The difference a goal makes.

When did the last day of the season start being played on a Sunday. And at 12.15?

A mini-revival has seen the never mighty Colchester United with 3 points and results elsewhere between them and the ignominy of a slide back down into the basement of professional football.

The last day,  as well as being on a Saturday at 3pm should always be hot and sunny, the pitch getting back that verdant lushness.

Rain. Grey. Cold. Pitch not to bad considering. Big crowd as PNE have taken their full allocation and it's over 8,400 in the soulless concrete bowl we have to put up with these days. It's simple really, they need 3 points for automatic promotion, we need 3 points and other results to go our way. A draw is no good for anyone,  a loss will bring heartache.

It 's a nervous affair, under the gaze of a probably bemused Sky audience. Names like Beckford (Jermaine) and Davis (Kevin) plying their lingering trade in the lower echelons. News filters through of goals for MK Dons, which we delight in relaying to PNE, increasingly so as more go in. We have no width, threat or idea to be honest. Certainly not any end product,  any high ball is meat and drink for the central defensive pairing. We can't see how Preston have got to their tottertingly  dizzy heights either.  

Half time and Geoff Stelling does not have cheerful tidings for us either. Things are not going our way elsewhere. A crucial brave challenge from Eastman in the box as we are carved apart  down the left leaves the away end howling, the ref not interested and a huge warning shot across our bows. A cheeky long range lob nearly comes off. Our dander is up.

A penetrative ball towards the right flank gives the keeper little choice but to up end the Col U player. After a look to the lino the ref points to the spot and the South Stand erupts. Porter picks up the ball, but lingers on the 18 yard line as the keeper berates the ref's decision, rather than putting the ball on the spot and forcing the issue. His body language is all wrong. His head isn't over the  ball, the keeper guesses it's going down the middle but frankly we not surprised that it balloons way over the bar. That's torn it.

News filters through that we now gave a chance to force the issue ourselves. PNE are done for either way. From almost nothing Moncurr has a gaping net to pass into. Which he does.  Porter breathes a massive sigh of relief. We go into raptures, and the sun comes out. A minumn of 5 minutes  extra time. Where from? Squeaky but time. Whistle goes. Wait for the final scores to come in. Pandemonium as it is confirmed over the tannoy. We have survived, right down to the wire. Play-offs for Grayson's PNE, disappointed as we celebrate.  Nice to see a small group of their supporters staying to applaud the Col U players once the pitch is cleared and they come out to do a jubilant lap of the ground. No Orient or Notts County away days next year. Wonder who is going to be the nearest next season?

Stopped off to get supplies to keep my blood alcohol levels topped up. Now, this is quite clever. Do you see what they have done there?

Chub a dub

Clearing party on the reservoir to take out the lifted algal mat, this device was very successful.

Back on the bridge for a clearer look at the massed ranks of chub. 2 barbel in there too.

Best laid plans

Had a look at Selbrigg Pond on Friday on the way home from Kings Lynn. Dam has been strengthened and the encroaching reeds pushed back.  The iconic copper beech is just bursting out into leaf. It's free, and traditional close season break.  Nice to have on in the bank as a maybe. Wonder if the eels are still in there?

Fancied a change , feeder fishing on Cranes to see if the tench and bream were more than carper's probables. Wind had spread the floating mat that has come off the bed of the reservoir's bed across the surface, and blocked any chance of fishing till it's sorted.

Chub still massed on the gravels just above the iron bridge and proving quite a draw to walkers  and drooling anglers alike.  The number of 5lb plus fish is quite staggering, and several are bigger than that.   They won't be there come the 16th

Back home to swap the rods and on to the first stage on Captains. Swan in close attendance so not a huge amount of bait to concentrate the bream so bites in fits and starts.  Bream starting to show signs of getting ready to spawn and the fish are warmer to the touch. Canada geese have their young now, last year nearly all went to the pike, the rest to  the swans. A grey lag is still sitting,  looking very cold in total shade.


                                       

 Prawn is the kiddy at the moment.

