Thinking man's thinking cap.

Dad, can we go fishing? Why yes, of course we can. Just an hour and it just so happened to be the Next Nearest so I could don my thinking cap whilst guiding them to a 28 fish whip to hand  bucket full. Now and then, chances to catch, not just go fishing. Who knows if they will get the bug?

Plenty of bubbling, mostly everywhere so thinking cap plan hatched to beat my doldrums from yesterday if I was allowed out later. I was, but still was deliberating over Plan  A (2 Puddle Chuckers close in with heavier baits or Plan B (2 flat bed feeders an underarm  swing out) as the clock chimed 6 and I was mixing the groundbait. Plan B won, and it took a few more minutes to soak the 3mm Spicy Sausage pellets and and a dusting of dry groundbait to keep them on the dry side as these smaller ones tend to stodge up if mixed too wet. 

Not sat behind a pair of rods for a little while, these 12 foot Korum 1.5 tc rods are perfect for this sort of fishing, but I do think it might be ok to step up to 8lb rather than 6lb main line as the pads grow. Standard 4 inch pre tied flouro hook links with a bayonet stop on the QM1 barbless #10's

Fluorescent yellow pineapple 8mm wafter on the left and a 12mm Source on the right, both with 25gm Drennan flat beds on the right. No bubbles but lifts almost straight away to both rods and it was the left hander that saw the first pull and baitrunner fizz. A barnstorming scrap,  but no real weight to it, no tenchy tail slaps on the line or carpy dorsal pings. A big but short dorsal then dark flank eventually broke the surface and an accusing flouro yellow dot on the back gave away the secret of the bionic bream. Foul hooked.  Great scrap though. Faint spawning tubercles again, and coarse scales. And flecked with corn from the groundbait.

I'd sunk the right hand rod when playing the spawny get and was alerted to a baitrunner fizz, fish still on with a gob full of Source. Felt like it was going to be a busy evening.

It proved to be but I did get a chance for a mouth and throat zinging pick me up between takes. And fiery it certainly is. Let's hope we can keep the hot soup times at bay for now.

Bream number 3 and I was on a roll, a decent slab this one as well. And boy was that stink net humming in the humid conditions. The mat is beginning to rot too. Strong stuff bream and tench snot.

It was getting gloomy early  with the odd distant rumble but no rain yet so I pressed  on, planning to be in the  pantenchnicon by 8.30 and I'd added these two to the score sheet by 7.40.

 

Then disaster struck at 7.45. Fishing two rods fairly tight means you're on the money twice over but it can get tricky, with double takes and crossovers. Not quite sure what happened here but I was in a pickle. It had taken the left hand bait but the take was on the right hand rod.

Nice fish with the prospect of several more, but I couldn't re-rig two rods, what with tying small loops, threading in-line feeders whilst melting in the humidity and checking for incoming monsoon rain so I gave it best and was in the car by 8.05, and never a drop of rain........thinking cap had done it's job anyway.

In the Doldrums. Well a little bit anyway.

Saturday saw me on the Next Nearest slightly worried about the hemp that had been in the fridge for  a week, the corn though can be as fermented as you can bear to be near, the fish love it almost liquid.

This tench at least couldn't get enough of the hemp with white kernels down it's throat even after it took me round the pond a few times. Males really do pull the string.

In truth I was struggling again finding true fishing depth with the weed and only got the tench by using 2 no 1 droppers which showed I'd been fishing a foot above in the weed before. Plus the locking shot kept sliding. I pulled out of two decent unseen fish (hook opening up  and springing back?) before landing these two bream  and a sort of hybridy thing.

 Bit frustrating but thinking cap time. And not a drop from the promised monsoon.

Continuing a theme

I haven't summoned up the arse to do any self takes lately so no time to brush up on the tail gazer frown but I did decide to break my last session "down" to get with the parlance.

19.41: leave drive.

19.46: park.

Twat about

20.03 cast out Source mini under a 4gm Puddle Chucker, spray krill 6mm pellets and two handfuls of Source minis around said Puddle Chucker, sit down and breathe.

