A bend in the rod

Today, the weather forecast was for good weather with a predicted temperature high of 17°C. This being halfway through November, I decided to try and get a day's fishing in before it really started to get cold. As it turned out, the sun stayed hidden, except for a fleeting glance in the afternoon and temperatures never did get near the forecast high. Even so, it was plenty mild enough to make it comfortable with the standard clobber adorning my now much lighter frame. I have lost over two stone over the summer and now my fishing clothes, which were tight, are now a more than comfortable fit. I used to look like a Teletubby, in my bib and brace, now I am starting to resemble a partially deflated Michelin man.

As last week's trip to Beaver was a disaster, as far as catching fish was concerned, I made a point of getting there early this week to get the choice of swims. I have not got up this early for a while, but it all went fine. I was feeling good and as I was not taking too much tackle, and the van is half full of boxes and other junk from the packing up of our house, I chose to take the car. The old, recycled, Swedish fridge is getting on a bit these days (it is even older than the van!), but it still does the job with flying colours.

The water today was dead flat at times. Just look at the refection of the rod in the water

A decent run meant I got to the fishery just as the gates were open and to my surprise, there was no queue. I had expected to be among a whole lot of people who had the same thought as me. After a bit of a catch-up with Andy, I paid my day-ticket money and set off for the back of Jeff's lake. I got there to find just one other person setting up on the far bank. The water was so still, it was like a mirror at times, ideal conditions for seeing the float. That might come in handy later, but for now, it is time to go back to what I know.

Today, I had made the decision to go back to method feeder fishing, using my tried and tested Two Dog groundbait as a feeder mix and Bacon Grill on the hook. I set up and filled the small 30g, Preston flat back method feeder, burying the hook-bait within the feed. This will generally give almost instant results on this lake, but not today. I persevered with this method for a while and eventually gave up, planning to revisit the spot later in the day.

Ah! A nice little roach, for a change

Meanwhile, I had been feeding a spot a few meters out to my right where I could drop a maggot-baited hook in with my short 5m tele-pole. A size 16 hook on a light rig was decimating the gudgeon population. I must have caught several dozen of them! Then, just for a change, I caught a nice little roach. Although I was catching fish this week, my total catch so far probably did not weigh much more than a pound or two at most. After getting bored with catching lots of tiny fish, I reverted to the feeder.

I had some Maggots left over from last week. I had bought a pint of mixed (colour) maggots. I have never used these before, and they are interesting to look at, even if the fish were not at all interested last week. Not wanting to change the rig I thought I would make a 'cocktail' bait by securing a punch of Bacon Grill on the hair, and a couple of the brightly coloured maggots on the hook. Having never tried this before, I was impressed when it resulted in a nice, firm take. For the first time in months, I was playing a fish that had some fight. The fact that it played dead after a very short fight confirmed my assumption that I was playing a bream.

That's more like it

Great! First decent fish of the day, I was on my way. I baited the rig again, and cast. Nothing. That was the end of the feeder fishing in that spot. I decided to go back to the pole and try some bigger bait to try and discourage the gudgeon. I tried at dead depth and nothing. After several attempts, using meat, sweetcorn and even bread, I was getting nowhere other than one perch that went for a piece of red (dyed) Bacon Grill. Even that was only a small fish. In desperation, I changed the hook to a size 10 and loaded it with a bunch of various coloured maggots, after buying another pint from the fishery shop. I also moved the float up the line so now I was fishing with an inch or so of line sitting on the bottom. That changed things dramatically.

The first put-in got a mighty tug. At this point, I realised the line was wrapped around the tip, and the elastic was still in the pole. Snap! The hooklength had broken, and I was left having to re-rig. Next put-in had the same reaction. This time the elastic came out of the pole until it bottomed-out and then snapped. I had brought along a second tele-pole with a stronger elastic fitted. That was rigged with a stronger line and hooklength. I put this in and again I had several strong bites that got away, this time I was just losing the fish. The gear, including the hook, sans bait, was holding up. Then I had another one on. It was playing nicely, and I was as gentle as I could be until it made a bolt for it and bottomed-out the elastic. This time the hooklength broke and the fish was lost.

By now, I realised that there was not much I could do to stop the fish using the small poles. They are excellent for small fish, but if anything of any size gets a hold of the bait, there is nothing I can do to stop it. By now it is getting on for lunchtime. I pulled the line out of the water and poured myself a cup of coffee to have with a sandwich and consider my options. It has been a while since I last fished this lake with any commitment. I did spend an hour or so on here earlier this year catching F1s on corn, but that was at the height of summer, and I was using heavier gear.

