Reality Check

After the recent non stop string of sucesses  I've had a more "normal" few sessions.

I've had another four or five asp, but much smaller and hard won. Also a few perch and small zander, but nothing earth shattering. 

At dawn and dusk, you get twenty minutes of frantic asp activity and then it just goes dead. The bastards ignore the lure most of the time.

I've so far failed to catch a barbel from the Ijssel this year, I did hook something decent but lost it.

The weather has been ridiculously hot and tomorrow the forecast is "for the mercury to hit thirty two degrees". Sorry, for a moment I thought I was a red top journalist.

We've been out on the bikes every day. Today we cycled through the forest to a renowned Dutch eaterie, specialising in tradional pancakes. Much as I love it here the food is average at very best. And I'm being polite.

I ordered a "secret recipe mixed pancake, made nowhere else in the world".

I can absolutely believe this claim, as it tasted revolting. I left most of it and the waiter asked if I enjoyed it.

I said said no. He said he'd box it up for me to eat later. Err...I think something was lost in translation. 

Oh well, you've got to try these things. Only once though.

I've  also had some clonking silver bream to 2lb 4oz, plus ide and bream, so it's not been too bad.

I've a plan to intercept fish coming in to the harbour at dusk to feed on the huge silver fish shoals ( one for Wak Baines  there ) . Other people keep "scuppering" the idea but hopefully I'll be alone this evening 

I'll let you know how I get on.

Asp Hunt

We moved on to a lovely place by the river Lek, a perfect stopover at an old fortress that is now a micro brewery.

It was a fair walk to the river and access was difficult. There was twenty five feet of water at about fifteen yards. Hmm, not perfect in these conditions. 

So it proved. Some nice roach to a pound and a solitary nase. Nice to see that.

But it was a bit "After the Lord Major's show". As it had to be really. 

On to the Ijssel and after a trip to the garage for a wheel change we were at a cracking riverside aire by a small harbour.

The evening barbel fishing produced only hybrids and silver bream. I kept trying with the lure rod for asp but saw no signs of activity. 

After cycling back to the camper, instead of sitting down eating and relaxing like a normal person,  I walked down to the harbour entrance where the fast water of the main river met the quiet, placid backwater.

There were eruptions everywhere.  I ran down to get the rod but after half hour casting had nothing.

But "I know where they live" and I was pretty confident I'd see a few at dawn.

I rose early, had a cuppa and walked down to the water. Before I was anywhere near the river I could  here thrashing where the asp were hitting the shoal fish.

Surely I'd get one ?

As it got properly light the activity subsided, the surface was once again calm and it looked like the chance had gone.

But....you've got to keep buggering on

Just as I was losing hope the lure was hit with venom as a big asp launched itself out of the water.  The fight was short and furious and in double quick time the fish was in the net.

It looked massive and it was, as the scales read 9lb 14oz.

The photos are a bit crap, due to me being covered in sweat and mosquitos and shaking  like a shitting dog with the excitement. 

The fish destroyed one of the trebles on the Salmo Thrill. These fish are savage.

You won't be surprised to know I'm going to try and get another one this evening. 

When You're On A Roll....

Sometimes nothing goes right and sometimes everything you do turns to gold.

The amazing roach fishing continued with big fish every session. I knew how silly it was getting when I slipped back one fish just over 2lb without a photo.

Today I had another brace of twos, with the biggest a massive 2lb 7oz.

There were also some stonking ide mixed in with several more upper fours.

I'll not bang on ( too much ) about the roach, suffice to say I had ten over two pounds over several days before we moved on to another river.

It was a struggle to catch an asp. They weren't showing as the normally do but one evening I jumped on the bike to fish another section I fancied. As soon as I arrived there was a big explosion of water hard against the rocks, as an unfortunate tiddler met its maker.

I cast the Salmo Thill in the direction of the attack and was immediately hit by a ferocious take. It was on for about ten seconds before the hook pulled.  Bastard !

It seemed my chance had gone, but out of nowhere the lure was whacked again. A short but furious fight and the first asp of the trip was in the net, a cracking fish of 4-5lb.

I also caught two small zander that took the asp lure when being retrieved at high speed in the top foot of water. I've never ever seen that before.

I went over to tell my Dutch friend of this apparently unusual occurrence and amazingly he'd had two on exactly the same method and lure. He hadn't caught them like this before either.

The only rules is that there are no.....you know the rest.

On to a different river today.

Big Roach Madness

Warning '- Long self indulgent post

I was up early again the next day, there were obviously decent fish in the area, so I went back to the same spot.

First up was a clonking ide of 4lb 8oz, a great start. Then, the bream moved in. There are loads of them, decent fish too, mostly 6-7lb but a pain in the neck if you're targeting roach and ide.

When the bream thankfully drifted off I had two good roach 1lb 8oz and Ilb 11oz, before it went quiet.

Out of the blue I hooked what I thought was an average sized ide, but it seemed to be fighting a bit too well for the "weedy chub".

I got a glimpse of a silver, rather than a bronze flank and sure enough it was a big roach. A proper big roach.

Thankfully it went in the net first time and as soon as I opened the net up I knew it was over the 2lb mark. At 2lb 6oz my biggest ever and first two pounder in almost fifty years!

I re cast with wobbly legs and a silly grin on my face and as soon as the feeder hit bottom the tip went round. A similar fight and another big roach in the net, this time 2lb 0.5oz !

So, a brace of two pounders in consecutive casts after waiting a lifetime to get even one. It's a funny old game Brian

I packed up and walked back to the van for a welcome breakfast. 