20.13: first bubbles appear

20.18: Puddle Chucker lifts and disappears. 

20.19  small but perfectly formed bream on wetted mat.

Twat about a bit more

20.47: Every thing packed away bar rod, stink net and mat.

20.48: Puddle Chucker lifts, glide to pads on left. Missed.

21.11: Wine poured, Commander in Chief's glass as ever slightly fuller.  

Just a short 24 hour session.

Just a short 24 hour session. I really do hate that glib tail gazer's phrase. Sponsored so and so catches first ever 60 plus UK brace,... Ned Vass smashes his PB twice in a two week long session at Kordatakes Yer Dosh Embryo. Four hours is a long 'un for me at present. So, you're not going to get an anatomy of a session on here today....

Pushing 3 hours or so on the Next Nearest on Saturday in the by then just about bearable heat after tea. I hoped this stuff might give me an edge, not sure it did really. Hard to plumb accurately, think the weed is beginning to work through the tru blu inhibitor.

 

Some nice roach. mainly on the drop  and just one bream, foul hooked in a pectoral fin, which upped the fight quality a few notches. Lovely old job after  a hard day hacking through a briar jungle.

Even later and even shorter river trip on Sunday, partly because I knocked over the bait box. The Sweetcorn Kid has been back too, perhaps trying to avoid the ravenous small dace.

 

Bait shredding small dace, and a couple of small  but brilliantly coloured perch as I hadn't packed corn. 

Oh and a nice roach as well. Nights starting to pull in now, fill in flash coming into play against the lowering sun.

I'm still breaming.....

Jon Savage aside, I'm still breaming. This penned after yesterday's Wembley shenanigans.  Far away from the already madding crowds I would set out my stall for some rod bending action down on the Next Nearest on the firm boards of the Royal Box. The last few spots of rain dried on the windscreen as I  unloaded the pantenchnicon, leaving all but the waggler rod inside. I had a round 4 hours to see what magic the golden grains could conjure up. You know the score, 13 foot Drennan,. 3.2lb bs Floatfish straight though to a B560 #14. A nominally 5 AAA insert peacock waggler, bulked with 4AAA and  3  number 4 down, not spread out  and 2 number 6  anchors 4 inches over depth. Seven foot of depth, though some weed  coming up which occasionally saw the shots hung up  a bit.

Roach at first, as the Black Bream laced with corn, hemp and 6mm krill pellets settled on the bed and seeped out it's sweet attractants.  Then the float lifted and sank away as this hybrid made off. I'd seen the length but knew it wasn't a big daddy roach as no vivid red about the fins in the water

A bumped fish with a sheet of bubbles and I knew they'd knocked the roach off the feed. And so it proved as a bream put the desired bend in the rod. Faint spawning tubercles about it as well.

The next fish to the party was different gravy, and though it didn't make off in a knuckle rapping  frenzy it did try to get in the pads to my right and the reeds to my left (which bream don't really) and then disaster struck. I'd rescued an old tip section for my bust landing net but my hastily applied glue gun glue succumbed. I had to fish about with the handle to retrieve the net head then reach for the 42 inch net which the tench gratefully dived into as it wasn't the stink net....a glorious green goddess of a tench.

 

There is nothing as satisfying as sweeping the rod back to meet  a firm resistance and having to flick the anti reverse off, and though the bream weren't as feisty as that tench they did indeed bend the rod  quite nicely. Once beat they do flop over on their big broad flank but even that looks good as they are drawn to the net, a shot I must capture. I'd switched to dendro and corn cocktail now and it seemed to be very effective.

I put up with the two bream above snotting up my 42 inch net before putting the stink net head on the shorter 1.8 mete handle. And proceeded to fill the putrid mesh with even more snot. All in a good cause.  I think this worm muncher was still just a bout a skimmer. Freshly minted too.

Took ages to get  a shot of this black tailed skimmer (not the small bream above) though it is heavily cropped.

