldn't behave so it was with some relief that one fish stuck. A comprehensive line bashing from a nip-tailed male tinca  and a good male at that.

I do wish I had had a Man Friday on my island paradise to take some shots of the rod bent against that coral pink sky and pike toothed moon.

I had that Friday feeling as soon as the the first after work cast  saw a smash and grab spectacular as a waiting hybrid tore off with my mini Source.again on the drop  Certainly more rudd than bream in fight as well as colouration it had the Drennan 13 foot Specimen and Tench bent through the cork good and proper. Not weighed but from past captures of similar VLW  fish nearer 4lb than 3. That is a good size stinky pan net for scale. Considerably more solid than old big scales above.

I had considerably more rod bending from a red tailed, bristling dorsaled and burnished copper common that tore round and round before contemptuously shedding the hook at the outstretched stinky pan net soaking me with more silt than water.  Wine time.

Smoke gets in your eyes

Eased the charabanc along the M11 and through the Blackwall Tunnel to collect some stuff and to "take some pictures for your blog Dad..".

Deptford is on the rise, not the faux artisan puff of Peckham yet but certainly going places. The station has new signage and there is a growing food area, but still the sub- car boot dross market too. Some of the stuff on there was not even Stalham car boot  knuckle dragger standard.. Who wants one smeggy trainer?

Bread. Again

John Evelyn was a big plantsman cheese way back when hence the long street and park bearing his name. Check for  Novichok chaps. The Mulberry tree was rather small for 320 years despite Peter the Great's best efforts.

Of a similar age is St Peters, built by Thomas Archer in the Italianate Baroque style. It was descried by Betjeman as being a pearl in the heart of Deptford. It is certainly a striking building.

It's square has a most un-English feel about it as well.

Something very London English by claim but with an strong immigrant origin is the pie or eel shop.

Some very healthy dissent featured here. One for the Essex Scribbler.

Ex pub. The Princess of Wales.

Along the Thames Path is the Surrey Docks area.

I grew up in two Colne shipbuilding ports and an abiding memory is the smell of fibreglass. That was abundant here. Not the ever present riveting of Wivenhoe James W. Cook's Yard though.

We ate well as well. Marcella on Deptford High Street. Italian, bare basic but what a fabulous veal ragu though. I learnt not to order large, about 5 more strips of lovely fresh pasta for 7 quid more.  One of those places where the kitchen is in full view. The kitchen team seemed happy and relaxed. Not sure what the masking tape was being used for. Oh, and sparkling water for the table. Most agreeable.

Very nice lemon and bay ice cream. Fresh bay is a wonderful herb I think.

Mining a rich seam

Crossing the bridge a band of clear water under along a low willow line had me stopping. A spot I'd earmarked for some spray hemp and mag sometime in the future but just some gentle trotting using the extra length of the  15 foot Grays and a pin. I was expecting mainly dace but happened on some solid if not spectacular roach. Seems there are plenty in the system right now. Along with the seven plus chub that are appearing in the weeklies and sponsor posts. 

Not  a seven plus chub. But  a chub none the less. Makes the  Drennan Super Specialist #16 look like an anchor.

This roach  had a very high back and a big belly.

Standard size it seems this year. One a trot for a while. All netters

Love dace when they start pushing this size.

Really must spend some time planning for the better roach this autumn. They're certainly there. Bread  mostly I think.

A worm at one end

Friday and the second day of sweet, cool rain. Even an autumn tang in the air. It brightened briefly late in the evening, enough to grab a rod, some shot and hooks and some worms. The gates had been opened  and shut to let some cut weed and the rain water through and it had shifted some of the gravel and summer holidays kids crap about so will be worth a daylight look. Just a half and hour or so tonight so it was a case of exploring the pool and converting some of the tugs and nibbles.

This was the best of a few perch, all bristly fins and stuff.

Only one"silver", in the shape of this little chublet.

This sprightly jack grabbed a worm on the retrieve and a  deffo pound plus roach was snaffled by a double figure pike.

A break in service

I've been catching a few side plates of late, with only one approaching a dinner plate but certainly no more dustbin lids.

I've been hatching a plan for an all out method attach down the middle but the prolonged dry spell has put that on hold for a while. A wise precaution.