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JAA's Fishing Diary (2009)


  • 30th December 2009. Revels Dull grey day. I take Thin Lizzy on the Dorchester road putting of the choice of Revels or Kingcombe to the last minute last turning, then propelled by 'Rosalie', a hard push in the small of the back, I head for Revels, thinking it's on the leeward side of the incoming rain, I say rain, it's ambivalent, rain, mist, low cloud. Grey, clinging, cold and wet. 3°C.

    The main lake has a dozen moribund looking fishermen and I circle it, establishing that there is little happening and then exchange a few words with a friendly face, helping him, temporarily short handed, land a crucian, by holding the pole out the way. I decide on 'Desperation Lake', despite the peer pressure keeping all the others on the main and pick a swim with a tree in the water and one out with the bank behind me. I bait up a near swim, tight to straw-reeds and with the new Hex and a porcupine antennae I wait for 90 minutes. The tip remains immobile, but the bread flicked optimistically into the bush-in-the-water gets a result and one piece vanishes with a swirl and a big fin, which doesn't look carpy, but still.

    I bite off the float, stick on a size 8 Partridge with a bit of crust and fling it out 20 yards and get a take almost immediately. I hit it and get a solid thump and just when I'm enjoying it the rod straightens and I get back my hook, slightly more open that before. Last chance for the No 7's and they go into the middle of the water to rust away. I put on a stouter hook and after a cup of Carbost enhanced Earl Grey, fold flake over the hook, dab on some hemp oil and repeat the cast. I wait 15 minutes for a gentle take. The new rod, technically 1.5lb t/c with the reel-clutch set accordingly gives not an inch of line and I get a 7lb common, if not overpowered, wrestled to a standstill. I spend half an hour trying for a repeat but nothing moves. But the washed up jetsam crusts on my far left are gradually and quietly subtracting in number so I try a flake-an-oil bait and right away get a take, which I miss...so time for Christmas cake and Carbost cocktail.

    After a bit I try the next gap to the left in the reeds where several fish are moving. This is part due to the various bits of bread all drifting that way on the slightest of winds. Perhaps a better swim, and a bit of bread only 10 feet out (but three from the far reed fringe) is nudged twice and then nicked, and I land a protesting 3lb common. I try several baits right in the reed fringe with no result. I return to the chair and free-line a curried cockle and maggot mix over my earlier ground bait and drink spirited tea while the light leaks away into the shade and the blackbird chip their way to roost. Winterfish. 'Parisian Walkways' on the way home.

  • 28th December 2009. Court Barn Farm. Chapman 500, Kingpin and a box of maggots. First time here, but it's a good head of stuff I'm told, and it has the advantage of a heavy spring flow (no ice) and I get the place to myself. I break out the Chapman 500 and the 'pin and put a 4lb trace on with a size 14. OK for some that's heavy gear. I plumb up 5 feet of water in the lee of a tree-bole, barely keeping the wind off my back. Cold cold cold. 27 Perch, 23 rudd and a roach. Good.

  • 10th December 2009. Top Notch. Trips to Portugal make me more weary than usual, that's really only because it's a three hour flight to Lisbon and I've usually got up very early. The flight back is JAFA, but I let the engines press me into the seat and after the seatbelt signs go out, I put on the headphones for a boost and blast through 5 tracks of "Another Perfect Day", after which I do the cryptic crossword in 10 minutes. See, music does make you smarter. Maybe this explains the good feeling you get, the sudden rise in perception turning some of the world's greys to colour and making them shine.

    There's no disguising the real fatigue though, this can't be permanently dispelled by Lemmy, fast as he plays. I let the plane engines lull me for a while and am again amazed by the peace in a plane floating in the dark, even if I am 35,498ft over the Bay of Biscay travelling at 510mph. So the GPS in my 'handy' tells me. I'm still impressed by this, but this is not as amazing as this: most people are not amazed. This apparently simple thing is a triumph of science and engineering: that I can sit in a jet, at height of 35,000 feet and check my position with a hand held sat-nav. Too many now are not impressed by science and technology, it's hard, complicated, requires real effort of thought, and those who think themselves smart and well educated are too quick to take the view that: "..it can't be difficult really as I'm clever, so those engineers and scientists are just hiding behind double talk and arcane terms. It must be simple really." Well, here's a tip for all of you hypocritical Luddites. Throw away your phone, turn off your TV, the DAB radios, the MP3, disconnect the broadband, turn off the sat-nav, don't go to the doctor, get on your bike, rely on homeopathy and herbs, and live the in the world you deserve. Please.

    I put on Ágætis Byrjun and immerse myself in Sigur Rós's do-it-yourself fantasy and create a small flat calm circular pool in the middle of which is a single thin red tip. I focus on it, and feel for anything that might disturb this mirror. I wait. Sometimes things thump the ground, creating ripples that converge on the red line in the centre and then vanish, cancelled. Nothing comes today, but in a real pond it might. Eventually the bump of the lowering undercarriage ruffles the reflection. Oh good, Terminal One.

    Last night, sunk in dehydrated sleep, I dreamt of large bronze Leviathans, leaping in tandem, a strange image that puzzled me until at breakfast I strolled between two bronze doppelgangers, for each other and for my dreams' fish. I recalled I'd been here three times already. That explains it. Mostly.

    • ´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸ ><((((º> ´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸ ><((((º> ´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸ ><((((º> ´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸ ><((((º>
  • 15th November. 2009 Milton Abbey Lake. I wasn't going out today, this weekend even, as there was a threat of rain, but as the Buglangler was going to a party at Milton Abbey and going back and forth twice would barely have made any sense, I bunged the 550 and a half-loaf and a tin of corn into the car and popped in for a couple of hours. The car park manifested several anglers so I headed for the pump pool.