The next day we had to move pitches on the campsite due to a cock up. This meant I could fish straight outside the van. 

I found a nice weedy area about twenty yards out and after baiting up lightly with half dozen feeder fulls the tip sprang back and after a short but spirited fight another clonking ide was having its photo taken.

More ide and bream followed before another big roach was banked, one that was obviously over two pounds. I put it in the net while I got the scales and on my return the roach was....gone. Oh dear.

After that it went dead, so I packed the gear away, leaving just the net and rod out whilst doing so.

Two German blokes I'd been chatting to shouted out that I'd got a bite and as I reached the rod it was thankfully still on.

It went hard in the flow and it was difficult to say what it was. One of the Germans said he saw it and it looked like a smallish bream, but as the fish rolled a flash of silver gave the game away.

It was a massive roach.

2lb 12oz and a truly huge fish.

Unbelievable. 

The following day we had a lovely long bike  ride along the river on virtually traffic free lanes. Bit different to Old Blighty.

We got back about 14.00. It must have been about 28 deg C and totally flat calm. The worst possible conditions.

As we had tea I chucked the feeder rod out, no baiting, just that feeder full. As the carp boys say, a "pub chuck".

Before I'd even sat down the tip whacked round. I couldn't believe it. A roach of 2lb 4oz. Then another of 2lb 2oz. It was getting ridiculous. 

I was then into something that was obviously not a roach, ide or bream. My first Waal barbel, going 9lb 1oz. Blimey. 

What an incredible day.

First Stop the River Waal

The sun shone as we sailed from Harwich and soon enough we were back on Dutch soil.

It being August, we just about managed to squeeze in to a riverside campsite and before I'd even tackled up S had a small zander first cast.

She followed it up with another one from a ridiculously shallow area that I would have passed by. Pre conceived ideas and all that.

The next morning I was up and about early, leading and plumbing to try and find a decent spot.

I settled on a shallow area adjacent to some weed and immediately started catching bream. Big ones of six or seven pounds. After half dozen they started to get annoying, preventing other fish getting on to the bait.

A fat pig of an ide weighing 5lb followed, after the bream disappeared. That's more like it.

Next cast and a 1lb 15oz roach. What an absolute corker. No amount of re weighing would get it to the magical two pound mark. Did I care ? Not at all.

Another lovely roach of 1lb 9oz finished the short session.

"A great start" as a friend said. It certainly was, but there was much, much better to come.

Destination.....Somewhere

The work has finished, and this evening I'm out for drinks and a meal at the best Italian restaurant in East Anglia. 

Today I blitzed an overgrown garden for a customer with customary speed and panache. It's my blog, I can say what I want.

Nobody at the property, so headphones on, music at full volume and I was grooving in the sun as I worked. 

Tony De Vit, Idles, Nick Cave, Mud ( yes, Tiger Feet ), Sleaford Mods, Morrissey, Wreckless Eric, Motorhead to name but a few.

The rake makes a decent air guitar too. Finished before 14.00. Perfect. 

On Monday we're off to somewhere in Europe for a month.

The van is packed. Somehow there are six lure rods, three feeder rods, two float rods, two barbel rods and a light sea rod along with pretty much any bit of tackle I may need.

And a ludicrous amount of lures.

Nothing booked, but the first couple of  days we'll be on the Waal for asp, zander and ide. After that, we'll make it up as we go along.

Probably fish the Lek, maybe the Meuse and definitely want to have a go for the barbel on the Ijssel again.

Then I'm thinking about heading further north. Much further north.

Aswell as fishing we'll be on the bikes every day. Nice cycling somewhere where you're not in danger of getting killed each time you go out.

I'm hoping for four weeks of sunshine and not a drop of rain. Got to settle down sometime hasn't it ?

I'll be blogging as I go.

Don't get too excited.

Midsummer

I heard this on a podcast last week.

" When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me. It still sometimes happens and they ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. 

They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. 

The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. 

We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting.

We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. That pure chance could be so generous and so kind, that we could find each in the vastness of space and the immensity of time.

The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. 

That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful. "

Ann Druyan ( Carl Segan's wife )

Take a breath eh ?

I'm sitting in what I call the luxury recliner in the shade right next to the camper.

Its half three on a steaming hot afternoon and a cup of tea and the essential digestive biscuits are by my side.

I'm on the Fens again, on the fringes of that strange area of space, peace and just a little weirdness. It's most certainly not Surrey.

The timing of the trip was unfortunate, it poured down with rain on the days prior to leaving and the land drains were pumping millions of gallons of water in to the river, resulting in tonnes of weed, detritus and suspended silt floating downstream. 

That's my excuse for not catching much.

Me and Bully endured a hot and slow day with just a few bream and one decent rudd between us. That made me realise how successful many of the trips have been in last few years.

I don't really buy the " Its enough just to be here" stuff. It's fantastic to be here but much more fantastic when you catch a few.

The previous evening I'd watched a barn owl catch a vole not twenty years from me. It then flew along my bank, getting closer and closer, until it was almost on top of me. It looked me straight in the eye and bolted off over the flood bank. I've never been that close before. Incredible. 

That same evening I watched the terns diving for fry, a buzzard lazily whirling on the thermals and an otter that surfaced a few yards from the rods. Sometimes you forget these are once in a lifetime ( or never ) experiences for some people.

Yesterday I sat outside the van until midnight, drinking a cider and feasting on cheese and biscuits, basking in the rare warmth of a beautiful July evening. 

OK, sometimes it IS enough just to be there.