Saturday 29 September 2018

There is madness in the method

I really needed some head space so dashed into a tackle shop to top up the Source Minis and off to a commute stop off. Down the bouncy chalk and flint track (you can't have one with out the other) and in with a method feeder. An almost instant result.


It really can be a deadly method this method. A ball of attraction, a short hooklink tucking a smelly and or visual treat on top and bingo. 


Unfortunately I kept casting a troubled eye over a metaphorical shoulder so I wasn't really concentrating on the job in hand. Even so a bakers dozen times the reel churned and a game battle was given. I  dropped the biggest feeling fish on the way in and one was a pale and insipid bream but otherwise carp of all shapes and hues. This was by far the prettiest. Dontcha just love those apple slices?  


A further two hour foray this evening produced the hoped for calm, shirt sleeve, autumn bonfires and everything. The Very Little Water Left is on its bones, grass growing in what was the margins an din desperate need of rain, rain, rain and rain again. Not sure how many more times these are coming out again this year and I do worry that there may be no VLW at all if things continue.


Four times a decent indication, the first and the hooklink gave way, two times a scale  came back in the hook and the fourth time, just on last knockings the hook stuck, fair and square. Not once did the 13ft Drennan Tench and Specimen Float rod feel under gunned as a portly mudpig gave it's all, only just fitting in the bream stinky pan net. It banged the small fish Weighmasters round twice and  I had to fall back on the bigger set and 13.06 was verified. 


Fins up and everything.











Monday 24 September 2018

Giraffe food

Following on from being at a loose end I headed off in the vague direction of the faintly green lagoon in quite frankly dismal weather. Stopped for a very disappointing pint then set up in the diminishing rain just the  other side of the car park gate and already regretting not packing a float rod as the surface was alive with roach, skimmers and the odd suspiciously brooon trooot looking slashes at what ever the now dry hoolie of a wind was hammering down the lake. The sun broke through and with distant squalls this gave rise to a spectacular rainbow. You know, that bright thing in the sky the giraffes eat to produce Skittles milk........


I had a series of nods and pulls on the tips but what ever was down there wasn't getting pricked into a full blooded run. I guess skimmers. Still think there's time for a proper bash on the method but in reality it's time to think pike as well so we'll have to see. Good excuse to make up some traces anyway. Crimps for me.



Sunday 23 September 2018

At a loose end

Raining, raining, still raining. Got the rods in the car  but nowhere to go, not yet anyway. Think I'm going to have to brave it shortly, perhaps via a pub after the lunch rush or somewhere  I can get  a decent coffee in the hope the weather breaks, which it is forecast to do a bit later. 

I do have  a rods out and sit in the very adjacent car plan just in case. Nothing out but the net and unhooking mat, that sort of thing. I've even made up some pva bags just in case. I bet some bugger will be in the car park swim when I get there..

Toodle-pip.

Sunday 16 September 2018

Dotted down

Had a pint of casters and hemp to use up, the mill pool was canoe soup and no one was on the quite green lagoon so on to a stage with the sun beginning to dip behind the bank. Deep water off the ledge and a lovely warm autumn wind. Got the 4AAA straight peacock dotted down to a blip, and about 3 inches over depth,  plenty of shot down.

Steady feeding hemp and caster and occasional corn soon had the dotted down red blip sinking just under as the caster was sucked in. This pearler set the tone and and it was mostly roach this time  round.



There were some skimmer  and hybrids amongst them.



Pulling the net out at the end was quite a shock, a stone of fish would be a conservative estimate.



















Friday 14 September 2018

Alma mater

Before dazzling the locals with my sports photography skills the other Sunday I slunk around the streets  of my old home town.

Looking upriver to Rowhedge. I used to cycle over there to see a girlfriend, 8 miles each way by road but  a generous cast away by rod.


An actual old school, where I learnt adults could be very cruel. I learnt that getting a cherry stone stuck in each nostril made them even crueler. I was banned from moving up to a pen from a pencil but that was because I sharpened the end of every pen in the cupboard just before they were to be ceremoniously handed out. I must have been a right dick. Speaking of which, of course the boys would have pissing the highest contests in the outside bogs which were also home to several cinnabar moths which we thought were the most poisonous things in the world.  A walnut tree over hung from the garden of the Greyhound and we use to get terribly stained hands and clothes from the black juice from the unripe skins.


I can't remember this ever being open as a pub.


This glorified boating lake was once  a thriving dock and boat yard, Vosper Thorneycraft, making Motor Torpedo Boats. We used to clamber over the high stacks of imported wood and gather the grain dropped by the huge scoops that used to load  or empty the bowels of the coasters. Later Thatcher's goons protected the convoys of 38 tonners used to scurry the strike breaking coal back over the bridge rated for far less tonnes past the hungry miners from all over Britain. Scargill nearly did it. He would have done if they'd gone out when stocks were far lower.


Books, books, books. Something I must have retreated into a lot as an troubling child, sent here there and everywhere to be fixed.


Books made me far more of a man than surviving the canings I got ever did.  I never got caught though. Which is just as well as I've seen Scum. Which is probably why I made sure I didn't get caught  and came out the other side. That and a healthy respect for the more pernicious narcotics.




Thursday 13 September 2018

Nearly time

Won't be long before we get into some of this.....

My beloved D40 sprang back to life for two days


Low country


A very greedy back end dace, all pigeon chest and spewing up maggots like a chub 20 times it's size


Inspiration


Reward



Casterama


Big water piking



















Tuesday 11 September 2018

On the run



Sometime angler and big time loafer The Essex Scribbler put on a fantastic Colne River Run the other day and scrabbling round for creative pizazz asked me to be the event photographer. The lazy gobshite didn't even give me a hi -viz tabbard or laminate...as his brother Hawk said though the boss never wears the tabbard or holds the clip board.


It turned out to be a massive success with around 80 starting and finishing the 3 and 5 mile courses alng the Essex Colne.



3 mile and 5 mile winners.


Corking day and next year will be bigger and better. And where's my pole (the starting line ) you promised me for the silvers?








Sunday 9 September 2018

Worm drive

Blustery and more than a hit of rain, stopped off at the mill with a small tub of worms that were past their best.  Searched around with 2 swan on a link and had a couple of dozen of these brightly coloured chaps. Very dashing in the clear water. Did have a reasonable pike on for a while till it shook its head and bit the line.



Think it would be worth a more concerted go with maggot or chop and caster feed to get them really on it. And of course a bobber float.Time has caught up and no chance of an hour after chores anymore so need to pack some quick sortie gear to snatch any opportunity as it arises as the Charabanc wends its weary way around the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire lanes and droves.




London Boi has left that there London and found himself a shared place in the up and coming St. Benedicts area of the Motherland. It's by the Wensum and he has a free parking space......mostly high railings but some access points. This is the highest point of tidal water.











Wednesday 5 September 2018

Rare as rocking horse poo

Spods, spombs and the like. Something I've never used. The Essex Scribbler once made up some from downpipe when perch were the secret match target on Ardleigh reservoir. God only knows how they planned to cast them out.

Well, I have now used  a spomb at least. Mostly because pigeon conditioner goes every where, mostly over me and my surroundings when it's catapulted out. I didn't use wrap sticks or clip up so it wasn't that accurate but quite fun.. don't think the bream were too impressed that I hadn't put any pellets in though.


Boilie muncher


Did have a nice bag on waggler fished corn as well, nothing huge but very pleasant indeed. A small selection. Got to think of a way to miss out the skimmers and get through to the roach.