    First thing to say is that the lake is choked with weed. It's been an issue on an off for a year or two, and I didn't see a clear swim, although there were a few with gaps. Weed rake next time. I set up a simple float rig and baited a gap in the weeds and spent 2 hours watching an immobile float. Kingfishers in a pair skimming in formation crossed the pool and occasional fish showed themselves further out with gentle swirls.

    Once a vortex near my feet told of a passing carp but bread left for his next circuit never moved. Everything stayed mill pond flat, until dusk crept and my float drifted slowly left, dipping a shade, stopped, went the other way, sunk slightly, came up and then came to rest. That was it for me for the day. I went and got the Bugangler as the bats came out to play.

  • 6th November 2009. Crooked Willows. As I was up at 5am I thought, "I know I'll got to Crooked Willows and try to catch a carp on a floater". It was predictably dark but dawn was on the way and it was a bit chilly, but I tackled up by touch, one hook, 10lb line and a 550 and flicked floaters about the place. As it was still too dark to see much I put a bit of good visible white bread on the hook and plopped it in front of me where I could see it and poured some tea. Small fish were moving, although nothing you might call a carp. I waited for the light to improve and as I'd just got to the point where I could see a floating biscuit, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and looked in time to see my bread rocking in a big swirl. So one missed chance.

    I started to fish out past the lilies and then fish started stealthily picking off biscuits in front of me, a long common, with a bronze sheen, rising silent out of the peaty water and sipping the floaters under so quietly you had to be watching to know. I reel in between takes and cast bait, but then it never came back. As the morning sun came up carp moved more and baits were rocking in swirls, not always taken, but they avoided mine and I waited too long to thin my line. I did, after some heroic clooping to my left, snag this common after a short tiff between two lily patches. I think it was more surprised than anything, but a really nice fish in good condition. So all worth it.

    Nevertheless I tried to catch one of the swirlers 20 yards off but they avoided my hook bait with great prescience. By the time I'd switched to 6lb line it was time to go, but I'll be back as one or two of the swirlers were good doubles and more than one was a very good chub...

  • 1st November 2009. 30 minutes of removing cobwebs by walking on the sea shore at Hamworthy Lido furnishes me with enough seagull quills to make about 40 floats. With such an embarrassment of riches I'm planning on dying the quills and steaming them all straight.


    • There are no bad tench All tench are good tench There are no bad tench All tench are good tench

  • 30th October 2009. Halloween Soup. Take the flesh from the children's pumpkins. Keep the seeds also. Cut the flesh into small pieces, about an inch square, and roast in a hot oven until crispy, but not burnt. Boil last week's chicken carcass with an onion and a carrot until falling to bits. In the meantime get a large soup pan, chop two carrots, two large celery sticks and a large onion and fry until soft with the lid on. Add a tablespoon of mild curry powder and a teaspoon of vegetable bouillon. Drain the chicken stock into the soup pan, and put in the veg. from the stock pan as well. Pick off any meat left and chuck it into the soup pan. Give the skin to the dog, it'll explode about now otherwise. Take the roasted pumpkin and chuck into the soup pan. When the potato is soft, blitz the mixture smooth and season to taste at this point. Add two chopped parsnips, and half a chopped swede. Cut the swede fine it takes ages to cook, so swede pieces a quarter the size of the parsnip bits. Chop a large leek and stick it in as well. Simmer until the swede is edible. In the meantime put the seeds into a frying pan with oil (go easy) salt, pepper and curry power, be generous with the seasonings. Toss the seeds until they are coated and then fry stirring all the time until they are brown.

    Serve soup in bowls with roasted seeds on top in front of a log fire with lit pumkin lamps on the windowsill. Don't answer the door.

    Well, do you know what's out there tonight?

  • 30th October 2009. Eastmoors. Pretty here in the Autumn, but there's no escaping the fact that in three sessions here, I've never even had a bite, although to be fair I did see a fish this time. Several carp made an appearance but I couldn't tempt any of them to feed of the bottom or the top. Will I come back? What do you think?

  • 28th October 2009. Today there is a hint of mist and the scent of damp leaves on someone's bonfire. The sloe gin is in the bottle...

  • 24th October 2009 The Avon, Burgate. I had the good fortune to get a chance to break my Avon duck with Putnamsif, but despite good company, sparkling water and the occasional chub passing by, I watched the end of my '550 nodding ever so gently in the current for the best part of 4 hours, with a short break to trot up and down with a bit of flake on the 500 and a pin. Good to reacquaint with the Wallis chuck and good to meet Putnamsmif, who I hope had more luck the rest of the week than we did today. Glorious Autumn day on the river though, rocky road for tea (courtesy of the Marmiteangler), and it was The Avon...yeah.

  • 17th October 2009 DSW#3. Autumn leaves on a near still pool looks good, but I couldn't see myself catching. Nevertheless I set up round the back and watched a float by the lilies for an hour, which to make the job easier never moved. As the odd fish was surfacing causally in the drifting leaves, I stuck on an olive controller and a couple of floaters on a size 8 and tried for an hour to cross paths with one of the casual wanderers, the birdlife preventing me from putting more bait on the water to narrow the odds. I didn't manage to cross any paths, so I watched the float for another 45 minutes or so then headed around the end, with a view to try from the far bank, where the last of the sun would fall. I put the bag and the '550 against the fence out of the way.

    My attention was arrested by movement in the lilies and I snuck into a back swim tied a size 4 directly to 14lb, and dropped a crust behind lily pad. And waited. Various other bits of the pads twitched, and after a long wait sat on the cold ground, I put on a fresh bit and tried near one of the moving patches. Another long wait and with a nudge-and-shove the crust was slurped down and I struck and then spent the next 10 minutes unravelling 14lb mono from a leafless blackthorn. I lose 20 yards of line but retrieve the hook.

