That's it for now

Monday

I ventured back to pond one, aiming to get myself a crucian carp, to see if they had got any bigger.
My aim entailed ground up fish meal pellets and mixed it with liquidised bread for feed, some more worms and hooker pellets.
There was a cold North Easterley blowing down the pond and I hadn't prepared for that, it was freezing, especially around my lower back.
I soldiered on and soon had the rudd and roach taking the small red worms before the first carp of the early evening turned up.

This was followed by my first crucian of the year, so my hopes were high that I had made the attracter right.
It was not to be, even with the soft hookers, some roach and more carp and a lone chub, no more crucian showed.

Tuesday

The wind had turned this evening to an equally cold Easterly, this time the thermals came in useful.
Unfortunately, my aim to attract roach with some hempseed failed, it was comparatively speaking, a very slow early evening session.
A few roach and the occasional rudd, not of any size, the one carp and close to home time a small eel.
I had bought an old packet of prawns from the freezer, they had turned to a mush so formed some loose feed, which whiffed a bit, and probably bought the eel in!

Heading back after the line snapped at the hook.

So, my early spring sessions come to an end for a while down in the valley.
Roach, rudd, carp, chub, crucian an eel and a very good 3lb perch to show for my expeditions.
I'm convinced there must be bigger roach and perhaps perch, so I'll be back to test the water of the three ponds in a few weeks time.

What time do you call this?

Crack of sparra's

It's 4:30 am, and I'm wide awake for the second morning, to the sounds of the song thrush and the wren.
I don't know why I'm awake, but I did go fishing yesterday afternoon down to the triangle.
It was one of those frustrating sessions where nothing was in the right place and little things niggled, and I dabbled!
Too much fishing?
Probably not, probably something to do with our big trip!
Anyway, I wasn't going to write this trip up but I've already had two cups of Assam, so here goes.

We dug over our "orchard" area and removed a good crop of a creeping buttercup and found some worms!
So I thought,why not?
I fished a different swim, it was 8 foot in the edge, so the deep end.
Tried it at all depths, and all I could get were small rudd, not a touch on the bottom, I think the fish are in the shallower, warmer areas.
 So I moved to the opposite corner where I had about 6 feet in front of me, just where the trees finish and was immediately into a carp and a chub.

 

The carp all seem to be around the 7lb mark, most I've caught so far, have digs on the flanks, or have had scales damaged, not certain what that is, hope it's not an anglers id!!
They give a fair tussle on the Aspindale, but I think I've damaged the Drennan landing net handle, where the net screws in.
 I shall need to have a look at that, it's gone floppy, mind you it did give a crack as I lifted into a carp with probably too much of the handle extended.

I fished until the sun went below the horizon, not certain about this pond yet, I was hoping for a sign of roach, or even another good perch but no show..
Which brings me back to my dabbling. I took along a box of soft lures with the intention of practicing drop shotting.
Nothing to report, but I'll give it another go when my mind is in the right place, it turned out to be  a few casts with no real thought.

As I have to, I drove past the pub on the way home, thinking, shall I drop in?
I didn't, instead settled in front of the tv with a bottle of wine, a packet of crisps, a chunk of cheddar and fell asleep!
Now I know why I'm awake!
A wasted dawn,should have been down the pond instead of making this up as I go along?
Nah,I'll leave it to the weekend anglers, but,  if I'm awake Monday at the same time,who knows?

Tight lines to my readers, and have a good weekend

Well,why not ?

Still had worms to use

Ok, I took another trip down, fishing three days on the trot, what is the world coming to?
This time I decided to fish one of the 3 coarse pools I hadn't seen, so had no knowledge of what to expect.
The pond is triangular in shape and has a constant flow through a pipe of water draining off from one of the trout pools.

Perhaps I should point out that the farmer, George, has three coarse ponds and two trout pools down in the valley, the trout pools are day ticket and the coarse ponds are on a syndicate ticket.
I learned today that one or two people have not  been renewed and no more members will be taken on this year.
My arrival in the swim I chose was greeted by buzzard taking off from the tree behind me mewing as it disappeared from view. Must keep my eyes open, as I didn't see it and it was only a small tree.

Anyway, the fishing, I stuck to the same method and worm with frozen maggot/caster as feed.
Once again it was obvious that carp are the dominant fish in the two ponds so far, but I also found perch, a few tiny ones and these two. I think I lost a bigger one, but happy that at first visit to find a 2 pound fish!
A bit more timeand exploration needed to find what is in this little golden triangle

 Looks like I should clean my lense!

The smaller one with a bit of spawn there!

2lb on the nose

One of seven carp,like peas in a pod

The second trout pool next to the triangle .

I disturbed a greylag I hadn't spotted along the bank, as I retrieved a float, my line snapped at the float rubbers when I struck into a carp. 

She was well tucked down, and had nine eggs, no wonder she was agitated.

Back with the ol'man

Another trip soonish, but I have no worms so a bit more gardening may be the order of the day and I need to get some more feed, perhaps some liquidised bread and the remaining frozen casters. 

Down in the valley!

Maybe tomorrow ? 

.

Close Season (informe informe)

Oh dear!!
Now there's a conspiracy, "panels" being formed , "exclusions" and all because some asked questions and some gave opinions !
This is being lead by Lee Fletcher.
It's times like this when I loose all respect for individuals, not that I've ever had any respect for Ray Wood!
It's enough to put some off the retention of the close season, just seeing what is being put forward as support for it , the same old battle cry and attacks on individuals!

Jeff Woodhouse sums it up, and he's all for lifting the close season.

