AnotherAngler AnotherAngler


JAA's Fishing Diary, well 'mostly fishing'.

I record fishing stuff and anything that takes my fancy here. Now and then. I get out most weeks, by the good grace of Mrs AA but writing typing a diary bank-side and sticking in the odd picture takes up valuable fishing time, which is my story and I'm sticking to it. I read a bit.

Some waters and baits are unnamed - I don't really mind discussing bait and methods, but it's always a bit irritating when the second sentence after "Hi, how are you doing?" is pushily asking about my bait* and tackle...so I extend this principle to this site.

If you'd like it updated every time I go fishing, without fail, feel free to send money, gaffer taped to the request (or Paypal is good).

"There were 183 of us freshmen, and a bowling ball hanging from the three-story ceiling to just above the floor. Feynman walked in and, without a word, grabbed the ball and backed against the wall with the ball touching his nose. He let go, and the ball swung slowly 60 feet across the room and back — stopping naturally just short of crushing his face. Then he took the ball again, stepped forward, and said: 'I wanted to show you that I believe in what I'm going to teach you over the next two years.' "  § Michael Scott, as quoted in "Caltech Grad's Donation Honors Late Professor"

  • JAA's Diary for... 2005  / 2006  / 2007  / 2008  / 2009  / 2010  / 2011

  • ...you're reading the 2012 page. Or possibly just looking at the pictures.
should be an old quill float should be an old quill float
  • 29th January 2012.

    Then there are the times when all the 'Anotheranglers are abed, when I can put the feet out, get a sloe gin and having recently re-read "Be Quiet and Go a'Angling", dream of Thorney Pond and a hut under the stars, which rings as true now as it did when it was written. This year I will sit through the night again, listen to the night animals and think of nothing but the moment. And if it was my pond the catapult and wind-gun might even provide me supper and I'd have fire to sit beside. So many rules. Have you noticed, that part of the pleasure of an open fire is how nice a walk into the cool hallway is...?

    Oh yes and today at a car boot I got a 42" mesh net for £3.50 and an 8 foot long, 1-1½" diameter bamboo pole with walls 5-6mm thick for £1, my new landing net handle. Of course, after spending 10 nervy minutes cutting 18" off the end with the Opinel No. 7, so it fitted into the car, I spotted the hacksaw on the boot floor. Dammit. Bargains though.

    fire

  • 28th January 2012, Luckfield (again, I know, I know...) A day of winter sun, distant gunshots, small perch, reinforced coffee, tiny floats and wandering crow-calls. But no carp. But what a great day by the water.

    JAA's foot fishing small perch yet another float
    sunny winter Luckfield dusk float sunset at Luckfield

  • 27th January 2012, Wareham Quay. Well, I wasn't fishing but Blacksheep was and very nearly spent the whole day blanking but for a sea trout that JAA was apparently the harbinger of. Good to meet you B., should've taken the Chelsea bun...and I'm kicking myself for not taking some camera phone snaps of you playing that tourist. Dammit, blasted brain. Good to meet you B'Sheep. Ta for the cuppa Deano.

  • January 22nd 2012. (good) Luckfield.

    West wind, 13°C, corner by the gate, collar up, hat down. Could be a good chance. Water is 6.5°C now 11:20, see if it rises. Two others out of the wind on West bank, out of the bluster. I prefer the wind in my face and 6 feet of water. I wait, coffee and Tulleymore, some iboprufen...there are flecks of water in the breeze, wannabe rain and the sun is still on my left, only just. The plan; fish an hour(ish) then check the water temp. around the lake. Now 6.7°C here, a tenth up. Slow. If the top layer is warming the shallow end might be better. A walk, I'm the warmest spot by half a degree, so I'll back the wind and stick it out. I switch to maggots and try to avoid being sun-blinded mid-way through its low arc. More Tulleymore'd caffeine, then a few nip-and-tucks and a cautious strike nabs a 6oz perch, perhaps not able to show its fighting qualities on the 14lb...but I'm pleased to see it nevertheless.

    brushwood swim winter sun sight-bob

    A fish swirls under the big tree on the South end, the second warmest part I found. Aha. 6.9°C here and edging up. The fish in the tree falls to a boilie in the corner, so one feeding then. I'm encouraged by this, it feels like a good day for a surprise. Air's down to 11° water up to 7°, 14:30 still time, but getting greyer as the day wears. The fish was a 6lb-ish mirror and the unhooking mat twists in the breeze to keep itss mates away. I wait. I get a half bite then nothing and Corner Man gets another on at 3ish. It's bigger and despite my higher T. he's doing better - I should look harder at that spot and another day would move to the end but that seems a bit rude somehow. This is angling though, it should never be too easy or predictable. I amuse myself by photographing a ladybird on my leg. Maybe an hour to go, a few fish dimple and a fieldfare chirps in the dead oak. I've one cup left and it feel good still, hands numbing a bit mind. Lake to myself now, the dusk hour. Chip, blackbird, chip.