Next and biggest of the afternoon:

Spooked carp taking off at speed:

Thought I hooked a carp, after a lengthy tour of the swim it was off, leaving me with a pike scale on the #8 sedge hook.

Finished off with this lovely clean fish, like a newly minted £2 coin. Happy days continue. Colchester United have League One survival in their own hands after a late pen at Fleetwood yesterday, a win on Tuesday would set things up for the last game, and an early start next Sunday for a 12.15 kick off.

Spice n' sleazey

Still got a plan or two that comes off now and then. The carp boys on Captains having getting a few decent pike, either on bottom baits like my long lean spawned out  example from last time out, and on the retrieve as well, Couple going over 20 I hear. In the holdall went a pike rod just in case Essox fancied harrying the rudd and roach.

Bright, but a mean, gusting cold wind down the pond into the road bank. Warm out of the  wind but I wasn't. Swan in close attendance so baiting meant waiting, till he got his head under the water to feed, or having a go at the honking Canada goose pair,  staking out  their island nesting territory. Occasionally he would sneak up and give my left hand a very sharp peck. Bastard bird.

Pondering just when to get the chilli, ginger and salt laced hemp into work it's oily mystery magic when the staging began to bounce and undulate worryingly and the sun was briefly eclipsed. I hadn't shifted my increasing bulk so what was occurring? Mr Very Large Lad carper creeping up on me, that's what. Somewhat surprised about his reference to  a poacher as being too big to mess with. Must have been the Big Show or John Hartson when he came on as a heavy roller a few times for Naarwich. Our carefully constructed dissection of the current angling and political scenes ( the poacher was, you guessed it, "Polish" ) was cut short by an electrifying bolt of iridescent blue, straight and fast along the Norwich bank. Kingfisher we both proclaimed. With that he lurched off the staging to quietly look for some carp close in..

In about an hour the staging settled down  from it's snake like gyrations and my anti-sea sickness pills had kicked in. Mr. Swan was beating up the geese so  I catapulted in some of the nicely festering hemp. Prawn on one rod, worm the other, both fished lift style, About 515 now and I was realising the folly of toughing it out in shorts. Anticipation  served to keep my mind off my slow slide into hypothermia,as small clusters of bubbles appeared along with a couple of fizz patches. Pikey activity too. Classic lift bite on prawn,  and token flapping signalled the first fish of the day, This little chappy was a a bit big for  a livebait I thought. 

                            
Next bite on prawn resulted in brief contact with something a bit more solid and head thumpy but it quickly came off. A bite on the worm rod and a huge swirl at the base of the staging as a pike tried to snatch the rudd, again a little large but as the bait had been lacerated it was quickly lip hooked and dropped in, freelined under  a poly fished shallow right by the staging. An instant take and tghe carbon took on a satisfying curve as the pike felt the strike.. A really excellent scrap, with great clouds of orange silt and cut weed billowng up, with scattering of fish as the pike strove for the central weed mass. In the net and just hooked by one point of a treble, right on the tip of the jaw. A solid, beautifully marked fish that thumped the scales in a wet net round to a very satisfying 14.4. A conservative 2 lb off for the net. Plan hatched and clinically executed. Result. Some of the strikes at fish today were from more than one smaller predator, I am sure they were perch. Single bass hooks, light wire trace and small bait next time.

This bream fancied a worm too. Fairly clean on this side, and another solid fish. Slight two tone demarcation. One of the more bronzey variants in the pond. Fish and weed not yet warm to the touch.

I then had a burst of tench. one on prawn, one on worm.  Both gave good accounts of themselves. Very yellow undersides. The second fish took the prawn on the drop.

These fish indicate what I believe to be the limiting factors of the acidity of the water. A five from here would be a big fish I'd say. That's hardly a classic tench shape on the bottom fish. Driving past on an early summer day, with the lilly beds in full flower you'd bet your mortgage on it being a great tench water. Perhaps the rhodo's and conifers give it away.

In dire need of an excuse to get off the wind blasted stage this feller gave me my last fish and that excuse. Old, battered and blue, another distinct Captains bream variant. Very thick set from the vent to the head. Perfect for close in on a match rod.

