Gated community

 A lot of Norfolk is still owned by a small number of people. When I first started work up here after moving back in the early 90's I was staggered at first to meet families still living in tied houses under a feudal landlord.

I guess these days its the car washers and land workers that are being trafficked and under the thrall of their robber baron shady gang masters so that puts it in perspective.

And they don't add Capability Brown and Repton grandeur to the landscape we have come to love. I pass this gate most days on my long commute and it's a handy stop to relieve myself of the boujie coffee and check my tasks  for the day or log into the tyranny of the morning check-in.

And sometimes the home drive  sees this.

Witches curse

Them witches must have been hiding in plain sight yesterday and put a hex on (no such word as enduction Buh), I went back for the last hour today and the course of the glide had changed a bit, strong enough to pull the line off the pin but there seemed to be a surfeit of much smaller fish which grabbed the double grubs and drifted down in the flow. It didn't rain which was a bonus but it wasn't as much fun as yesterday, most of the time it  was like batting a small leaf back up the flow. Same mix of roach, dace and a pair of gudgeon again.

Witching hour ( 45 mins to be precise)

 The Saturday blues had me in their thrall, almost constant light drizzle with sharper bursts of rain. Two fresh pints of reds from Dangling Indirect and a few turning not so fresh ones burning a hole in the fridge and no prospect of pressing them into use despite the forecast showing 12 % chance of rain. 

Dangling Indirect though..currently victim to a cyber attack that diverts browsers to the long stay carp angler's favourite Porn Hub. Delicious irony there I think. And many a meme spawned. And of course since most of their online ware  is famously out of stock anyway no change there then....

All that aside I wanted to go fishing but not get wet and miserable. Chores done then a late lunch in a bowl and not the bankside flask. LIDL Deluxe Spicy Chorizo and Sun Dried Tomato (with added anchovy paste).  Cheap but lovely.

It wasn't until 3.15 that I was at the bridge pool and looking at a longer slack in the almost spot on conditions. There were even fish topping amongst  the drips from the poplars which were holding off the breeze. Banks slippery so standing to trot not really on and the dying back rosebay still obscuring some  of the trotting eye line making it a little difficult  and as the drips turned to rain the line began to stick a bit to the mid section where one of the flimsy single leg eyes had broken so it wasn't a well oiled machine in action but good enough for a bite somewhere on the trot. If it was as the bait was still dragging behind the float  as the back eddy straightened it was from a gudgeon and as I began to be able to effect some control down the glide it was from a roach or occasionally a dace, seemingly freshly minted with a roach like blue sheen and red rather than toffee fins.

I gathered a few in the shallow pan net  for  a farewell shot which came prematurely at 4pm as I got in in a tangle and rain robbed my enthusiasm to re-set the rig for the last 20 minutes.

As for witches in their hour of gathering, only a few bedraggled dog walkeresses but not  a besom or black cat to be seen.

I'd only used the old bait so that fresh two pints of grubs remain cosseted in fresh maize meal in the bait fridge. If the rain hasn't really affected the flow too much it's trotting again today, either back on the bridge pool which is obviously chock full of fish or perhaps prospecting for roach down on bungalow bend or a safer bet at the bottom of cyanide straight for  a chance of something bigger. 

Looking

Just  a quick walk around a local estate lake today, brisk cold wind but the beech trees still hold their burnished copper leaves.

One chap on the dam piking whilst being talked at very loudly by a passer by for an eternity and this neat and tidy bloke netting his 4th bream on a helicopter rig frame feeder and worm.

A cracking lunch was partaken of courtesy of Oldest. And that's yer lot.

Neon Sunday

One late hour on Sunday, almost out of the boot of the BureBoi Charabanc. Little to report apart from a distant tawny owl, a kingfisher that passed twice and a proper clamour of rooks put off their roost choosing in the Great Wood by a very sharp downpour. The sky though, one of those neon affairs that seem to suggest snow is coming. It wasn't.