    It went quiet so I shuffled back one swim, and sat on the bank with tea and watched and waited. After a bit a ghostie started nudging the far side of the near patch, so I dropped a pair of floating biscuits over there. The fish vanished and annoyingly appeared, a short wait later, almost under my feet, pale-bodied with a gold and black head. I wound the bait across the lilies and dropped it a foot from the fish which ambled up and sucked it under. I struck and spent 5 minutes getting the line off a bramble. The Ghostie ghosted and despite waiting until I could barely see, that was that, except for chain drinking hot and welcome Earl Grey as the night leached the heat out of the evening. Where did the afternoon go? I get home then realised I hadn't seen a bat, prolific there in the summer. Self inflicted blank.

  • 13th October 2009. I took the afternoon off work based on the weather forecast and decided to go for an old brick pit I know which has real crucian carp. I assemble the '500 which has newly bodged wire stand-offs, to see how it fished, although I had to wax the middle ferrule as it's reached almost the end of its useful l. I put a pin with 6lb main line, a bristle float and a fine 4lb braid hook length and a size 14. I parked myself around the back of the pond and baited corn and hemp and pretty much started catching right from the off, about 2 rod lengths out. I was getting bites often enough not to bother with pictures of the pool and barely found time to feed a fish in the brambles to my left.

    I had about a 20 small rudd and roach that mugged my grain of corn on the drop and a dozen of crucian to 1lb, plus a few commons. I lost two common carp 3-5lb or so and at least 4 crucian where the hook failed to set, but with a bristle float not being sunk by the crucian bites, the bites were hard to judge. Still for 5 hours with the autumn sun on my back and a light cane rod and pin, a really proper bit of angling. I did eventually persuade the bramble bound carp to take a bit of bread, but after a short and violent struggle the hook came away. Ah well. So crucian#5, crucian#6, crucian#7, crucian#8, crucian#9, crucian#10, crucian#11, crucian#12, crucian#13...

    Well I like Crucian Carp. Common#3, common#4. Not a bad afternoon, all in all.

  • 10th October 2009. Higher Kingcombe fishery. Never having been I've no idea what I'm going to get. The club lake is on the small side for 2½ acres and bypassing those at the lee/car park end I head for the ruffled end and take three carp off the top and three off the bottom in 2 hours or so despite the sun in my face (I need a new hat) a mix of mirrors and commons to about 8lb, then have a hook pull on a cockle, have a wander, meet a chap with a glass Ledgerstrike and a Mitchell, always good to find another angler, then catch one 6oz perch (always good).

    I decide I might as well take a box of floating bait and look at the rest of the complex. I check out a small weedy pond just down the hill and see two fish but they're too wise to take bait, even if free, while anyone is looking, so head three lakes down avoiding the bleepers. I spot a good fish under a tree from the high side of the pool and slip around the other side, hide behind a bush and flick out baits.

    I don't succeed on the far bank (some bread is slurped down only after it drifts into the brambles) but fish are taking bait 5 yards away and with the tree between me and the bait, the fish are bold enough. I slip three floaters onto a size 4, and flick it around the tree and after some missed and short takes, a fish appears vertically and sprints off with the bait (a sign of fish that are wary of floaters). The result, a 10lb common, keeps me busy for 10 minutes of deep runs to the far bank, although I feel quite sure the old bamboo could stop it in its tracks at any point. I spend the last hour of light trying to get fish the other side of the tree and miss two surging takes. For the last 20 minutes, which is when I remember my tea, I sit with bread drifting up against the bush, while I flick in small bits which are sucked down, stealthy though. Eventually a fish surges out at the crust, and I barely get the rod up to set the hook and after 5 minutes I have this one. More tea. Home.

    Apparently there are gonks. The specimen lake looks nicer. Next time maybe.

  • 6th October 2009. Autumn came in the night with a rattle of rain on dry leaves and the wind rushing in the chimney.

  • 4th October 2009. Sad to say that I've parted company with PurePiscators which is apparently being 'stupid', 'pointless' and I'm also 'wrong'. However, loyalty to ones friends comes before any misguided and frankly rather patronising opinions on what constitutes sensible behaviour. Being part of the 'WorkParty' has been a privilege, but life's too short to tolerate some third rate sh1t stirrers that have moved into the forum, or indeed to be insulted and patronised by anyone, however 'reasonable' they think they are. It's a shame to miss out on the company of some first rate fellows, but I dare say it'll work out OK. It has so far and for the patronising, pseuds and stirrers: it's still not working is it?

  • 1st October 2009.

    'Soon to the sport of death the crews repair:
    Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends
    The barbed steel, and every turn attends.'


    • Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook Safety Pin Hook

  • 24th August 2009. I tramp about the fields most evenings (fending of the heart attack) and this is the time of year I circle around looking for the crow wing feathers, pheasant tails and the occasional buzzard primary. I've accumulated about 20 crow this year and two buzzard feathers and I'm waiting for the first road kill cock pheasant on the lane. Lots of quill floats in the making. And a tinge of autumn in the air last night I must say. So if you see a bloke wandering the Dorset fields with a bunch of feathers in his hand, it might be me.

  • 19th August 2009. DSW#4. This is the match lake, but with malice aforethought I took my Chapman 550 down there after it's re-vamp with maroon thread and cradle guides. Perhaps 1 coat of varnish short of a full finish. I went right around the far side, pausing to get a shot of two red deer at the limit of the camera zoom, passing some folk on the way home (at 3pm or so) and found a spot to set up and wait. I'd got a bit of bread and some mixers, some of which I'd soaked with some strawberry flavour.

    After a bit fish are moving enough and I spread a little bait around. I try for a bit with a dry biscuit and a home made controller but in the end decide I can cast far enough without it and switch to 2 cork balls (as bite indiciation) and soaked biscuits. And that's the rig for the day, and I get 20 carp form 3-8lb and a rudd and a roach(?). I varied the hook size from 8's to 4's and back and varied baits from soaked mixer, crust, flake, dry mixer (the least successful). I get at least 4 from under the rod tip. That sounds like a 5 hour caning (it was for the rod, which I like a lot better than previously), but I missed 2 takes for every fish and lost at least 10 on hook pulls after hooking, using most of a white sandwich loaf. Match lake fish can spit the bait out faster than you'd think.

