Bits

It's been cold and grim this last week or so, even with my new big padded bib and braces and coat but not wet luckily when I've been out in them. A few nice dace and roach from the Aquarium, a few kerfuffles from preds didn't result in a take on a cobbled together dyson but at one point the liphooked lively went ballistic.

A dour afternoon when I hit my only bite but the decent dace shed the hook and no one else had a bite on the short stretch.

The next time out (yesterday) was short and nigh on dusk. Half an hour's fruitless trotting

and out with  a 15g mini cage feeder with liquidised white and three reds on a #14 saw an instant bite then more. Hit the fourth as they were a bit jangly and the satisfying feeling of a fish on. Not massive but a roach from Roach Straight. Just on last cast time (couldn't see the tip any more) an otter made it's way up the near margin. the rod must have caught it's eye, it looked up, saw me and and absolutely shat itself. Never seen such a panic. I must have been hunkered down and blending in as 4 slobbery mutts had been in my bread bucket in the short time I was there as the owners hadn't "seen" me. Hard to believe given my bulk.

Chunky's for a pint and a half of reds for tomorrow and a quick look at Broadland's winter mecca. These two bagging with some decent rudd, roach and big skimmers, just 3 or 4 rods out on the waggler. must be stuffed down there.

Even less time today so back up Roach Straight, just the light feeder rod deployed, I was going to put a 1oz tip on but didn't. After more "blending" in (commented on positively) the second cast resulted in the 2oz tip pulling round nicely and another Roach Straight roach was in the net. Pristine on both sides this time.

I'm really tempted to head to Mecca tomorrow as it's just down the road, but Mondays are normally rammo (I may set up a 15ft waggler road just in case) so it's probably a longer trip to either the Suffolk 'Test' or the Lark. Tuesday looks super grim.  

Streamy runs

No, not curry related. Fed up on my local plodding stretch and a broken Matchman Hook Tier I sacked it off and went to my local tackle shops for a replacement and fresh bait. Angling Direct: no, we don't stock those. Chunkys: I'll have a look on my desk. Sadly he'd given his last two away. Good maggots though and always a full pint.  Found my last  one back at home. Amazon or EBay next stop for a couple of spares 

Now able to tie some hooklinks I set off for the upper Wensum for some flow. Too many minnows but had a few roach and dace, one of which I weighed to set a bench mark. 7oz as guessed. Cracking species the dace.

Rain set in so Plan B. Spoons brekkie and a pint of Abbott for under a fiver.

The rain eased off so headed up to Chicken Town but water low, some decent trout and dace hiding above the bridge in a thicket so had a walk up above the bypass. The horses were a pain  standing on my net pole, trying to get at the bread. Even more arrogant than swans and a whole lot smellier. Will have to distract them next time. 

 

Magic of the FA Cup

 It's 3rd round weekend. Any thing can happen right?  City at home to League 2 promotion aspirants Walsall. Fuelling up stop off at the Murderers  as per tradition. Two pints of Wolf Brewery Murderers Ale went down nicely. 3 more stamps required for a free pint. Very cheesy cheesy chips too.

Top two tiers closed but a healthy Walsall away contingent meant a near 'sell out' at just under 20k and thankfully the rain mostly held off as we were three rows back in the old River End.

A near perfect demolition of Walsall whose only attempt on target was a spectacular shot. Again some cracking wing play and only heroic defending from  the Saddlers prevented a cricket score. A hat trick from big man Makama showing want away Soccer Ball Sargent  how to do it. Cowardly agent inspired game eve text making himself unavailable. Shades of Johnny Rowe. 

Can't beat a game under lights even in what is mostly a library of  a ground. Apart form the limbs for each goal the stand out crowd  action for me was the Walsall fans response  to a prolonged  spell of Norwich possession: We want the ball, we want the ball, we want the ball, we want the ball. For quite some time.

And finally the most blatant palming down of the ball from  a cross in the six yard box, clearly visible and audible to the ref who waved it way. Plank

Tipping the balance

Enthused by Monday's  chub session I ditched the pike rods at the last moment reasoning that though the river was running clear the overcast conditions were maybe enough to entice the Bure chub to wake up early given it's reputedly a 'night only' water these days.

Baited 4 swims with white gold, starting off with this top of the stretch swim, unusually accessible  in the low conditions. Flake on a wide gape size 6. Indications from the off. Seemingly smaller fish though crays do infest this stretch, a few more definite pulls but time ticking, marked this swim down for a trotting recce.

Indications straight away next swim some 50 yards down Cyanide Straight then one nailed on chub bite missed. Given the interest in this swim decided to carry on and bingo, powerful fish on which surged for the nearest snags, jagging heavily away. Disaster, hook pinged out. The passing Noddy Train passengers must have heard my despairing shout. Chub here can top seven pounds and that had been no chublet. No point crying over spilt milk. Two swims with plenty of activity and one less so but still bites without going SAS pellet and boilies. Have some faith and persevere.

Loafer and I are off to pastures new Tuesday to recce: rod and no Sherpa required bare minimum panning for silver and bronze. I have just the roving vest for it. Might be a bit noisy if Uncle Sam's boys and gals are up and at it.

