England's Breaming...

I'm sure I've used the title before, but in for a penny...I bumped the Bureboi Charabanc down the track, carefully avoiding the big old strip of grass down the middle and found the car park empty and a noticeable reduction in wind as Storm Hannah petered out. One of those spring afternoons when you have the jumper on and off every 10 minutes  and hope those rain clouds bomb on overhead.

I thought I'd continue the devils work with the method feeders having brought the mould with me and once the pellets were damp enough, and with a little practice the silicone mould was doing its job with some neat little balls  being underarmed to the bottom of the slope with a nugget of gold or orangey brown goodness and a sting in their tail nestling on top. I'd started the two spots off with some dead maggot ( what a fantastic idea some one had thinking those up) and some decent corn and tinned hemp with some chilli. 

The 8mm pineapple wafters seemed to be the instant attractors  whilst the 12mm Source were a bit of  a slow but steady burn. I'd noticed last time out how pecked the baits get as the fish keep tying to get every last scrap out of the flat bed. Pretty much the stamp of fish falling to the tactic, rather than the bigger bream and tench I'd hoped for. 

I saw this one late, and the flash of red in the bluey green water  had my heart in my mouth for a few seconds but on closer inspection a cheeky and chunky hybrid. Quite heavily black spotted like many of the fish in here.d 

The two paired mallardy ducks showed a distinct difference in parenting styles. One pair had a brood of 5  that they kept mostly at very close quarters, probably because the resident crow was quite intent on a meal, even resorting to making  low level passes mid pond. Two slightly larger ducklings spent  a lot of their time on their own, so much so I thought perhaps they'd lost the adult birds for about an hour. I say mallardy, all very visually correct but often making quite showy dives, not quite deep enough to get any of the loose fed though. No cuckoo yet but the yaffles were on top form.Whilst taking a piss, concentrating on what I thought was a rather impressive coiled poo a flash of yellow revealed a small grass snake, awoken by a golden rain that Trump would have paid top dollar for from a pair of Russian hookers. 

I'd packed my old Drennan waggler rod  just in case and by way of a change upped the corn rations, little and often with a single grain on a #14 wide gape specialist just on the deck and was rewarded with some actual roach amongst the skimmers and hybrids

And a brace of lovely big bream which filled the stinky pan net. Great catching them on more refined tactics for sure. This is the smaller at 6.06 with its spawning tubercles. The bream on this water are thick set buggers. 

And this absolute pig at an ounce under 9lb. It's the shape all bream should be. Imagine what an 22lber would look like?

Looks like my lucky new hat is working. The Commander in Chief is not impressed but  it's a rarity in that it is not to small for my unfeasibly large head. It's from my hatter in Primark. That bream though.....

Lens man to bagging man

Glorious Easter weather continued and off to the Glaven valley with one half of the Little Un duo in the trusty Bureboi Charabanc. We always have to look at the door (harvest ) mice and have a pond dip

I always have to have  a look at the river, just in case and there were some perfect little chalk stream brownies  here and there.

Lunch time and it would have been rude to say no...

My stint behind the lens continued as in quite glorious sunshine I was called away from my nearly lifeless rods to do the honours again with some spawn ready male bream.

A couple of evenings later and we were treated to a spectacular, if brief sundowner.

I felt that it must be my turn to have a bent rod so called in on a mature fishery in another nearby chalk stream valley, this time the Burn. Time has been kind to the fishery  with lots of little nooks to  get away from the sometimes maddening crowd.

The water contains mostly carp and bream and is the turbid colour you'd expect with plenty of tails upended in the  flinty marginal areas. I'd  put a beefier standard bag and 15mm Source wafter rod tight to the  cover to my right and draw more fish to an open area with a lighter method set up and  12mm source bottom bait.

This isn't moulded feeder tight (I'd left the mould at home) but you get the drift. Everything in one little tangle free package with a cherry on top.

The ticket man had barely pocketed my dosh before I was unhooking a reasonable bream in the margins and sending the little ball of flatbed in line goodness back out into the feeding zone. You know they're on it when the bobbin won't stay down when you try to clip it to the line.

The fish are very well coloured in the main, even in the coloured water. A range of strain and sizes came my way, this one was quite metallic, and pulled back way above it's small stature.

This was the largest, and came to the standard set up.

I do love those fizzing baitrunner takes and for brief seconds feel I could slip back into the #carpy world then I take a strong swig of throat tickling ginger beer and come to my senses. I have read that you should get inside the head of your quarry so I went for the particle based late lunch, in this case pearly barley and barlotti beans with a chimchurri sauce. As someone commented on my Insta post of this "watch out for that big pink one..."

Resting up.

I don't know if you do it but every thing gets put way until there is just the rods on the grass and latterly the baitrunner set. Back in the day it was the rear drag loosened right off on the Cardinal 155's. and this little skimmer obliged today.

I did pop onto Golden Pond for a chilly hour after another particle based tea (rice with some tasty prawn tempters) and mostly fed some more bait. The Spicy Sausage is something else.

I've marked out my rod rest territory on my beloved island though the Canada Geese are nestingbehind the swim.

Nearly man to mad dogs and English man

It's warming up an the fish are on the move. I headed to the other end of the pool and under a large willow. Plan was feeder on the tip for an hour or so whilst sorting out my main feeder and method rods for the coming weeks.

Dry nets so yup, a blank. Shouldn't have been: I had a very decent tench that unusually straightened the hook just as I was planning where best to take the grin for the camera shots. Bugger I said.

Did get called out on lens man duties at the other end of the pool twice though. Two lovely commons for a very happy chappie.

Even hotter today but thought up on the stages would mean I'd get the breeze and the residents feed most times of the day if you give 'em some snap. Just one small roach on the corn but a couple of better fish on the mini Source, as per usual. This tench gave me a lovely scrap  but was strangely coloured on one flank. Fairly standard on this side, with a touch of that rosy rash they sometimes have (and a parrot mouth).

And though it's a phone shot very different on the other flank.

I finished off with this smallish bream before  heading off to slaughter a fatted calf for the returning prodigal Metropolitan Elite

Road noise

The sentry fair pushed me off base this evening so i couldn't say no. I had about 30 mins tops before dark once I was on the road  bank and set  up.

A couple of whizz bangs on the corn rod to the left which I missed and about 5 minutes before off time the Source float buried. The passing headlights illuminated the netting area nicely. Job done.

An old friend

Had to have a quick bash on Golden Pond, felt it in me bones. Slightly secret squirrel  in that I hadn't technically had a pass out from the gate house. I had though donned non-work footwear. The  Essex Loafer has a thing about not  wearing workshoes for anything else. Phil Smith never saw it as a problem.

Anyway, I was glad of the bib and braces and the Aldi hoodie with the built in snood up there on the staging in that bastard  wind. Can you recall a day in 2019 without a bastard wind? When the surface wasn't  being whipped into rollers the silt was being churned in a multitude of places, but only occasionally where I had just cast. The Canada Geese tried to encroach but two of my enforcer sticks were to hand and they soon backed off. Just once in the short session the float slid away purposefully and after a surprising tussle on the Drennan Waggler rod a bream was sliding to the stink net, three grains of gold in its upper lip.

It  wasn't till I turned it for another frame that I saw the familiar line of enlarged scales in a healed wound. A true old friend this one.

No tench but one did up end and slap my float with it's paint brush tail. And here is some work shoe action for the Essex Scribbler