Now, down to business. Are Colchester relegated yet? Has Wenger  come good again?  See Boro came and did a job on Norwich on Friday.

Don't forget that new perch plan..

Hot hot heat

It's heating up out there, Blackthorn is in riot, and the acid greeen of hornbeam and hawthorn are breaking through against the exotica of the magnolia.


Swallows are back but none out tonight.

Spring time

Another trip up the A47 today, what a lovely valley the Welland runs through.

Wet and dry

Nail-less nail knot, Amnesia leader, 4lb tippet. Thread on foam strike indicator.  6# double taper floating line.  Couple of false casts to warm up the  cast up the riffle. Foam strike indicator sinks, as does the floating line. It is 30 years old. This is not going too well.  Try a few different presentations,  then head down to the iron bridge to see what the chub are up to. One absolute monster amongst the also rans.

Put up a dry fly for the small dace above the bridge, several takes but not in possesson of the lightning reflexes required.

Plan: get line that floats.  and proper strike indicators. Lots of lovely big hackled dry's and some weighted ptn's to help turn the leader over and some polaroids.

Chutney, later

Hooley has yet to strip the blossom off this hedge plum grown tall in the bountifull slice of Norfolk that is Bureboy Villa. Chutney, pie or even crumble, don' t hold back on the ginger.

Back on the Pond

Weather forecast gave a window till early afternoon.  Defrosted some hemp and left over mash, and bagged some frozen cheapo prawns. Swirling wind, hope it dosnt wipe out the stages.  Inquisitive swans, mash comes in handy to keep them off the hemp. Wind is constantly changing direction, rig up a rod rest  on the bag to enable enough of an angle to sink the tips. First few bubbles. Float any and back winding, this is no bream. Sends up great clouds of silt, Ashurst 12 footer match rod soaking up the pressure.  Green spot tail, a pike then. Spawned out summer slim already.

Distract the Swan and top up the hemp. Buzzard working the wind over the dam. Lift and dip, feels like a bream but looks very dark, black even. Old tinca? No, bream, with a gnarled tail. No spawning tubercules just yet.

Next bite suspiciously soon after cast, hooked fish dashes up to the surface, gold and red flashing. Hybrid?  Loves the prawn anyway.

Curfew approaches. Float away again.  No mistaking this time, another bream, tail perfect this time.

Plenty of fish down there.  Need to get a bait through the rudd, and be able to msnage any carp that comesaslong. Would like to bait far heavier, would need to have someone else keeping the swans busy elsewhere. Will certainly needed to run this through a few times, weed already getting away. A monster cutter rather than rake, need the boat for it

Found this on the stage,  have a river ticket and lots of free spots on Wensum pools to try properly for some brownies, wild ones at that for the 1st onwards.

River rambling

Followed the A149/A47 across flint and chalk of North Norfolk, the flat, shrinking peats of the Fens, up over the saddleback past Peterborough and the medieval ridge and furrow, rolling down to the Nene and Welland, through Leicester and the red soils of the Soar Valley.

Normal for Norfolk...

 Not deep enough to trouble a Chelsea tractor, the Glaven at Letheringsett

Very good coffee, offered milk, no cream at the sometime haunt of the grey man, fond of peas and cricket.

Still flint and pantile territory where the Mill spans and bifurcates the Wensum at Sculthorpe and past the silent concrete of RAF Sculthorpe,  once home of the B52 in the coldest of  cold war, reputedly the only runway in Europe long enough to take a diverted Space Shuttle.

No time to stop over the wide, wildly driven grey River Great Ouse, along the North Brink and the lurching telegraph poles leaning into the shrinking, black peat of eons and the three towers of Thorney. Through Peterborough and almost immediately up and into the faces of a pair of red kite, hanging on the wind with their forked tails, like the Harrier's that used to up and over out of RAF Wittering.

Dip left off the arterial spine, with it's crawlerlanes and glimpsed spires nestling in the valley floor cut by time immemorial and the yet to be wide Welland.

This needs some investigation. .

 A litle less unexpected