  • 16th August 2009. DSW#3, not a blank. Technically. I didn't know Laurel and Hardy went fishing.

  • 10th August 2009. I've not really got on with my 550, with its two tone green whipping an Fuji rings (I know, I know). Two options then. Strip it and sell the blank. Or, I eventually decide, as I have an agate butt ring and Hardy white agate tulip tip (off the LRH No3), I get some trad. wire cradle guides and rebuild the rod in maroon with some bottle green trim and rings that seem to look better. Fish will tell if it's a successful transformation.

  • 9th August 2009. DSW#3. Technically great.

    Toiling up to find a pair of anglers on the West bank and while I exchange the ritual greetings, I spot a lot of fish on the top, so decide to head Eastward and fish over one of the small lily patches for tench. I return to the car, trade the bamboo for the old carp rod (2lb t/c) and slip a spool of 10lb into my pocket. I set up a pole float on 10lb line on the 'pin and knot on 2 feet of 10lb braid. Size 8 thickwire and three fat cockles. All set and I put up a floater rod for speculative bread-in-the-lilies. After a while there are lumps in the lilies so I ship in the float and try a bit of crust in one of the gaps. I watch bumps, waves and swirls edge ever closer and of course after an eternity of hammering pulse and rapt attention, I look up for a moment and with a gentle squelch the bread goes. They must know. I watch the circling carp for a bit, toy with a cast crust but the birds render this unfeasible.

    I go back to float watching my cockles-over-hemp and miss one bite, hit the next and get a lively tench, a bit overwhelmed, but letting fish escape is not the point. I rebait , wait, then when the float slips under again, I strike and everything goes solid for a moment. Then a ponderous weight moves off into the middle and I tighten down the reel with my thumb, warming it until the rod is well over a quarter circle. This doesn't make any difference, not really sure how much trouble I'm in. 40 yards out the fish dithers, swings left and lumbers onwards. I go with side-strain and realise that the inevitable result is the branches on my left so I stick the rod into the bush on the right, pull hard and the fish heads back the other way, circles a couple of times and heads right. This time it makes no difference where I put pressure; it crashes into the branches. I lean on the rod until I feel it will crack and gain about 4 inches at a time, then I wind in a little and pull again. After an eternity of expecting my rod to smash against the tree behind me, a big head shakes and ploughs back into the lake proper, pulling the rod tip hard down towards the sunken brushwood. After a heart wrenching moment the line thunks free of the branches. Back into the middle then, still the same bullish power over which I have little control, my thumb's burned. The fish dives for the mud and I try to bring it toward me, more a test of strength than intent and the reply is a hard run to the left which swiftly passes the point where I can influence it.

    The fish kites into the tree branches on my left and the tug of war starts again, pull the rod into a hoop, gain a few inches, watch the branches sway and sweep-away as they free, one at a time. I believe the rod will break. If the line snaps the rod will smash on the branches on my right. For five minutes I pull as hard as the rod will let me. I gain inch by inch until the last branch sways free and the fish rolls in front of me, a vast cream belly. I reach for the net and I edge it over the lilies and the fish crashes down into the roots and I dig in again, with the fish only 8 feet way, mud curls like warm butter in the water. The hook-knot breaks.

    I sit down, stunned. Mind blank. Hurling the rod in seems futile. It never occurred to me I'd lose. After 10 minutes of staring into space, I put up a 2.5lb t/c rod and 14lb main line in a frenzy of displacement activity and catch another tench and two carp at 9lb and 14lb, but in truth I didn't really notice them, the colour from my day had been drained by the biggest fish I've ever hooked.


  • 4th August 2009: I was slack-jaw stunned to see the ridiculous outpouring of mock-grief after the death of Benson the carp. It would have passed me by but for more connected folk and it's a sad business. By which I mean all the faux sentimental clap-trap, "We're all rocked by the death".

    No, we're not. Puts me in mind of nothing more or less than the grins tinged with shame when the lads find out the village tart is pregnant. The terribly misplaced pride, the dawning realisation with sidelong exchanged looks, that what you had congratulated yourself for winning, was freely given to everyone. The time to realise there are consequences to even a brief moment of pleasure, (of course probably not for you, it was different for you). It's the other guys. Surely it's not that there's little or no merit in winning something so easily obtained and even less value.

    "All fisherman wanted to catch her." Bo££ocks they did. I know at least 12 who don't give a stuff. And I've not asked the others. RIP Benson. RIP Angling.

  • 1st August 2009. DSW#3. Nice day.

    It's raining, fine, dreech. I wander around to the swim of the lilies, and spend 2 hours or so trying to retrain the moorhens (someone's been feeding them, they are begging for food) I give, up move down the lake to the swim nearest the carpark. Yeah I know, but the bottom is fizzing with bubbles and the place is to myself.

    I put up the 4-piece Avon, but with 10lb braid hook-length to 10lb mono, a self cocking paste float and bung in some hemp and put a size 6 with cockles on it. The water is best part of 6 feet deep here. The sun comes out. Good show. Despite a good lot of movement 40 minutes later I have nothing to show, so switch to bread on the hook and 10 minutes after that miss a slow edgy bite the culmination of the dibs and twitches that signal carp. A bow wave ambles toward the middle, no great pace to it.

    I stick with the bread. 15 minutes after this (during which time the moorhens arrive and the ducks and retraining continues) the float slips off and I hit a solid resistance which tries for the trees on my left and then waking up tries really hard and I'm forced to back up with the rod at 45% to get the required pressure and as a result it steams off into the middle, a good 30 yards, but after that it's downhill and I pump the fish into the net. 8lb or so of common carp. Bread gets nothing and I switch back to cockles. I get a 3lb tench a bit after and then another about 4lb. Good oh. I then bump off a 2lb fish, a shame as the look I had showed it almost completely black a curiosity I wanted to see from closer.