 

This decent hybrid put up a very determined struggle (as they seem to do) and quite different to the first hybrid of the afternoon. Two more for  https://jorvikangler.blogspot.com  mutant  Norfolk rogue's gallery.

By now the bream were really on it and if I hadn't had a get home and light the barbie curfew I can't begin to  imagine how many I'd have had  if I had stayed on until I ran out of bait. No mistaking these for skimmers (or dragonflies). And I made it to the barbie lighting duties  by the skin of a roach shredded golden grain.

Brief excerpt

Had a quick evening window to clear some annoying briars overhanging the tank trap blocks, so took  a trotting rod for afters. Broke  landing net pole on said briars but cleared most of the miscreants. It's a lovely pool but depending on which sluices are open you often have to trot back on your self and not always  easy to get the float into that sweet spot where the pace drops then doubles back on itself. Looking at the dried sweetcorn and silkweed on the block someone probably had been ledgering to get round the problem . I could have gone worm bounced down  on a SSG link but as I had no net didn't want to increase the chances of hooking  something that might need it and 5 feet up no way of beaching anything. If I got it right then bingo, hand sized dace and one pretty roach,, if not  then tiny dace in the faster flow. Just one chublet, and  a nice one too. Hand lined it in just in case...

A lot of verges are going over now as the grass takes over but in poorer soils everything is rushing to set seed whilst it can. View out of window parked up for a zoom call. Please, please, make then stop.....

 

A trotting we will go.

A promised rain fest yesterday afternoon but I had  a trotting itch to scratch and headed for a stretch near enough to a parking spot in case a quick dash was required The footpath bank sheltered by a long stand of poplars is somewhat overgrown and a bit busy, the meadow bank opposite is without much vegetation for the fluff chuckers but it has more subsurface weed, I guess  because it's not shaded by the poplars. But the cows have been on it and poached the banks so a secure foot or seat hold is in short supply. I did find a spot though, whilst checking the increasingly grey skies.  

Double reds on a  B560 #1, under that 2 swan chubber/loafer thingy. A couple of chewed maggots and then a run of nice dace, mostly of this stamp so nice fishing.

Started to pick up some small but perfect roach too, nearer the marginal weed in a little less pace..

Then one pulled back and needed the net as well. Plump as butter and I perhaps ought to have weighed it. Both flanks for ID purposes. An absolute beauty.

Within minutes I was scarpering back to the car, but not quick enough to avoid a soaking. It got out again later, but I contented myself with some rudd spotting on our only canal hatching plans for a spray mag and wag fest (it's very weedy).

Englands Dreaming....

Hit the car park just as a few spots of rain on the wind screen became a biblical deluge. Sod that for a game of soldiers... if  I'd got there 20 minutes earlier I'd have been stuck out in it. Lasted an hour and  a half so phew.  Back down again about 7pm and unsurprisingly not  a soul to be seen given the forthcoming game at 8.  

Though the skies looked fairer I went with minimal bits just in case and just fed hemp, corn and pellet 3 rods out from the Royal Box, 5AAA waggler and B560 #14.  On my trusty waggler rod which is a joy to use. It has as it declares a progressive action and though it's clearly not a grunt rod it copes with some poundage if you take things easy but steadily.

Standard fare at present, and I split the shots a bit to get some on the drop if they were having it. And indeed they were. 

 

Touch of blue about this one and it had some extra power from it's mixed up genes.

Everyone loves a few pads dotted round a fishery and these are well established now. 

Trouble is, the fish love them too when they feel that steel bite home, as above the Drennan is not a hauling tool but the extra foot makes a difference steering round obstacles, and though this lovely female tench did get in amongst them all was well once I got it's head up.

 No bastardy evident with these two

But definitely with this wrong'un

Time was marching on and this fell as the church click chimed 9 and as I opened the gate to load the pantenchnicon  cries of COOOOOOOOOOOOOMOOOOOOOON echoed round the village and it seemed that England could start dreaming..