The multi-coloured maggots worked well with my Two Dog groundbait feeder-mix

After lunch I hit on the idea of just dropping the feeder in, charged with Two Dog and leaving a bunch of maggots just hanging on a four-inch hooklength. After all, that is not that much different to what I was doing with the pole, once I had started to fish over-depth. That worked! The heavier gear was easily up to the job, and I was landing fish after fish. By now the lake had filled, and I was fishing with seven or eight other anglers. Some were catching, but not at the rate I was. Again, the Two Dog feeder mix was calling in those F1s. I must have had twenty of them over the next few hours, along with the odd bream and a lovely crucian. At least I am reasonably sure it was a crucian. As I understand it, the way to tell the difference is by counting the number lateral line scales. This fish seems to be in the 32-34 bracket which makes it a crucian as F1s usually have more, in the 35-36 range. Please correct me if I am wrong, I am only going by what I have read.

A nice size crucian was my favourite fish of the day

It starts to get dark very quickly at this time of year, so by 4 o'clock I was beginning to pack up, and by 5 o'clock I was all packed up and well on my way home. A great day fishing and I learnt a lot today.

Ralph.

John Wilson

Long before I was an active angler, I often watched television programmes about fishing. Jack Hargreaves was probably the first 'name' I can remember. His series on the long since defunct 'Southern Television'  was called Out of Town, and later, when it was picked up by Channel 4, Old Country. His soft dulcet tone was very easy to listen to, and his whole demeanour gave him a grandfatherly appeal to a young lad like myself, even though I was not interested in fishing as a kid. 

Later in life, as an adult, I would watch fishing programmes with Sue, my wife. Neither of us were anglers, but we enjoyed watching well-presented fishing programmes as entertainment in their own right. John Wilson's Go Fishing was one such programme. Like many others, we were captivated by John Wilson's genuine enthusiasm for the hobby. It mattered not that we were not interested in having a go ourselves, we soaked up the material on offer for the sixteen years that the programme aired on Channel 4 and then again as repeats on the digital channels in recent years. John Wilson's programmes had (and probably still do) an appeal, way beyond the angling community. 

Today, 13 November 2018, I learned that John has died, this morning in Thailand, after suffering a stroke on Sunday. He had moved there a few years ago to retire to the sun, but in recent months he had decided to return home to spend more time with family. Sadly this was not to be. Although I have never met him, I felt like I had lost a friend. When I took up fishing late in life, just four years ago, the first book I bought was a copy of his Course Fishing Method Manual. Now long out of print, being first published over twenty years ago, I managed to secure a second-hand copy.

The book was obviously well loved before I became the custodian of the volume. The original owner had scribed a declaration on the inside of the cover, stating that the book belonged to him. He had also added his undying love for his girlfriend! Even now, the book is full of the basic information a novice like me needs to further my fishing adventures. I am sure there is many an angler out there today who has learned a lot, and like me, are still learning from the words of John Wilson. 

John Wilson was voted the 'greatest angler of all time' by the Angling Times readers and was awarded an MBE in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours, For services to Angling.  

R.I.P John Dennis Wilson, MBE.

Ralph.

Finally, a day at Beaver...

Your days are numbered...

Today has been a good day. My first visit to Beaver Fishery since July. I missed most of the summer fishing due to one thing or another, although I did manage the odd trip to our local river and Tim's stretch of The Medway, as regular readers of my waffle will know.

The cold and dark of this time of the year did not inspire me to plan an early start, so a leisurely plod was in order. The van is full of boxes as we are in the process of packing up the house, so rather than mess about, I decided to go light and take the car. A float rod and a tele-pole, my comfy seat and a small bag of tackle was the order of the day that all fit nicely into the back.

I left just before 09:00, and to my surprise, the traffic was fairly light. Less than an hour later, I was driving into the fishery. By this time the office was locked, and the guys were out and about tending to the grounds. I could hear the sound of the fishery's Kubota pick-up and headed for the noise. On the bank of Jeff's lake, I found Adam trimming the margins. After a brief chat, we headed back to the office where I paid my day ticket and bought a pint of multicoloured maggots and a tin of hemp.

Maze Lake. The area inside the red box has now been in-filled

Last time I was here, the silted up arm of Maze Lake was being filled in and now completed, access to the 'fingers' is easier from the back of the lake. I decided to have a go at fishing from there. It always seemed a lot of messing about to get there before. I set up in a swim at the end of the 'finger' in a place I could not reach from where I have fished in the past. The spot looked good with open water in front of me and a patch of lily pads to my left at the closed end. The section of the map is taken from the complex map on the fishery's website, showing the layout of Maze Lake as it was before the infill.

The greyed out area inside the red box indicates where the lake has been filled and the red arrow shows where I was fishing for the day. I say fishing, I think in four years, this was the first time here that I blanked, not a sniff all day. The only thing to get dragged out of the lake was a signal crayfish laden with eggs. Even that was foul hooked! Needless to say, it did not make it back to the lake.