    Things settle down then, and the fizzing eases off but a larger tench shows itself at the surface a few times, and a couple of carp are wondering about, but although I've a floater rod set up, the not-yet-retrained moorhens make a cast an impossibility. Without any preamble the float vanishes and I get my last tench. With the light going I slip back to the lily patch with net and loaf, but nothing show's itself and I finish my tea with the bats and head off.




  • 19th July 2009. Managed to update a few entries William, now stop nagging!

  • 18th July 2009. Arfleet. Quarter wavelength out of phase.

  • 12th July 2009. Dorset Still Water #4. I get a morning for a change and after some missing of turns and a LONG '400 yard' walk to the lake, circle around to the far side (furthest from the car park) and with only myself for company, get as near to the overhanging tree patch and reeds as I can. It's the leeward end, but still.

    I see plenty of movement and a bottom got get 2 bites which I connect with briefly, arcing the rod, and then I succumb to the fish on the top and put 14lb stren on the Trek. I miss more than a few takes, baits being pulled under but not taken and there are plenty of fish about, sucking leave and other debris.

    After some mucking about and a single carp 4-5lb on bread taken on the bottom, I switch to 10lb line on the Avon, a size 6 hook and cast small crusts at the gullible ones.

    I get two more the same really, and opting for practise, change the rig and thread two bits of cork, .22" bullet sized one 6 inches from the hook the other 3 feet back. The plan is to wit until the first cork sliver dips, then it's a real take. I get another and then decide to add strawberry to the bread. I get two more and several immediate takes after casting. They seem to like that. I get a bream of 1lb on the bottom while drinking coffee (the cork doubling as a float).

    I move off, stopping at a swim recently vacated (boilies and floaters scattered everywhere) and nick another. I get another at the corner under a tree, by someone else's rod-rest. I then try against the wind driven reeds, car park end and get one under the tree, and then the biggest, number 9 against the reeds, about 7lb maybe. I miss another and get a single scale back, enough for today. Well, it is the 'match' lake.

  • 8th July 2009. Dorset Still Water #3. A bonus Wednesday evening but the nature of the lilies has changed. The moorhens and dabchicks now expect to be fed (someone feeding them?) and they hassle me and anything I might cast. I try dangling a bait behind a lily leaf an ersatz green waggler. I get one huge swirling take which I miss then nothing for 2 hours. I try the next swim up and then pestered to death by the birds, and despite several tenting missiles being offered hastily dropped baits, I get not a take. I retreat to the pad-less end to float bread while my tea cools and, fish or no fish, to enjoy the dusk and it's almost suicidally curious bats.

  • 4th July 2009. Dorset Still Water #3. Back to the same lily-spot with some 14lb Stren and some 14lb flouro on the pin. I try the 2.5lb t/c rod with the pin and put the 12lb and 66 on the Ugly. I missed several takes in the first hour, annoying but I console myself it's not always a large fish, and that big bits of bread are hard to take.

    When the lady in the previous swim moves on, after some background on the lake, I try the end of the pads from that swim, get a take right away and hook a big fish, which pulls the hook. 0/2. I take the stiffer rod and the pin onto the next swim and pulling a crust of the pads into the path of a tunnelling enter, I get a 9lb or so fish, which danced across the pads as I gave it nothing in a short and vicious battle. The swim littered with lily pad bits and still circling mud, was called dead. I went back to my bag, I put another bit out on the Ugly and after 30 minutes thumped into a big fish, which I held and then the hook hold went.

    1/3. I drink tea as the light fades and wait with a size 2 crusted in advance and with half an hour of light a stealthy fish mops along the edge, and I tweak an overcast bait into the path and it plughole slurps it down. I hold the resulting thunderbolt for 1 second and the line parts by the hook. 1/4. OK then...up to 15lb Flouro and the 2.5t/c rod...

  • 2nd July 2009. Homeclose. 3 goldfish (sorry, 'carp') on floating bread.


  • 27th June 2009. Dorset Still Water #3. After a gander I head for the spot I like for a floater fish, although enclosed by lilies. The net breaks, so tread back to the car for the spare and spend 10 minutes threading the larger net onto medium poles. These old landing net arms are solid glass, the newer broken ones are hollow carbon. Yeah. I tackle up with 12lb through and tip a crust on the nearest pad and edge it off. 10 minutes later I get a confident slurp and a very short scuffle nets an 11lb common, with plenty of fight for the net. 20 minutes later I then hook a fish about 14lb (ish) and the hook comes away, after I see the leathery side. Drat.

    I get my first sneezing fit of the day. I wait, try another half hour and move back one swim to tackle with a long cast the other end of the lilies. I get three cast's wrong and the last one right. A tunnelling fish slurped the bread and I zing my hook into the tree on my right. I get a cup of tea and wonder back round to see who else is fishing…...I try back in my base swim for an hour or so, missing two takes and then slip back, and get my first cast on the money, and after 15 minutes get a take and keel haul a fish away from the pads and into open water, and apart form one long run, it capitulates, 7lb of leather. Ok two-three.

    I wander back to the original swim, get three bits in the water, watch as one bobs and disappears without a sound and the nearest to me then goes in two goes with much slurping. Odd. My bait remains. Half an hour later I miss two takes in a row, form fish that couldn't absorb the whole bait and I try once around the far bank (last weeks carp) and my second sneezing fit puts down the fish, and my best and last cast is attacked by a coot. Bu88er.

    I go back to home base and freeline cockles for half an hour, and drink several teas, then a stealthy approach along the lilies mops up some small crusts, so I switch over and get a take right off. I hit the fish, hold it, get a huge pull and the line goes slack. Without looking I know the hook knot has gone and then a big fish clears the water a few feet away, hangs in the air, a brass tear drop and crashes into the lilies. Certainly 18lb, maybe more. Ouch. So its war then. I watch the moon for a bit and finish my tea.

