Short session

Try something different

Had a couple of hours last night into darkness and the showery rain set in.
Used proper maggots and prawns, trying to see if there is anything bigger in lake two.
Put a prawn on a size 6 and a big weight for self hooking and put it in the margins by the only bed of reed on the lake.

Got this one in about half an hour, dead on 10lb, a great bit of sport on my 11foot Youngs rod and Purist ll and a struggle to squeeze into my landing net.
No more on the prawn, but the little'uns enjoyed whittling them away!!

Plenty of the same size as usual roach and the occasional tiny rudd on the maggot hard on bottom.
At last knockings these two came along.Even more fun on my 14 foot match rod and size 14 both about 6lb.

The garden

Agitated tit!

We had just finished our Crastor kipper and breakfast, and moved back into the kitchen to clear the cooking smells away.
The windows were already wide open, to assist with this, and we could hear the sound of an agitated great tit.
We've not seen the tits in the garden recently and thought that perhaps there was a cat about, attracted by the smell of our cooking!
He was flitting around in our apple trees and calling with the sound that sounds like the tapping of an empty milk bottle, and then we saw the reason.
I say he, because it stood out as a big brightly coloured bird with almost a complete black breast, the extra wide bib almost covering his whole chest.
He was ridding our apple trees of rather large bright green caterpillars, and was not as appeared agitated, but we assumed looking forward to a big juicy meal. We saw him drop two to the ground, but he didn't follow either of them down. Instead he kept searching, and found another which appeared to stay welded to the underside of a leaf stem, making it easy for him to eat.
His appetite satiated he moved off.
Having had large caterpillars in the garden last year on our fuchsia, I was curious to see what type we had this year. I picked one off the ground, it was definitely a hawk moth of some sort, as it had the tail horn that differentiates them from other large caterpillars. Last years being  an elephant hawk moth.
My first reactions from childhood memories identified it as a privet hawk moth, but on second thoughts, they may have been bigger.
So I delved into our copy of  the1984 Readers Digest Field Guide to Butterflies etc etc; and had a search.
I'm still not convinced what variety they are, but plumped for the eyed hawk moth, because it's known to cling to the underside of the leaves of apples and other fruit trees.
All hawk moth caterpillars seem to have a row of pink spots according to the pictures in the book, these didn't show any spots, but had the blue coloured horn, noted to be part of eyed's identification characteristics.

The culprits

Last years variety

Food from the garden

Some failures this year, apart from the apple trees, blueberries and raspberries bearing no fruit, our florence fennel, lettuces  and celeriac have all bolted, and the carrots, despite a second sowing following earlier failure, we have....three!!! 

We had a good crop of charlotte potatoes despite, I assume, some form of blight, which also affected our pink fir apple, so I took the tops off them and left them in the ground. We have been left with a fairly good crop of small potatoes.

Still, we have an excellent showing on our grape vine, who knows we may be able to make something of them this year.

Glad to see

I'm told a certain little yorkshireman still reads my blog, and takes notice of my writings. Glad to see he still finds me interesting enough to join in with his Maidenhead mate and to mention me.

Still here ( two)

Health warning

Had to re-jig my fishing day with Rob for mid-September as I had a first thing appointment with the Doc this morning re my bp readings and it cocked up the timings he had in mind..

It really confirmed my expectations that my readings after a week of taking my own, were borderline!
I told the Doc I had no wish to be taking pills for the rest of my life and that I was now determined to improve my life style following the earlier diagnosis..
He's given me two months to clean up my act!!

Relocation of venue

If I wasn't going to the river I thought, I'll pop of down to lake two.
So, I remembered my hempseed which is letting of a bit of a pong and got out some dead maggots. Determined to see a if there are any roach in this lake and how big they are.
Arriving at 4:30 and decided to fish the north bank,which I found was the shallow end! Just about two feet, but never the less I thought, if your after the roach give it a go.

A few handfuls of hemp and dead maggot and I settled in my swim, which is a bit closer to the larger of the two small islands in the lake. Close enough in fact, that I could see within the wooded growth what appeared to be large eggs, so I extended the lens and took a snap, they were and it looks like a goose has abandoned it's nest, or not returned after the day trip out for food!

I sat there for about an hour with just a few taps, but mostly piddly rudd attacking the float.So I moved down towards the east bank but stayed on the same side and found about 5 feet of water.

A few handfulls of bait again and dead maggots on the hook, from about 6o'clock until 8 o'clock I must have had about 40 roach mostly about this size, some a bit smaller and some just a tad larger and got towed around for a little while and all I got for my pains was a carp scale.
As it turned out I was quite happy not to have had the carp move in and was packing my bits away when this one took me for a long trot into the darkness. It's about the biggest I've had out of the lake at just under 10lb.

