Raging Against "The Man"

Firstly, a good day with Waaaaaak Bureboi Baines the other day.

Let's just say he wasn't at his best though.

Three spots fished. First produced nice dace and four decent chub, biggest maybe 2.5lb. Good fun on the Dace Ace ten footer.

Someone appears to have superimposed a face comprising of a Uncle Albert and an aging garden gnome on my head, ffs.

On to the brook and it truly was a bite a chuck, mostly big dace with the occasional chub thrown in.

The trouble with taking a photo of dace is that, well , they look what they are. A small fish ! Even a big one is "small". 

The third section of river was a twenty minute drive downstream.  Set amongst woodland , good sized dace and "bonus" ( Mr Matchman ) roach fed keenly as dusk approached. 

I packed up, I'd caught enough. A good day.

Today. The incessant rain had stopped. Almost.

Rivers up. Didn't look great, but I went to "The Forbidden". Biteless after an hour , a woman on the far bank shouted "You can't fish here !"

Now, I always respond with "Are you the landowner ? " , because ninety nine per cent of the time it's some nosy bastard sticking their beak in where it's not wanted.

This time however, the woman said she leased the land off the National Trust "who don't allow fishing on their land". I've fished for forty years without issue on NT land a mile downstream, so I'm not sure about that.

Anyway, she leases the land and it's up to her. She then said "If you don't pack up right away I'll ring ( EA balief's name ) and get him to chuck you off.

I packed up and left, but what the feck is an EA balief doing enforcing private landowners fishing rights ? Surely the EA, a public body should not be using license payer's money to do this.  She is not the only landowner to say this to me, the bullshitting RSPB bloke down the road has tried this trick. 

So that's another place I can't fish. My mate was chucked off EA land a bit upstream by said balief. Eh, you can't fish there because it's EA land ? You mean the same EA that our money funds ? WTF ?

Another place half mile from me is owned by EA and used to be day ticket and was used primarily by local people, especially kids.

The parish council contributed money for half dozen fishing platforms.

A few seasons ago the EA invited bids from clubs for fishing rights. What about the money contributed by the PC firbthe platforms ? It's now run by a club whose members never fish it and out of bounds to everyone except "poachers".

The same EA let water companies pump tonnes of shite into our rivers without any consequence. 

It's a fecking joke.

In Between Days

Two fishing days this week, in between the incessant and now massively tedious and annoying rain.

First session it was grey, windy and cold. Not exactly inspiring. Two chub were winkled out on the Suffolk Test, moderate fish of around the 3lb mark, before I had an hour on the Stour, with another brace of chub, bit bigger though, both around the 4lb mark.

Yesterday, after a beautiful early morning walk along the river and then farting about with a couple of little jobs, I was off in the van, destination unknown. I really couldn't decide.

I ended up on the Grubby Town river, after dace. Despite looking spot on, it was dire, with just a chublet to show for my efforts. My mood was not enhanced when I discovered I'd left my waist pack in the furthest swim, which necessitated a long trek to rescue it.

Off to another stream, a few miles down the road. Again, the river looked perfect and plenty of dace, roach and chub came to the stick float.

I decided to call in on the Stour on the way back, "just for an hour". Two road closures and a precarious journey down tiny lanes full of pot holes made the journey "interesting". The Stour looked fantastic but failed to produce.

Rain moved in around dusk, the wind got up and I sacked it off. Walking back in the gloaming, I could just make out the huge beds of snowdrop and acolytes, the first and most welcome sign that winter is on its way out.

Good riddance.

Grim

Cold, windy, raining. Horrible.

I can't ( or won't) work in this crappy weather and neither can I sit indoors all day, regardless of what I'm doing.

I decided to have another recce on The Suffolk Test. Before the recce, I checked out the roach stretch. It was up and coloured, you could almost say " in flood ", though it wasn't dirty and there was no floating detritus. 

Had to have a quick go didn't I ? First swim, the "hot peg", not a touch. Never mind, another place downstream offered steady water and I'd had several fish from the same spot on Tuesday.

