Red handed

In amongst the delightful couple of hours with the Little Uns on the whip l also had a few hours on the waters edge over the weekend. The big wind on Saturday was hammering into where I fancied, and with rain threatened I took the easier option of the Royal Box. The Black Bream ground bait smelling far more appealing than it looked. Intensely sweet and chocolatey. With some golden grains and oily hemp. I'd post some fabulous scenic oily slick shots but Farmer Giles would be firing up his Reaper drone to exact horrible revenge.

I started on the method feeders again, quickly getting "blooded up" by the sticky spicy sausage pellets.

First decent fish was this very game tench that really pulled hard in it's efforts to evade the proffered stink net. not sure what caused those uniform v marks. Perhaps the Preppers in Oregon were right after all about that Gulf War Coalition  Zionist UN New World order bollocks after all....

 

Mucked about with a waggler rod for a little while, pleased that I did as had this nice bream on the golden grains, one of the ones with a St. Peter's thumbprint. A very solid fish indeed.

I'd had  a skimmer that tried to get in the pads, and I  soon found out why, when  I slipped it back a very large pike snaffled it with an impressive swirl. There  a couple of units in the pond, which have spawned the usual myths of bulls being pulled in by the rings in their noses and poor unfortunate carps anglers getting their hands bitten off as they fill their regulation Trakker water buckets.....

Down to my last method feeder full of damp pellet and just one rod left out and  a proper take and a decent scrap made me think of tench at the very least. Surprised to see a slab of  a bream roll at the stink net, very decent indeed. Sadly it flipped itself back in off the mat whilst I readied the weigh sling, one of the bigger ones and pushing 9 lb I'd say. Not even a phone snap as back up.

Sunday and a change of scene. We only have one official canal in Norfolk, some of which is being restored and it does hold some lovely fish, and to be honest I don't fish it enough. It was still quite busy, with swimmers, paddle boarders and this very noisy and very purple weed cutting contraption.

The spot I was fishing is a large pound above a recently gentrified mill with a spillway and a lock. As evidenced by the contraption its quite weedy. I started close in on double red maggot and it wasn't long before I had some interest other than the fry attacking the lock shots.   Some lovely deeply coloured roach (I checked the dorsal/ventral fin alignment) followed

and a couple of perch as well.

I'd been firing some maggots a bit further out as well and saw some boils so went out amongst them, first fish was  decent enough to take line until it shed the hook, and the next confirmed my suspicions as a lovely rudd hit the net. Scale and fin perfect.

I wasn't really set up to fish properly for spray wag and mag and short of bait to so I couldn't hold them for long. Interesting enough to want to go back for a proper go once the kid are sort of back at school. Back short and with the last few maggots hit into a small shoal of dace, which I wasn't really expecting.

Start them young

Still the summer holidays (ha Covid ha) and I thought I'd take the Little Uns fishing whilst it wasn't cold and raining and somewhere they'd catch from the off. Into Dangling Indirect to get another whip and a pint of reds then off to see what we could catch. 3 metres to hand, perfick.

Float dips, whip lifts and  a fish straight away, for both of them. Roach, skimmers and what they thought were hypers....got done by a tench too. But no pike, they so want to catch a pike. One day at a time girls, you've got to earn your stripes.

Maggots are fascinating.

And guess what, after a bike ride the next day, Dad, can we got fishing again? Of course we can. Best one was this perch which Littlest Little Un netted all on her own, like a pro. Less Little Little Un even held the catapult the right way round

Best of all later on  they got to see a dead rat, spot a pike from a bridge and see a train, very very close up. And learn about the birds and bees, well actually cows and bulls. He was an impressive chap to be fair

Boxed in

My thoughts are turning river wards, especially after this rain. Quick stop off along  the Well Creek just to get the running  water juices flowing. or in this case mostly ponded canalised juices trickling. Definitely seed baits time though I think I will be loading the charabanc with a whip, bucket and perch gear for the odd half an hour dangle

Just downstream of Marmont Lock

Middle Level Commissioner weed cutting in full swing.

Speaking of rain I had those festering nets and mats to retrieve before the impending hurricane struck  so hot footed it down with a couple of just in case rods in the back of the charabanc. I settled for the Royal Box as it gave some room to spread out the stinky things to dry off a bit more.

Farmer Giles compliance unit approved rods on bucket shot.  And that's the perchy bucket for my Fen raids, I've got an aerator unit for then.

Bang on the church bell chimed 8 o'clock I had  a double churn. The right hand one felt breamy , the left tenchy so I dealt with that one first. A lovely male again, I hope that's not a cormorant mark.

And on the right one of the greeny gold hybrids, which punched up to it's weight and more. Flash has made it more silvery.

I had twigged the Robin Red were feed pellets and the Spicy Sausage were multi-use and they certainly worked better in the flatbeds.

Getting dark by 8.30 and this last bream, which  did make the rod nod a bit hastened my packing up routine as it spat the yellow peril pineapple wafter off the hair.. And of course made the stink net and smaller mat wet again. Never mind.