"THIS GETS WORSE - Did any of you three or four ever work for the CIA? Talk about conspiracy theorists. We have gone from an article by Martin Salter asking should we have a debate and Steve Pope making his own very honest, and for me very innocent, comment on the subject to NOW - where we have a Committee with PANEL of experts deliberately excluding anyone who wants to retain the Close Season. Oh and don't forget - Sponsored by Dynamite Baits!  Crikey! Next you be saying the Angling Trust are tapping your phones to hear what you're up to."

Turned out nice again!

Why not?

A bit of gardening today,alright I had an ulterior motive!
So I dug over and straightened out a raised vegetable bed, added a bit of well rotted horse muck. We get it free up here as long as we take the plastic sack back
Then we set about the salad patch outside the back door.
We also had our forced rhubarb as a crumble,plenty of custard....nice!!
Anyway, the ulterior motive...worms and plenty of them, so at 4pm I set of down into the valley.
Much the same kit, but instead of liquidised bread I found in the freezer a bait tin full of method mix.
The result of about 3 hours fishing was another tester of the rod, this time the carp were the main fish, probably something to do with the method mix, although tonight was a good deal warmer than last night.

I started off with rudd and roach as usual, but the carp soon moved in, mostly around the 5lb mark although one was a touch over 81/2lb, the rod handled that well, but later on, in fact as it turned out( because I couldn't be bothered to re- tackle up) my last cast got me into a bigger fish, a nice mirror that I got to the net,and which I tried  to bully, but it was having none of it, kiteing to my right and down the lake, snapping my 3.4 line, with ease.
My fault being lazy, didn't even get out of my chair to at least face the way of the run!!

 

a bigger roach?

So off home ,probably an hour earlier than I needed to, but caught a glimps of one hare and a buzzard hunting along the hedgerow.
Talking of hunting, on arriving home I spotted the neighbours cat loitering in Jim's garden, and then I noticed why.
A tiny young rabbit scooted across the lawn and asked to be let in the front door!
I tried to catch it, but it was far faster than me, hopefully the cat gave up the chase and the ill aimed half brick scared him off!

Close Season

As may have been guessed, I have no real firm thoughts about the Close Season, but I am on record for at least the last five years by saying it won't change "Not in my life time".

I am still of that same view, but I see the bash Steve Pope boys are out again, because he had the temerity, when asked, to give a personal view on the matter!

He thinks it's worth looking at a date adjustment at the most. Close season discussion on Angling Trust site

These old boys, some of whom aided the set up at least two other barbel groups which have failed, because they didn't put the work in, and expected others to!
The BS has people prepared to do the work without tantrums, if their personal ideas are not approved.
Ray Walton is a classic example of all shout, and no do. Ray Wood is a classic example of ......no do!
When will these old boys also get it into their thick heads that things change from the 15 years or so, when they were last members of the Barbel Society.
All sour grapes I'm afraid, and all because what they wanted as individuals wasn't for the benefit of the whole.
If there was a "benevolent dictatorship", then that is what was needed to keep the ship off and running and afloat, there certainly wasn't one there from my years of experience on the committee.
Not Steve anyway!
But,  there is a sulker with some clout within, maybe that's another story to be told .......perhaps!
All sour grapes I'm afraid.

My view is, that there will never be a consensus to change the Close Season, not whilst anglers in the main can't be bothered, we are generally apathetic.

Having said that about "Not in my.....etc etc",  I would certainly fight for the rivers to continue to be closed for the current period, if push came to shove.

Down in the valley

Testing!

With time getting a bit tight for our Oz trip, I decided to have a dig around the vegetable garden's well rotted horse muck for some worms.
I've not really found enough, but with some defrosting maggots and liquidised bread, I thought I would pop down to the ponds after a late lunch.
I also wanted to give my "new" cane a run out so set the Aero up with my Purist ll, a porcupine quill and a size14 barbless fished laying on with about a 9 inches on the bottom.

The dead maggots and liquidised bread acting as attractors.
I was hoping to get the perch going as there are many rudd in the pond, but wasn't too concerned as it was a rod test.
My first fish a rudd, followed by a few others before a bigger fish took the worm, it turned out to be a carp of just over 5lb, it gave the rod no problems at all.

 During this time I was constantly concerned about the local goose population, a pair of bullying greylag geese were, I thought ,defending territory on the island and what looked like their nest from a pair of canada geese.
Both sets of geese were constantly back and forward over the swim and very close to my line with their noisy mock fights.
As it turned out the canada geese were not the guilty party, as  dusk arrived they took possession of the island end and the female sat on what indeed was their nest.

 I continued for a few hours until my worms run out, catching a few roach, rudd a couple of perch the largest just over a 1lb and a chub of about 2lb.
In the meantime I was pleased to hear the rising chatter of a  skylark,. become rare so a welcome sound of spring.
Early rain had stopped, but there was a chill easterly blowing down my kneck

My fishing finished with a greylag finally taking out my line as the darkness moved in, so I packed up, getting home still in the light.

Tomorrow I shall be digging the garden, and perhaps having another trip, Down in the valley......................

Latest

Great tits

Our pair of the last 4 years started nest building in our box today!


Bamboo

I've gone and done it, and bought my first cane float rod from another age.
It's an Aspindales, The"Aero" No 892.
I'll be testing it on the farmer's ponds in the valley soon having committed to join the syndicate for his 3 ponds.

Jim's place

It's taken since Jim's death in September until now to sort out the Probate, and pay the Taxman.
His house is on sale from today, the signs are up and appear to be working already, the from the car lookers are about.
The family are over on Sunday and we shall be spreading the ashes as Jim requested around the Wolds


Ottered !

Well, that's my excuse and they always get the blame, so why not