The view from my peg, looking out over the swim to the new grassed area of infill.

 The spot looked idyllic. Nice stretch of water in front of me, looking over to the bank that surrounds this side of The Major's Lake. My favourite place to fish is just the other side of that bank. However, the water level is still low in The Major's Lake and is continually being topped up from Maze via a diesel pump that can be heard in the distance. After a while, I forgot the noise was there.

You would think there would be a few fish around those lily pads, wouldn't you?

I was too busy trying to catch fish - unsuccessfully. I started off by cupping in a small cup of maggots and hemp while I was rigging my short, 5m pole. I plumbed the depth to set the bait right on the bottom and impaled one of the colourful maggots. Nothing. I fed a few grains of hemp over the float. Still nothing. After an hour or so, I gave up on the pole and decided to rig my float rod with a long waggler and see what was hanging around further out. Nothing. In short, I tried changing bait to corn, bread and even meat but it all gave the same result, absolutely nothing. I did not get a bite all day until the last few minutes when it was getting dark, and I was about to pack up. Both fish came off the hook and my total catch for the day was one, now deceased, signal crayfish.

This is very similar to a trip we made to our local river back in the summer. It had been raining all day yesterday, and I guess the rain has cooled the water down sufficiently to cause the fish to stop feeding for a while as they acclimatise to their changed environment. Mistakenly, I chose today to go fishing as it looked like the weather was going to be good, not thinking about the fact that it had been raining all day yesterday.

Yes, it would have been nice to catch the odd fish, but never mind, I had a day out in some nice weather getting some fresh air and was able to spend a good few hours without worrying about life in general, moving house and being ill. I think if the weather is not too bad, I might go and say hello to the fish in the weir pool on our local river over the weekend. I wonder if they like multi-coloured maggots!

Ralph. 
   

Goodbye London and fishing on Thursday - Maybe.

39 years and 19 days after moving into our Victorian terraced house (that we bought as a first time buy back in the days when nobody wanted to live here) we have just put it on the market. Since we moved here the area has steadily become more desirable as the infrastructure has been improved and the surrounding areas have become far too expensive for anybody but the elite.

Now the multi-coloured, ten-year old Ford Cortinias and rusty Morris Marinas that used to adorn the curb have been replaced with Range Rovers, Porsches and Mercedes. Every road has houses being refurbished to high standards and usually with the addition of loft conversions, extensions and even basements excavated. Who would have thought, when we bought a house that had been converted into two flats, for no money at all, that four decades on it would be one of the most desirable locations in the road? Not us, that is for sure. Originally, we had only intended to stay here for three years.

Now after a lifetime of living in the smoke it will be a big wrench to drag ourselves away from all the advantages living in London can offer. This has been made a lot easier in recent years by the growing list of disadvantages for us. There is no doubt that a younger person making his way in life, the modern fast, twenty-four hour vibe of the metropolis can be the perfect place to live.

For me, all that is behind me. At 62 years of age, I have no intention of landing myself with a whole lot of stress I don't need. The thought of moving out to a place where I can just be, has become more and more appealing as the years chug by. Making the move now, before I get too old to enjoy the things I love, makes perfect sense.

So What has this got to do with fishing?

Lots. For a start I will not be able to do much fishing over the next few months while we pack up and sort out the best part of forty years of accumulated stuff. You know, there is furniture, clothes and kitchen utensils and all the rest is 'stuff'. We seem to have far more than our fair share of stuff, in fact I had no idea just how much stuff we actually had tucked away in this house!

Fishing gear comes under the 'stuff' category and again, it mounts up. My intention is to keep some to hand, but the rest will have to be packed up ready to move and put into storage for a while, along with a lot of other stuff. Now I have to decide what to keep to hand.

I could base it on what I take when going 'light'. See HERE. That covers float fishing, but I will add a couple of my short tele-poles and pole-rigs. I will also keep to hand my little telescopic rod that I use on the tiny rivers we have locally. That should do for the foreseeable future. All the rest will go into storage and will still be accessible if I do need it.

The weather looks good for tomorrow and that will give me a good excuse to try out the minimum gear approach. I have not been to Beaver for months, partly due to the moving 'distractions' but mainly due to not feeling well enough. I am really looking forward to a day by a familiar lake just gently fishing for whatever comes along. The last time I was there, the weather was baking hot. I think it will be a bit different tomorrow. Time to dig out some warm clothing and something hot for breakfast on the bank...

...Happy to be going fishing, but even happier now we have just had an offer accepted on a house we want to buy - all we have to do now is sell this one!

Ralph.