It was hard, but I winkled out half a dozen decent fish to a pound or so in less than two hours, when I packed up, wet and freezing cold.

Sitting in the van with the heater on, my fingers slowly came back to life and after a bite to eat I donned the waterproofs and wellies and checked out another stretch upstream.

Difficult to say what it was like, as it was going through like a train. Let's just say I wasn't inspired.

Hopefully the rain will relent and we can hit the river in prime condition again soon.

Roachtastic

The day after our Sunday trip dace fishing me and TCG were both out again, but on different rivers.

TCG checked out two tiny streams. On one he was "chubbed out" whilst dace fishing and on the other gave up in disgust due to pollution and litter on the outskirts of a grubby Essex town.

I went to a river in Suffolk that YCG has subsequently christened "The Suffolk Test", due to the discovery of swaying ranunculous beds in the post flood current, which he said, tongue in cheek , looked like the famous Hampshire chalk stream.

My recce was successful and we agreed to go back the following day for a proper go at the roach.

The colour had dropped out a bit, but the flow was perfect and first run down TCG was in to a nice roach. It was not quite a bite a chuck, but almost, with the fish averaging 8-10 oz and the two best around the pound.

A lone perch in immaculate condition gave us food for thought, as we'd heard that big ones had started to show this season. Earlier we'd had a recce upstream and seen some very  chubby/perchy swims, snaggy and much deeper. Definitely give those a go soon.

Five or six swims produced fish with two being very good indeed. Running the float down, seeing it disappear and then the satisfying "clunk" as you struck, it doesn't get much better.

As the light faded I got the eight foot Quiver Picker out the van ( comprised of parts of three different rods and assembled by Lord Lobkin ) and set up a swan shot link with bread flake. Less bites, but as dusk fell I had two nice roach, the biggest around the pound mark.

Great conditions, some cracking fish and good company, another lovely day.

Ferreting About

Me and TCG decided to try another little river,  again, it looked perfect, lots of flow and a bit of colour.

In short, it was another great day. Fish from half a dozen or more swims, mostly really good sized dace with some nice roach and chub thrown in.

You learn so much about the river when trotting. Where the snags are, the deep and shallow bits, where the fish like to sit. Your brain is constantly processing information and building a picture of what lies beneath.

Catching fish from multiple swims was encouraging, the river had a big pollution incident and number of years ago and suffers from severe abstraction issues, but it seems that life carries on, at least in some places.

Downstream of a little outfall was an absolute discourage. Baby wipes and all types of detritus everywhere, in addition to the discarded cans and plastic bottles that we apparently have to accept as the norm.

Next to nobody gives a damn about it and you can be sure "the authorities" will do absolutely feck all about any of it. Makes me so bloody angry.

Before the weather turns again we've got a couple more small streams to try for a monster dace. But really, I just like farting about in new places.

Oh, and I involuntarily cheered two Man Utd goals yesterday. Don't know what came over me.

Cadgwith, Cornwall, Summer 1978

We were on holiday in Cornwall and were visiting some relatives in Cadgwith, a classic Cornish fishing village. 

When I was a kid my mum and dad didn't have a record player. All they had was the radio, which was permanently tuned in to Radio 2, which in those days was full of stuff like Sunday with David Jacobs, Pete Murrey and if you were really lucky, Ed Stewart's Junior Choice. It was utter turd.

I'd been starved of access to good music, I knew nothing about music and frankly had never heard anything the piqued my interest. Well, you wouldn't listening to that shite would you ?

Whilst visiting the relations and becoming more and more bored as the adults talked, I asked if I could use the record player. After brief instructions, I donned the headphones and put on the first record that came to hand.

First track, a massive riff started up, quite slow and repetitive. What the feck was this ? After it finished I put the needle back to track one. I instinctively turned up the volume and played it over and over and over again,  until the volume was up to max and the riff pummelled it's way into my brain. My ears were ringing and I'd discovered something magical. 

The track was Sweet Leaf and the album Master Of Reality by Black Sabbath. Still a banger as da yoof would say.