    JAA relaxes Ladybird Luckfield

    I don't recall seeing the tiny float dip. One moment there, the next, under the surface and I struck without thought, conditioned reflex, a parabolic moment in time. There's an answering pull then a scrappy little episode in which a 6lb or so fish does it's best to get back into the trees, but really, I was fishing with the monster in mind. But a pretty fish and well worth the wait. I re-cast, the shades drift in and then the trees in the South West Corner start to keen, then each tree in turn up the bank, then the squall hits and I take the hint.

    common carp

  • January 7th 2012. (no)Luckfield.

    Three got there before me, unusual, 8 rods between them, with rod#1 having 2 baits against snags despite being 10 yards up the bank chatting to his mate. Why is this acceptable these days? And cutting off the bottom half of the lake. I don't think that's the right end anyhoo, I decamp to the north end where it's shallower, warmer (as the last few nearly green lilies testify to) and will get light most of the day. If there's a carp to be had it'll be that end I suspect. I alternately fish two rods and catch a dozen or more cold grey winter day perch, on the avon and maggoty pin. The pick is perhaps 8oz, certainly big enough for the net and it jagged about my swim like a good 'un. I alternate this with the big hex bob, which twitches not, all day, a variety of baits ignored. Periodically 3 rods#1 walks the south end to over-feed 'his' swim, in reality another swim altogether. The deer picking it's way out of the corner turns white tail at the fisher's white jumper and 5 later, as I know it will, trots behind me. The other route. I watch it, it watches me over its shoulder and 5 magpies chakker in the trees. For Silver. Maggies can't count so I ignore them, but my next fish is a roach anyway. Ha ha.

    perch grey day

    Barring my barred snafflers, the only other sign of fish was a carp hooked by my neighbour (swim but one) on a light quiver rod, puddle chucker 2 inches proud - the modern bent pin and sugar string perhaps - a respectable carp which overcame the rod near the net and arrowed into sunken tree branches where it stayed, a shame, a consequence of too many carp perhaps. Hard to fish for any old fish and avoid this.

    Then it's, dusk my stiff fingers are struggling with the small technology's keyboard and I can't feel my toes. An owl calls time. I leave before it's completely dark, unusual for me.

    sight-bob the fading lilies

  • January 7th 2012. Upper Sharnhill. Cold wind, winter sandbagging.

    I planned to go, but couldn't for the life of me make a decision. Normally, I lie abed and let my mind wander over the selection of waters I have, but today that didn't work, so in the end I drunk a Lapsang while spooling 8lb onto the KP and packed the 4 piece avon and took it to a pond where there was a convenience of small carp and rudd. That was the whole plan, so pitched, with a small goose-tipped porcy and a size 14, admittedly on fine braid. 90 minutes, 4 baits and a coffee later I decided to circle the pond, barely an acre, with the maggots looking for small fish for fun and pathfinding. Apart from useful info on depth, I found only two piles of scales, 1lb fish size.

    Sharnill, cold cold... quill float common carp

    Ah well, I settled into my spot and took foil off my lunch and sucked two squares with coffee. The float might have flicked, dismissed, then it went under. The avon bent steadily on the strike, ponderous awakening. In the event there was 5 minutes of dragging resistance making the ratchet growl - then this fine common of about 10lb grudgingly acquiesced. Well then.

    Lower Sharnhill porcupine quill Magpie

    I celebrate with more coffee and 85%. I get two further knocks, the first no more than a flattening of the meniscus, once, twice, three times, then later a single jag making my hand twitch, conditioned reflex.

    The next bite was complete, and again the sluggish sandbag thing, but then after a few wallows it down its head and made for the far bank, dragging the test curve plus some. All righty then...this better fish keeps up these runs for 10 minutes, me mindful of the thick rushes on the far bank and having to pull it up several times. After a dozen of these, the line singing in the cold wind, my reel hand numbing in it, I half trick, 12lb or so, into the net.

    common carp moon rise

    Under rated maggots, but where are the small ones? I feel there's another fish to be had, but no serious bites come, but serious clooping breaks out in the dead rushes, it's 7°C, surely not? Half a loaf would have got me three, and into the swing now I watch the quill tip first in the moonlight and then with a torch beam, nipping out two 1lb fish, now the tiddlers come out. Aha. It takes me to 'Dirty Little Girl' on the Yellow Brick Road (I skip track 1) to thaw out my hands and feet. Good stuff.

  • January 4th 2012. Barton's Court, River Kennet.

