Oh dear!

Silly games
I suppose I should have thought about it, but when you are doing somebody  a favour and try to sell their fishing gear, in this case an old friend who can no longer fish because of severe arthritis in his hands, you don't really think about the tossers of this world who would put a spoiler in.
I gave my eBay details on this Blog in the hope of increasing the interest in his stuff.
Anyway, an item of tackle put on eBay gets a number of bids  and finally an offer from  a first timer with zero feedback.
He wins and I send the Paypal invoice and get no response. The address is in Doncaster, Yorkshire(doubt mounting) which turns out to be a cancer charity office, and also a fake mobile telephone number, tells me it's that little man, or one of his sycophants  playing childish games.
I did have 100% positive feedback, but now have a negative on it.
No real hassle to me, because I sold the item to the second bidder for the same money anyway but what a low down piece of work this individual is, and one or two of you wonder why I sometimes bring these people to your attention on this blog, which gets read  2000 times a month.
Now you know why, the more who know their little games the better, they will get their comeuppance.
No doubt when eBay have done their work I'll get the negative removed, who knows I may even get an IP address to publicise!
We shall see.

Fishing
Had another afternoon on the upper Witham on Wednesday, there was still a bit of colour in the water, but unlike my earlier trip last week I couldn't buy a bite, met Bay Leaf and had a chat about the prospects of this little river. There may be a surprise barbel or two, chub up and around the 6lb mark and some decent roach.
I'll stick with the chub for the moment, or until March 14th anyway.

Fishery update
You may recall I mentioned in an earlier blog that I was somewhat disturbed that a large angling club had been outbid by a ten man syndicate run by a man who's name I now have.
They couldn't possibly manage the location, and  I now learn the individual is somewhat low on funds.
Shades of insider dealing were at the forefront of my mind, when I found out who the "landlord" was and particularly without me mentioning the fishery, a certain little Yorkshireman made comment on here.

Things are progressing.

A positive note
My cousin Joyce has been moved from the ICU to a ward, she hasn't yet regained full consciousness, but there are signs of coming out of the coma and giving reactions to stimuli.


AiM Shares update
So far so good, my two for one offer holding came in today, on paper giving me a good 4 figure profit.
My cancer research company hasn't yet issued the good news about a deal that should should have come to fruition at the end of 2012. They are positive that once the I's and T's have been crossed a very good deal is on for shareholders.As it stands, on paper I have 50% growth in value.
My other 3 shares are ticking over.

Lazy sunday

A book review:

The invoice from Medlar Press is dated 27^th September 2011, the book A Train to Catch, today the 6^th January 2012!

 I requested of The Boss that perhaps we had times in the day when the distractions of Radio 4 Extra were given a rest, and to stop me having an excuse of not reading my books. 

An excuse that has festered, in my head only, for considerable  time, when my reading has been reduced to holidays and very early mornings when the Barbel Fisher was close to the point of going to the printer and my sleepless nights of worrying if I had enough content.

So at around 11am the digital radio on the TV was switched off, and I started on Jon Berry’s book bought solely on the basis of enjoying his previous books;

A Can of Worms and Beneath the Black Water.The former becoming, in my view, the very best reference point for anything barbel. The later for being one of the few books that I’ve read once, and then picked it up straight away to read again.

The book is primarily trying to retrace train journeys carried out in the late 1800’s to the 1960’s to fish away from city/industrial squalor, to the countryside, the subtitle being, A return ticket to the golden age of fishing.

Jon takes us, giving a little history on the way, to Derbyshire and the trout streams, the mountains streams of Wales, the seaside towns of Looe, Southsea and Whitby, the Thames, the Hampshire Avon Royalty, the Norfolk Broads , Lake Windemere and the Scottish Highlands.

He fishes, he sometimes catches, but all in all reminds us of what used to be before Doctor Beeching short-sightedly, in my view, shut railway lines and closed vast areas of the country from the pleasures of rail journeys for our leisure in favour of the motor car. 

So it was 4pm when I started this review,  it follows intermittent  breaks for me to prepare the vegetables,  make the batter puds, cook the rib of beef Sunday lunch, and drink bottles of London Pride and Pedigree and assist The Boss drink a bottle of Hermitage, some of the remains of our Christmas stock. 

Having just finished the book I may well pick it up again, but I hear Johnnie Walker with the Sounds of the 70’s on in the background, so it probably won’t be today.

So in short, a very good read of 187 pages and highly recommended.

Today

At last

After weeks of intending to go fishing and finding excuses not to, today was the day I did it.

I have to say part of my reason, well most of it, was to have some time to myself to think over what occurred in the last year or so, since my Mum,died and today being the anniversary of my Dad's death in 2004.
Just before Christmas also we got some bad news concerning my cousin Joyce, the eldest of my Aunt Maggie's children, she had a brain bleed and is still not yet regained consciousness since the 20th December.

3rd May 1947 my Mum and Dads wedding. Joyce is the little'un at the front with Maggie holding her shoulder. They are the only two left from that photo.

So my day by the river, well afternoon, an hours drive to the Upper Witham found me on the bank at around noon. I walked upstream to "Ben's Weir" and chose a swim just below it. The intention to give it an hour and move down stream.The river was shifting through, with a nice colour and was back within the banks, as can be seen.

At around the hour, just as I was fiddling with my bag and putting the bait away for the move, I had a take on Stilton, having failed to encourage a bite on worm and flake, and missed it. So I decided to stay put in the hope that my crumb had encouraged fish into the swim.

Back out again and within minutes another big tug which I connected with and produced a chub of exactly 4lb which I returned and got back to the job. A couple more tugs and switches of bait found me moving down stream 

My walk took me not to the next swim, but down to the other end of the fishery looking for a likely spot not needing me to be resting in sludgy mud and with good access to land any fish I may be fortunate to attract.

I decided to back track, a swim by the foot bridge looked good, it was opposite some willows that had been hacked away by the EA, but the duck feeders were on the bridge so I dropped below the next bend.

upstream

downstream 

I tried all the baits again and got a few tugs on the flake but no connections, so straight on to Stilton which produced an almost immediate take. 

I had the fish on but the hook slipped, by this time I was fishing  in the downstream swim under the tree and decided to stay put until sunset, the off time.

Once again readying myself for the home journey, another take and this time another chub of 4lb12ozs graced my net.

All in all I was pretty happy with my afternoon fishing, getting used to a lighter set up from the Trent, and use of a quiver tip.

. I felt very change of direction the chub were giving, unlike when I've accidentally caught them on my Trent barbel kit.

My day was made even better on returning home to find a message to say that Joyce, although still in a coma had squeezed her daughters hand , the first sign of direct movement since her admission and operations to remove the pressure then the main 4 hour plus operation within the brain.

So all in all, plenty of time to think and to enjoy a day by the river and some positive news.

Rationalising

Tackle for sale

Having cleared my garage of Barbel Society back issue magazines, I decided to think about my fishing tackle and with 5 centre pins I thought a good place to start with my rationalisation of my kit.
My other reels and rods are all staying put, apart from a hardly used split cane rod made by Paul Johnson from Hull a few years ago based on the Fred Crouch Barbel Special.
I'm not certain how to market that at the moment, as it was his first rod, he made it for himself and cost me a mere £100!

If anybody is that interested message me with your email address and I'll let you know the reserves set on eBay.

Deleted the details of sale, some Yorkshire tosser bid with a false address and telephone number!!