Ever since then I've been mad on music.  First band I really got into was The Stranglers, then The Clash and The Fall.

Peel always referred to them, rightly, as The Mighty Fall. The awkward, cantankerous, contrary genius that is Mark E Smith died an incredible eight years ago but ( cliche alert ) the music lives on.

Different tracks periodically get in my brain and get played repeatedly, the incomprehensible lyrics and unique delivery casting a spell.

Recently it was "Impression of J Temperence", a story of a dog breeder, peasants and domestic violence. Like almost every other Fall song it makes no sense.

There's been dozens more, but the one that gets played more than any other is "Blindness".

A menacing, repetitive ( that word again ) baseline, a weirdy sinister sound from what sounds like Woolworths keyboards and Smith muttering and shouting, "I was on one leg ! Blind man! Have mercy on me !"

Search for the live versions at Hammersmith Palaise and Renfrew Ferry especially. 

It's a glorious, malevolent, chaotic racket, never to be repeated again. Ever.

Two Streams

The mini freeze was over, with temperatures climbing to a balmy 10 degrees C and amazingly the river levels were perfect, or at least they were on the upper river.

Two weeks without going fishing, I was mad keen for it, so arranged to meet The Chubmeister General at a little venue precisely thirty eight miles away and taking a ridiculous one hour twenty minutes to reach, due to the tiny roads.

No sign of TCG, so I started without him, in a pacey swim at a junction of two streams. I was immediately in to fish, dace, chublets and roach. 

By the time TCG had turned up I was in a different swim, catching chunky dace and roach and was in to my third big ( for a ten foot wide stream ) chub which had the magnificent "Dace Ace" rod bent double.

Having previously said he wasn't feeling it, he immediately siezed the rod and refused to return it, his enthusiasm back to normal levels, until we decided to have a look at an even smaller stream ten minutes away.

What an incredible place it was, in woodland full of birdsong, fast shallow riffles, deeper bends, steady glides. A perfect stream.

Every likely looking swim produced plenty of fish, on one particular bend we took it turns to trot down and had a bite a chuck for over an hour, it must have been thick with them.

I actually stopped fishing before dusk, sat down and watched the TCG trotting his centre pin for the last half hour. I was fished out.

Winter fishing doesn't get much better.

Poking About

A new club ticket was purchased for a river on the edge of the Fens, a venue that rises on chalk and generally runs clear, the upper reaches holding dace,chub and trout and the lower end classic Fen fish, rudd, bream and if you're lucky tench.

Waaaak and I arranged to have a day looking round just after Christmas, but his car troubles ( sing along with Adam ) meant I was alone.

First stop, an absolutely tiny stream, mostly unfishable, due to it being only inches deep. In a rare deep(er) pool I spied dace, but didn't fish, noting the spot for a future visit.

A few miles down the road in a hillbilly town, I walked an overgrown, almost canal like section, festooned with floating detritus, plastic bottles, cans, the usual stuff. Groups of bored kids roamed the banks ( sounds as if they're more feral and delinquent than "walked" or "played aĺong". I've been ready the Daily Mail you know ).

It was all rather uninspiring.

I came to a little weir pool, plenty of flow here. It looked great, if you ignored the masses of bankside rubbish. When you usually fish in a rural environment you forget what dirty bstards some people are.

First trot down and the float shot under. A lovely, good sized dace, the first fish on the beautiful ten foot, cut down 1990s Drennan Crystalite, customised by the legendary Lord Lobkin of Wivenhoe. 

More dace followed, plus some roach and a couple of decent chub, all this with an otter working the pool the whole time.

After an hour I jumped in the van to check out a section further upstream. A wooded, scenic, very slowly flowing piece of water.

By now, the light was fading fast. A handful of maggots in a likely looking swim and the float again buried first cast. A nice roach. And so it continued,  with some dace thrown in for good measure.

An interesting, enjoyable,  if unspectacular day. It's been said a thousand times, but trotting a float down a winter river takes some beating.