I was wondering on the way back if I had seen a barn owl this year yet, they used to be about all the time, they must have suffered over the last two winters up here, because I couldn't recall seeing one at all.
But, I did catch a glimpse of a tawney and a little owl and heard both their call during most of dusk time.So many linnets about this year too.
On my way back a heron lifted off across the front of me and slowly beat his way into the field and landed, looking back at me as I drove past.
The hares were about again, just two tonight, both did the silly jagging run just in front of me back out to the main road through the farm lane.

This lake may have a surprise in store for me, but although I have a great deal of anticipation as it starts getting dark no real specimens to show for it!

What to do ? The rivers are beginning to call me

Later

The bedside clock reads 01:15, I'm awake thinking about those silent rolls with the flash of silver, those scattering fry when topping up the loose feed and I'm thinking thinking, I wonder?
02:15 still tossing and turning, same thoughts, sod it I'll get up before I wake her up and have a look through my books.
First one I grab is Angling Essays Graham Marsden's latest as I'm half through it at the moment .Mark Wintle has a chapter on roach and Graham has a chapter on rudd.
Mark's is no good, it's a history type chapter, Grahams helps a bit, so I then pick out John Bailey's Roach the Gentle Giants, that doesn't help. "Faddist" Roach fishing now that may help, it does a bit, then I turn to John Wilson's Method manual, that confirms a few things, then back to bed in the hope of some sleep it's 03:40!
Tossed and turned until about 06:50, got up and made a cup of tea...Maidenhead man's on time, his daily ritual, he'll be no good.
I wonder if Dick Walker's Coarse fishing will have some more clues ? Sun's shining, grass will be too wet to cut from the morning's dew.....why not ?
Breakfast first!

Still here

I should be in Greenwich

Well our "mate" Brian, it was his 67 years birthday bash celebration today, but on Thursday afternoon he cancelled our third of the year drink meet of the International Drinking Society.
"I have to work"
He's a stocktaker and his boss has had to go away for a family emergency in the Ukraine so he's in charge.

I have to say we were quite happy as none of us really fancied a trek to Greenwich, so we decided not to travel down to celebrate without him.
We always choose our own location, pub and eatery on these days out.
It's unlikely because of commitments we will be able to rearrange, but the next, Dave's do, will be early October almost certainly in Petersfield.


Back on lake two

 It was obvious as I approached the second lake that although part of the wheat field was being harvested,  the graylag geese were at home, there must be well over a hundred of them spread around the banks of the lake.
I rarely see them in the water until they fly back in from their grazing at about 8pm.
The banks are covered in their crap and it was particularly noticeable at the top end, the western bank, which was my chosen spot for the day.This is a barren spot with no marginal weed but as it turned out just a tad deeper at around 5feet.
I decided to go down a bit earlier so arrived at around 3o'clock.
Once again on arrival, I noticed  I had left something on the garage worktop, my defosted hempseed!
Bugger, shall I go home and pick it up, or use some feeder hali pellets. Decided on the pellets, which may have been a mistake as they appeared to become, during the day, the only thing the fish would take.

Anyway I took along my Shimano 14 footer and my Shimano 1000 and decided to  float fish, with flake and the hookers.
Although there was activity on the bottom, I couldn't buy a bite until the odd individual bubble started to rise to the surface, the bream had moved in but were only interested in the pellets and the odd piece of flake.

In the meantime, and my camera wasn't ready, a combine harvester approached and I had a flight of geese take off from the bank to my left, right over my head at least 50 of them. It would have made a great shot, but a my batteries gave up the ghost!!!

So for 5 plus hours I sat it out, hit about a dozen bream all in cracking good bronze order and about a pound apiece, all unhooked in the net, I really am not a fan of snotties! Oh and one carp about 6lb.
The geese never came back, the combine was doing the circuit of this massive field getting in as much grain as possible as the intermittent rain showers came and went.

I'll give two another go at least later next week the north bank is a bit more attractive and seems to have abit more gravel in the soil, so maybe the hempseed will find me some roach?
My landing net had an overnight in the garden!

Tuesday will mean a day on the Trent, with Rob Hilton as we relax a bit. That's always assuming Rob get's back ok from the Leeds match and the CAMRA beer festival in Peterborough over the weekend.
With a good part of the first of the membership years Barbel Fisher edited, done and dusted, ready for it's mid September issue, time to breath a bit whilst we gather our last minute loose ends, and await an important bit of BS information still to be confirmed.


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