  • 20th June 2009. Dorset Still Water #3. I was reeling a bit from losing three first time but I like a challenge, so came back with stronger tackle and a grimmer countenance. I spend about 45 minutes trying to get a crust in the right place on the 3rd swim round but the wind, current and distance defeat me, so I return to last week's swim. I managed to miss a few takes (as I go on I realise that there are a lot of carp that can't manage the bread first go) and then also hook one on-and-of on the far end of the big lily patch. I then watch a 3 foot long fish amble about my next perfectly placed crust before a moorhen tries to nab it.

    So, after a few happy minutes extracting size 4's from the vegetation behind me I wonder right around the far side, and after a few abortive and unique casts to get under one branch and over another, place a crust just the other side of a single pad on the edge of the jungle and when I get a slurp, power the fish out of the lilies and then batter it (metaphorically) into the net leaving bits of shredded vegetation and swirls of mud under my feet. Yay. A bit more than 10lb of dark common. I wander back one swim to the scene of last week's carnage and sticking on a lump of paste, take tea and then as the slack line twitches, a dark brick-pit tench. I knock off another tench, move to home base swim for the last floater and get manked by a big fish as darkness falls, failed hook knot. No change there then.

  • 19th June 2009. Deciding to walk across the fields to the school "fun night" (my advice, avoid any event with the word 'fun' in the title and especially if multiple exclamation marks are involved), I find this treasure, which represents to me, 4 crow quill floats and a buzzard quill float and half a flint axe-head, a jewel to me.

  • 13th June 2009. Silent Woman. On Saturday I take the Hatangler to a local lake with hordes of small carp, and with a tin of corn and left over bread we plan to spoil the afternoon of plenty of them. In the event the first swim yields a half dozen fish each with the son getting perhaps the largest of the carplets, and we opt to move up the lake a bit. After a few minutes I notice the swirls at the end and start firing bread up which it encircled, serpent like and sucked under.

    I swap the cardinal 44 spool with 4lb for one with 6lb and put on a fine wire size 6 and hoping that my Chapman 500 is up to the task. There are no snags, and the biggest fished spotted in here is about 3lbs... the bread drifts and the circling movements converge after an anxious 10 minutes and the bait is bobbled under. I strike, feel the fish, then nothing and wind furiously, then a silver torpedo appears level with me. Grass carp. The usual odd fight, with rushes, leaps inter-spaced with torpor. About 9lb, but before the scales could be used, it looked more distressed than I'd like, so I put it back. Odd fish, don't do much for me.

  • 12th June 2009. Dorset Still Water #3. The following day I trip off to a club water for the firs time and after an hour finding out the carp cruising in the green scum at the south end of the lake either don't like bread or can't see it, edge around to a lily encircled swim, with plenty of life.

    This after a recce and I swap my bamboo MKIV for the 4-piece Avon, not risking the old rod in these snags. I put 8lb line on the 'pin and float-fish cockles two feet form the lilies for a tench. 10 minutes in I get a dithery slidy bite and hit it. Something fires through the near patch of lilies in two surges, the line breaking on the second. It might as well have been a sandbag fired from a cannon. Over in less than half a second.

    I loose my float as well, a gold whipped porcy with an insert antennae. Clucking bell. I re-tackle with 10lb and 10 minutes later lose a tench that pops the hook onto a lily stem. 20 minutes later I try for a carp under the tree with crust and even knowing I have to hit it hard and hold it up, loose this heavy fish as it crash dives on the flex of the rod. I go back to the scummy end, put on a float, have 3 cups of tea and go home, 0/3...

  • 11th June 2009. Gold Oak. This was supposed to be a couple of days put aside for myself for relaxing fishing - but it started badly with a cane top section snapping getting out of the car, and thing were odd, which I since discovered was a side effect of the hay fever meds, tucked down at the bottom of the list of possible side effects is "Agitation". Bloody right. Still between getting wound up by nothing at all, I managed to bluff this carp off the far bank with a piece of crumpet, this one out of the lilies by my feet, this nice common at 30 yards off, under the willow branches, which I am especially pleased with as I waited 30 minutes for it, and this scamperer on bread bottom fished. Lost another common in the lilies and bagged half a dozen roach as well. So pretty good and Nemp had a carp a tench and hat full of other stuff.


  • 31st May 2009. Arfleet. Back to the mill. With fishermen on the front lake and the back lake to myself it's an easy choice. The water is coloured, unusually, and I should bottom fish if I have any sense, but fish are cruising the surface in groups, but defeat my attempts to picture them. Pity. Still it's a great day and I tackle up a floater rod, one hook, nothing else and feed bread from behind a screen of new growth, which sets the pattern for the day. Schools of rudd and perch mob the bread and I discover that one supermarket's sandwich loaf is not as tough as another's but more to the point the fish are not really bothered. I miss one rolled-gold take 20 yards out spend about 90 minutes try to get another. I move around to the east bank and although some bread is taken it's done with a casual air and deep suspicion, both at once. I even try a big piece with a trailer crust on a size 10, a good dodge usually, and it is spurned. With a small self cocker I whip out a few perch and rudd on worm and bread but even that is slow. After another hour try to gull a ghostie on the far bank, without success, enjoyably frustrating, I decide to target an area where fish are rising on the far bank (they are crashing right in the corner as well, but they would not take bread there either).