Turned out wet again

Rain, lovely lovely rain. Except when it sneaks up on you. Mustn't grumble though, I've banged on about it enough.

In the Royal Box  just on 5 pm and only the waggler and corn over pellet for a change. The usual  skimmers, hybrids and roach, all netters. Very entertaining. Then the big boys and girls moved in and pulled the string a bit. A perfect male that  pushed the 2.6 Bayer Perlon bottom to the limit.

Doughty and dour resistance from these two bin lids. Both 6.03 as it happened, one a lot shorter and fatter than the other.

Pink livery on this one. Perhaps it's the after effects of troughing on all the Robin Red that's going in.

6.30 pm and  it all got a bit gloomy. Very suddenly. Thunder bolts and lightning. Very very frightening. And rain of biblical  proportions. Stair rods?  Nelson's Columns more like. I have mountains of festering bream stinking mats, slings, nets and cradles to retrieve from under the bushes when it stops..... 

Make it snappy

Dad and lads in the Royal Box so I schlepped round to The Lawns and Plan B. Two method feeders and a ginger beer. Of course.

I'd bought Robin Red pellets as no Spicy Sausage in Dangling Indirect but don't think they were really intended  to be dampened for a method feeder as they set like concrete. Anyhoo, one better bream managed to snare itself. Too hot to weigh it, even at 8 pm so just a coupe of quick mat shots but 7 plus if not 8 I'd say now on reflection.

Lads shared a bream and a tench and I was in a kingfisher flight path so bang tidy all round. The resident identikit duck kept landing on the backs of a trio of mooching grass carp. Most entertaining.

That was Wednesday. Yesterday and  lot of today  were /have been 12 degrees or more cooler as a  haar, or sea fret has taken up position over the Cromer Ridge. Still very humid though.

Golden Pond at tipping point?

Little Uns playing up so only a 45 mins window before curfew, so Golden Pond then. On the dam but couldn't bring myself to even set up. 3-4 feet down now and more exposed silt than water. We haven't had proper rain for months. It would take a month of monsoons to make a difference. No way any fish could be saved except by rod and line but not many places now you could even get a landing net wet. Heart breaking, it really is. I think the only water that  really comes in now is road run-off and that's not a free ride, its a notorious accident black spot, and the road was blocked again today with the usual diesel spill. 

I did have a couple of hours into the gloaming yesterday on what soon might be my closest water. Opted for the waggler and fed hemp and pellet  with corn on the deck. A variety caght  with  a couple of surprises  thrown in.

This was the first of the evening, and the largest roach, I thought 10 oz ish. Pretty fish anyway

This little skimmer had an unusual green sheen just where my stubby fingers are.

Several of it's slightly bigger chums turned up, nothing over a pound and a half and just one obvious hybrid. I wasn't really expecting this perch on corn, a bit of  a pale perch

Not that surprising really I guess, everything loves the golden grains, even 3 on a #12.

Twice I had to flick the anti-reverse off, once for this eel

and once for this lovely tench which did bend the rod a bit

Proper dark at 9 now. Oh, and I'd pulled in the car park with England wavering on a fight back to a report of a 3 wicket victory. For once snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. 

Blogger do your worst

A few randoms before I am forced to take on the new Blogger thingy. East Runton is our current go  to. It's rarely busy, has rock pools, chips and ice creams.

You can park at Blickling Lake free if you are an NT member without all that booking malarkey. It's carp or bream these days it seems. I remember being left here for a day as a nipper, about three jetties past the first reed fringe. I was in primary years I guess as granny had a Vauxhall Viva. imagine being left on your own all day at that age. Even then I was contrary, opting to fish close in for micro rudd, perfect little things. I had 23 which was way beyond my wildest dreams. I can still smell their unique slime today. The water was as green then as it is now in summer.

A Sunak half price breakfast yesterday at the fabulous Back to the Garden. Rich hollandaise and really good treacle black bacon

A couple of oddities on the back road to West Lynn as well. We do du different in Norfolk.

The Wash is that way.

 A pre Sunak lunch side

Must explore Lynn properly before I take the retirement plunge. I'm getting the feeling that they've calculated on me having gone already, which being contrary is making me drag my feet a bit. A Hanseatic League port and has some fine buildings.

Greeny breamy

A different feel to the farm pond,  warm but the wind blowing the other way, very pronounce algal green and the only surface activity was the myriad pond skaters and masses of fry dimpling the surface. Not a day for the waggler but what?  I  sent out  a crude bolt rig effort  with an attendant pva mesh bag of small pellets whilst I readied the two flatbed method feeders. A couple of splashy skimmers and a very surprised looking roach before a decent take on the bolt rig rod produced a very truculent tench that fair beat me up before diving, peg on nose and everything into the waiting  stink net.

Little else to report for a while apart from the imbibing of a change brew, the next best thing to ginger is rhubarb after all. 

A heavy shower and a brief flurry of bigger bream activity on the yellow peril pineapple and shocking pink tuna ensued before I decided I needed to go home and recharge my batteries, and de-slime myself.

St. Peters thumb print on this one.