Let There Be Light

Up at six, walked down stairs without the light on....what's going on ? Poked my head out the door. Not cold. Clear sky. Dry.

Quick cup of tea, boots on, out the door for a walk. It was like a heavy, grey veil had been lifted after months of depressing nothingness.

Colour returned, the birds were singing and General Winter was on his way out. Good riddance.

Five hours later I was home, having bagged fifty seven bird species, including a pair of bullfinchs, something I've not seen for ages.

I was "buzzing" (copyright da yoof).

Lunch in the garden. Boiled eggs done perfectly. 

Finished the day on the little noddy rod at the local river catching bleak, perch, roach, a hybrid and three ruffe. Lovely.

First day of spring and one that'll be hard to beat.

Social

Met up with Bureboi Baines on Monday for a session on the local river.

Mild as forecast and the river looked lovely, if a little pacey.

Wak was shocked when he looked in the back of my van at what he felt was a lack of order and cleanliness. Looked alright to me.

Still a bit of water on the flood plains, Wak gingerly manoeuvred himself through the deeper bits and started off in a "banker" swim. A nice chub on the quiver quickly followed.

I, on the other hand found trotting extremely difficult and after an hour had a break.

After putting the world to rights, specifically on VAR ( get rid ) and Mandleson ( ditto ), trotting commenced, resulting in three nice chub.

Also found a dead cormorant, congratulations to the otter or whatever killed it.

Before Waaaak made his long drive home, I gave him a very tasty wrap from said van. An hour later I had a text saying he was eating the wrap and narrowly avoided getting a mouthful of an escaped brandling . Maybe it does need a clean.

Times Are A Changin'

The weather is, at last, changing.

We're promised double figure temperatures almost all of next week. About time, it's been bloody awful.

With that in mind, two spots were prebaited with seed and maize. 

The first spot received a light scattering of seed in the still margins of a wide pool, the fast water flowing much further out.

The deep mill pond received a barage of rock hard grapefruit sized soil balls packed with goodies.

Next week we'll see if there's anything in residence and willing to feed.

Get out there and fill yer boots, only a couple of weeks left.

Take A Breath

Lost a bit of enthusiasm last week, so haven't been fishing for almost a week.

Been out and about though, yesterday had a lovely walk on the northern bank of the estuary in glorious sunshine ( albeit with a cold ,blustery wind ) . Another couple of months and the bass and mullet will be back, can't wait.

Found absolutely loads of cuttlefish bones at the top of the tideline, never seen this in the estuary before this far upriver. A new phenomenon or have I just noticed them ?

Another walk the next day and early signs of wild garlic growing by the stream, nature is waking up.

When I was a school, I remember getting the fishing books out the library. One of my favourites was Successful Roach Fishing by David Carl Forbes and the other day I read something about this book that jogged my memory.

A quick Google told me that a first edition currently goes for between £40 and £80 quid. A bit more searching and I somehow found one for £5.00. Delivered !

Worth a punt. I was expecting a dog eared reprint but no, a first edition in good nick. Bargain and what a bloody good read.

If you see a reasonably priced copy then buy it.

Work today then fishing tomorrow.  Less than four weeks of the season remaining, get out there and fill yer boots.

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 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 for the 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.