Sabotage

The Loafer had found some roach topping at dusk and primed a few areas and after sending me  (honest) the wrong way at the bridge (his hundred yards are often half  a mile) I found him wielding his latest rod, a 15 foot Cadence 

with  a chub already in the bag, 

but no roach or dace. We pondered on the effect of the cormorants possibly keeping them tucked away, even in these perfect trotting conditions. So much so that I soon jacked in  the trotting and managed to miss one nailed on chub bite on flake, had a pull round after lifting the rod to let the flake swing in which was on briefly then a decent chub that was properly on  but shed the hook just as I was thinking where to net it. This after a period of finding it hard to cast as far as I wanted. We'd been talking about getting old and Loafer mentioned threading the line through the gap in the tip ring and not the eye itself. We checked my quiver tip and lo and behold the exact same thing. How bizarre, then it dawned on me that during my last loaf squashing debacle down on the Stour the Loafer had re-rigged my rod....

Loafer had one similar sized chub trotting flake but nothing on maggot till I started to get roach  twitches on flake, a couple of fish topped and he had a small roach, all on dusk. We could hear the bastard cormorants laughing at us..

Solstice all tied up

Just a half hour yesterday at Noddy Bridge, mainly because I'd whittled  down the 4lb Maxima on my pin  enough for the double  blood knot  to be a pain for the first few yards of the trot but I managed a dace and a chublet to mark the shortest day.

A long way to come

Last home game of the year so a trip down to Devil Dog Land with 3 of the BureBoi tribe yesterday with a stop off at the old town.

Local tide table deployed. It might have done but ebbing hard  by 1.30pm 

The Jobserve Community Stadium is lack lustre even after a mere 70 odd miles. Pint required.

Must have been even more lack lustre for the travelling Newport County faithful, their team firmly rooted to the bottom of the EFL pyramid. After a recount I guess they bought 60 odd.

Apart from s brief second half rally seeing their wonder kid scoring from way inside his own half they had little to cheer about with some fantastic wing play from the U's delivering an emphatic 4-1 win and 5 points off the play- off spots. Happy days.

An absolute shower of shite.

A bit like Engerland Baz Bollocks  (Spot on Jim Maxwell) today was an absolute shower of shite. I'd done my back in yesterday taking an innocuous walk up the drive  and it wasn't a lot better today so I painfully unloaded the feeder paraphernalia in favour of the 'light' chub gear. Long drive down to Chocolate Box Cottage-cum-Devil Dog land on the border defining Stour. Looked in good nick, so I took the only logical decision to put an hour free ticket on the dash of the Charabanc and walk in to town to spend considerably more than I  would save by coming back to buy an up to 4 hour ticket as opposed to an all day one. Enjoyed my pint of Crouch Vale and  'spicy my arse' dried Haba beans though.

The session started well with a pull in the second swim 

and I even good naturedly ignored the doggy antics in my next baited swim..

Giving Fido a wide berth I opted for the 'One before the Banker' swim and  a definite tap, tap, pull which I missed having only pricked the chub. Cue the welcome arrival of The Loafer to act as

Ghillie and Lens Man. Having shown me a promising crease after the twats with no sense had done their usual open the sluices for no reason afternoon duties he set about documenting the most inept hour of 'angling' he has ever witnessed (since last time).

Can't add to that..

I'll get a man in

Commander in Chief has got a man in to plaster a damp wall. He was supposed to come to day, but artisan lime plaster craftsmen being what they are today turned in to tomorrow so I had a spare hour or so to check out the Aquarium. The fish have been pushed in by the increased flow and to evade the Black Plague. Fish from the first drop in (a good 11 feet or so down) and mostly dace, nice ones too. I did lose a very good roach to a hook pull so swore a little bit. Grass not yet trampled so I guess not many prospectors panning for gold yet. 

Now I know that they are back in the lock I'll be back with more selective baits.

A glimmer of light on the horizon

A brave band of chrome yellow straight out of my paintbox streaks the sky. So observed Ronald Blyth of winter light opening up a portend of change to come in  his opening lines of Next to Nature. I'd planned to be chubbing today not too far down the Stour valley from Bottengoms Farm, his home on the Suffolk/Essex border once the domicile of John Nash, painter of British  landscapes Instead I skulked around the lanes of North Norfolk in a stygian gloom, having obeyed the foreboding Weather App and stayed firmly rodless in Norfolk. No band of any hue. just dank, wind filled murk.

Yesterday I had  a portent of change in hues of silver, blue and fiery red. Only a river angler really sees those colours. Winter roach. I'd started on the mill pool above the Soay meadow, working out where  the dace wanted the maggots to be in that slacker glide at my feet, tripping along the crease

Chunky dace too, and game battlers in the faster weir water. Wild brownies too. But a snag claimed my prized Loafer made balsa bringing proceedings to an untimely halt.

Roach Straight had been obliterated by the evil Black Plague hordes and had become a virtual Cyanide Straight. Perhaps the roach had regained a tentative fin hold again? On the fringes of legality I hunkered down as discretely as I could, so much so a passer-by remarked on the stealth green-ness of my presence in my new Big Coat and a green bucket, the likes of which he'd never seen before. 

Rather than retackle the trotting rod I laid down a little trail of bait with a small 20grm cage feeder whilst I scanned up and down for tell-tile signs of fish as the roach often did roll on dusk here. 

At first it was the timid little grebes hugging the far margins, then a splashy small fish and then a larger  roll, a glimpse of red. The tip jagged as the the feeder sank, a fish on the drop. No netter and not even a quarter of the size I was after but that brilliant silver, metallic blue and the reddest of red eyes and fins. Not a hint of a cruel v-shaped beak mark to behold.