    How you imagine things is not always how they turn out. It's easy to day-dream wistfully about the chuckling feeders and streams here and lace those dream with smatterings of grayling and dace, but when the water is as low as we found it and it's that time when the trout are about, what Nobby and I had was a cold few hours casting around for any signs of anything which wasn't a trout like the one I stole out of Nobby's swim at the top of Heron's Delight. We worked down the Willow stream, pausing only for me to lose 3 hooks on snags and the pool at the head of the Old River where a fine fluted Avon foundered with all hands. I pulled a bite or two on the canal section while we debated 'to soup or not to soup', the answer in the end being 'soup'. While the ghillie warmed soup I metronomically extracted 5 'spotted chub' and most joyously a 1½ actual chub out of the hatch-pool at the top of Parson's Ditch.

    Parson's Ditch chub stockie trout

    Over steaming beef broth, baguettes, peppered pork slices and slabs of cakes, Nobby's knees decided he wasn't going fishing after lunch, leaving me to extract another 'spotted twit' from the same pool, giving in then and heading for the Old River and a bank-fall which streamed colour into the gin-clear, a sure bet...for another 'spotted gudgeon' and despite my best efforts at trotting three sorts of bait around this spot, nothing dipped the tip, so I decamped to the canal section (despite hearing the siren song of Gunters's hatch pool), so putting a size 16 on and moving the Avon 4 feet up the line, whipped out somewhere between a dozen and a score of roach to 4oz and one tiny perch, just to prove a point really. Ok, it was fun as well.

    With the gloom settling and an hour left, I switched (too late...) to a size 8, fished 4 inches over-depth and an improbably large bunch of worms pinned on the barbless with a sliver of silicone. I missed a snatch 10 minutes later, then an edged off bite, struck too soon and finally with the dregs of the light left, the float wobbled off sideways, descending as it went and my careful strike got the right sort of thump and I netted this fine perch, let's call it '1lb'. Good enough, cold now.

    1lb perch

  • January 1st 2012.

    There exists, in my mind at least, the perfect cast. I see it from time to time, popping into my head unbidden, alongside other vignettes, some fishing, some not. It goes like this - the rod, held in the left hand, is thrown behind one in the usual way and the cast, the forward flick, arcs the float, a slender 7" porcupine quill, upwards from the rod tip and drops it in a perfect parabola, perfectly targeted at some gap in mythical lily pads. The rod, reel outwards is turned a quarter circle in the movement, in my mind spinning the quill to stabilise it in flight - this is of course impossible - just a trace memory of a left-arm-overspun leg-break keeping the idea in place. The float, of course, arrives in line with the hooked bait, which lands first, shot softly after, then the float with the unerring accuracy of a bulls-eye finish, into the same spreading ripples with barely a sound. The float lolls half-cocked. Video et taceo. ||

    Best wishes for 2012, be lucky.


  • small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot small split shot

    This Year's Books (so far...)

    Fishing for a Year
    by Jack Hargreaves
    This little book came well recommended and is a series of neatly drawn vignettes by a true countryman. A good read, but over too quickly and some might say overpriced as a consequence. Enjoyable nonetheless.
    The Case for Working with your Hands
    by Matthew Crawford
    This book explains why bureaucrats lack empathy, why pointless paperwork saps your will to live, why office politics are the way of life for the grey people and why so many of us anglers make tackle. Amongst a whole lot of other things besides. Life is too short not to read this book and change things as a result.
    Ghost Riders
    by Richard Grant
    This is a quite entrancing book,dealing with, as a broad theme, wanderlust, but covering contemporary nomads in the USA and exploring in the process, some fascinating history of the America's from the Spanish to the Plains Indians. Remarkable.
    Collected Folk Tales
    by Alan Garner
    If you like this kind of thing, you'll like this and as ever, for me at least, the best ones are those from these shores with their echoes of unchanging human nature and aspirations, overlaid with supernatural forces and giddying plot twists. Well worth a read.


     * A surprisingly large percentage of these folk discover I'm using corn, have not had any luck at all or really fished here much.

     † A really good wheeze, when asked "What rig are you using" is to say "RW Original mate. Very popular, a lot of carp been caught on it." Anyone who is prepared to admit ignorance of the rig, is shown a hook with the bait on. As Richard Walker might have done for example ;-)  A recent survey of those taken in by this gag, revealed that less than half of those who asked are willing to admit they don't know what this rig is. Of those that do admit ignorance, about 10% thought it was funny. I include myself in that 10%.

     ‡ ...mostly breadpaste...

     § ...there are many good 'Feynman' stories and I commend them all - read "Six Easy Pieces" and you'll see the world in a new way.

     || One of the mottoes of Elizabeth I, "video et taceo": "I see, and say nothing", or as I prefer "I watch and wait".



     

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    Wednesday, 08-Feb-2012 21:26:52 GMT