    To do so I sneak into the swim on my right to give me the 10 yards advantage needed for the cast and lob two back-to-back half matchbox bits, which touch down with a splat, 3 yard short of the far bank, just the right spot. I sit on the ground with the rod on my leg, this time no different from the past 3 hours and the block of bread just vanishes off the top, like if fell off the far edge of a table. A firm pick-up and a good fishes bores down and right and then back and left and after five minutes of dogged short and deep runs, is netted. Possibly the best looking common I've caught all year, about 10lb. I return to the first swim and after a half hour of watching my floating bait, a nearer piece is whipped down by a large mirror that attacks it like leaping salmon giving me a flash of a broad cream flank as it dives, making me start. The last rise and despite the lure of the bottom rod, which is put aside, I call it a day, as the hard earned fish is enough.


  • 25th May 2009. DSW#1. As it's a Bank Holiday, a warm stuffy day, Nemp and myself tried for a tench. I'd write a long account of along day trying to find feeding fish, but that would be perpetuating the day itself. The lake wore a poker face, we scratched and moved looking for a tell and I in the end realising the game was up, took down my rods. Some days I'll relish the hunt for the fish, but today, mentally set for tench and fining clear water, just watched while my friend managed to catch dozen fish by fishing single maggot 2 feet under a pole float in 4 feet of water, including two chub which we didn't even know were in there. One tench fell to a 'sleeper rod' with a cockle on it as well.

    I admit the flat feeling from the water might as been as much inside my head as outside, but the water's form has faltered of late. I wonder, whether some change in the inflow has altered the insect life balance, as even now when the water is warm, it's clear and in a water where 3 feet is about average, this suggests little bottom feeding is taking place. Still, that's angling.


  • 24th May 2009. Arfleet Mill. Several anglers on the front lake and one on the back who ignores my greeting. I go to the other end from Mr. Happy and put up a floater rod and flick bread and wait. After about an hour of waiting and some speculative casts one crust is silently removed in a blur of deep ochre, then the fish retires under the tree root opposite and refuses to budge. Mr Happy leaves and I make my way down to where there is a cut in the bank and an overhanging tree stump. I put on a veil, flick bread into various places and a small ghostie nips one off the end of the clump of grass at the base of the trunk then vanishes. I wait and two crusts, more distant, submerge without a sound. OK then. I flick some more bits and overcast a piece and draw it into the trunk of the tree. Five minutes pass, the dwarf lilies at my feet tremble to heighten the tension. A shape materialises vertically from under the stump and down goes the bread. Up goes the rod. Down goes the fish, a real thump. A battle ensues and with the lake bed denied the fish tries hard for the stump, then the dwarf lilies, which the line cuts into silage. It tries for the adjacent bush and I haul it back and into the net. A common (12 ½lb), with a wound which is not today's. I think about the heron of the previous week.

    I wait a bit more, but it's very quiet and as all the other fishermen have gone, I head for the other lake, picking up crumpled newspaper and some pliers which I'll bin later. I sit towards the corner, put the rod across the knees, pour tea flick bread and wait. I have to wait 25 minutes, then one decides it's safe to come out of the weeds. One 30 yard crust and a sluggish romp around this end of the lake later, a 12lb common with the red tail of a recent strain. I wait some more, scatter bread about and a fish starts sucking the rushes 3-4 yards to my right. I spot a ghost, and decide that's the next try. I plonk in a piece, keeping the rod behind the rushes. A tench come up vertically, Polaris like and in silhouette I see it suck at the crust. It fails and drops away. Well I never. Then a shape appears and with less noise the bread spirals away, and a real fight develops with a heavier fish. I don't make last weeks error and let it run until it has had enough and 10 minutes on and at the second attempt net a 16¼lb common, carry some spawn. I snap it and slide it back, nearly time to stop. I wait but despite bread in copious amounts, cover's blown now so I slide around the back and despite a lot of movement and investigation, I wait until the light's almost gone and a crust right on the edge, between two clumps of weed, is nicked by a ghostie. I mumble a rude work and re-bait. Only 5 minutes pass and the rod is yanked almost from my hand and a fish tore into the middle and when I get it back it does it again. And again. And again. And then the weed bed, and then under the bank, then hard left. It fights like a dervish for 15 minutes, extraordinary. Netted, not without trials, this 9½lb fish (snapped by flash) put the bigger ones to shame. I pack up.


  • 17th May 2009. Arfleet Mill. It's blowing a gale and threatening rain, but I'm not fooled and find the lakes both without fishermen. I decide after a look at both lakes that the back pit is worth a try, as it's not got the wind driven chop on the lower lake, although that chop had pushed two more floats for the collection into the bank. I sit down at the south end, and flick in some bits of bread and some hemp and watch for a bit. In reponse a large 7-8-9lb carp crashes out of the water right at the other end. I take the hint and slide around and set up a floater rod and the MKIV with an antennae and 6lb through with a small, but stubborn size 10. Despite a promise of a rise at the bread nothing happens after the first half an hour but after some dithering I get a 4oz perch, wedged around a cockle. I try bread and corn and get more dithering and the hard to hit bites, so switch to a equally stubborn 14 and get a couple of rudd on corn, 4oz or so. After 90 minutes of this and flicking bread, I hit another dithery bite and get a sandbag. After the initial shock I realise this is not 7-8-9lb but considerable larger, and with 6lb line and a size 14 need to take care. I take 15 minutes of care with several 30 yard bores into the middle of the lake and I keep as much pressure on as I dare with this lake snag strewn. Eventually with the rod now alarmingly bent for it's 50 years, I net a 15½lb Mirror*, cracking fish.

    Buoyed by this I spend the next 2 hours missing the odd bite and seeing no fish rise to crust, despite the cheery and regular passage of the kingfisher from my end to the other. Odd I never see it going the other way. A heron materialises in the shallow water at the far end, nicks a small rudd and creaks off into the grey sky. I opt for the last 2-3 hours on the other lake, maybe there's a calmer bit I can try for a fish off the top.

    I sneak into the north-west corner, when I discover the lake is bisected by the wind into a choppy half and a slowly rotating calm bit. I fish the float to pass the time, nab a 6oz roach, and then after a rise in the corner, some of the bread starts to go. The crust on the other rod is ready to go, so I dip and over arm it right into the corner, dropping it a foot from the safe haven of the bush. I wait almost 10 seconds and down it goes, so greedy. The response to my strike is a semi leap and a big kite into the middle, but its overpowered quite quickly. A Ghostie, is it me or are they really greedy?

    I pour tea, put up both rods and flick out more bits for 25 minutes. Eventually another carp makes an appearance, in the middle and very quietly picking off bits, hardly noticeable. I put on a big bit, lob it out, flick three more after it, and wait only a couple of minutes and the fish cruises past picking it off. I whip up the rod and realise I have a fish as big as the first at least, but it doesn't run, but bores and I make a mistake and tighten up on it. It starts to figure-of-8 almost under the rod tip and after 5 minutes of this, during which time I can't get it off the bottom, the hook just comes out...

    I pour more tea and reflect on that for some time. Poor strike, didn't give the fish, which was in open water, a couple of runs to tire it. I saw enough to know not 20, but well over 15lb, so disappointing. I wait for more rises, but none are coming now, and edge off at 9:20 into the rising dusk, chastened by my floating hubris. Rats.

    *On reflection I feel compelled to explain I would not set out to fish for 15lb carp with 6lb line, MK IV or not, but on this water (like so many), passing the time catching roach, rudd and perch is always risky, so I generally use 6lb line and trade off the missed smaller ones against a fair chance at the inevitable carp that takes a grain of corn on a size 14 hook.


  • 10th May 2009. DSW#1. Trudged around to the pump pool, peg 13, thinking I might break the new old MKIV in with a few tench. I spent about three hours battling with drifting weed and fluff off the willows and managed one tench, but it was a day when tench kept passing through but I couldn't seem to get them to take a bait. If felt wrong, so 7pm, I mentally shrug, throw the tackle into the bag and go and sit on Peg 2 by the car park to finish the flask and take an early bath.
    The water is covered with debris here, although there is more colour, more than when I walked around at 2:30pm. I bait to my left with hemp and after 45 minutes this feels wrong and while sipping tea, I spoon cockles into the tree ahead of me and to my right and eventually follow with my 4th float of the day, which I hadn't taken off since the walkabout.
    This needs constant line mending as the scum oscillates to and fro as the wind dies away in fits and starts. Then a few bubbles, a 'buzz' and the float pops out of existence in a matter of fact way an autopilot strike and a good fish bores under the trees and I don't let it, which goes on for a minute or two. This develops into a battle of attrition with the old MKIV showing why it's such a good rod for playing fish, even on 6lb line, as I couldn't give an inch under the trees. Eventually the fished turns sideways and I net a shade over 10lb of leather(?) and about 3lb of weed.
    45 minutes later, I have a smaller one of 5lb that takes off with the bait and the line is tightening when I strike. This time the fight was shorter, as the fish was half the weight and not as well streamlined. But two carp are two carp.
    I listen to the birds going off to bed for a bit while draining the flask and dodging the bats, pack and leave.


  • 3rd May 2009. At a car boot I picked up a JS Sharpe's Scotty carp rod for £5. Wow. Four original rings and 12 inches missing off the top section. The cane itself looks perfect otherwise. But for £5.


  • 2nd May 2009. Horton Lake...is good size, a good age, a good 20 miles from my place and very muddy around the edge. There was clay pigeon shooting and quad biking for townies in progress, so I trudge right around to the far end, and settle about as far as I could away, although there were a good half a dozen anglers spaced around. At my chosen end there was floater fishing heaven (assuming fish were under that fluff). I float fished cockles in the sunshine, missing two good bites and fed a stream of naan bread and crust to the corner with my spoon.

    Eventually, I connected with a 4oz roach on a tough size 10 hook, but put up the float rod and at 6pm or so sneaked up towards the corner and the sluice. I stuck out naan which got inspected and rejected and I reverted to crust. After a few lost crusts, ignored unitl they sank, I got one almost alongside the sluice and it got the 'sink-plunger' and I dragged the fish out and played it out by my landing net. If worked hard and on netting looked 9lb or so, perhaps shade heavier. I waited. Another try got nowhere, so I went back on the float, lost a good fish when the hook pulled out, on bread, and then flicked a biggish bit of crust over to the sluice from where I sat. It sat, eventually a fish tried it, missed, tried again, and I struck but despite 30 yards, hit the fish, and it didn't work too hard, and looked to be around 6 or 7lb.

    The light closed in, so I ambled off, plugged through the mud, and tried a last gasp by the car park in the gloom. I put 3 bits over the far side, 4 by the lilies and two under my feet. One lunge across the pool had me casting over and then something cleaned up the bits by the lilies 1-2-3-4 and then ignored my re-sited crust. One of the bits under my feet slurped down, so I tried there. 2 minutes, 2 goes at the bread, short squabble and around this 4-5lb fish. Good day. Prefer it without all the bite alarms though.


  • 26th April 2009. Arfleet Mills.The top lake again and to myself. Went around the back (the 'furthest from the car park' gambit) top lake. I put up the 500 with a 'pin and a dibbery plastic thing and the Harrison's with a size 8 on flouro bottom for floaters. The first thing I found out was the dog biscuits I'd carefully soaked were rubbish, so I'll feed them to the hound.

    I whipped out a rudd and then after some handfuls of stuff got a ghostie moving on my left in the reeds. It very quietly took some by now sodden bread and just when I though it would always be cautious, snacked my bread floater down. A run and a crash and a short but additional battle revealed the ghostie, about 7lb or so.

    I nabbed a tench on a pinch of bread on the float rod as Nempster arrived and then lost another tench a bit after. By then a few fish were stirring in the weed, so I lobbed a floater into the middle. We nattered quietly and both watched the crust for an eternity, possibly 20-25 minutes as the fish edged its' way over. Nerves jangled and hearts pounded. The take was deliberate and I hit it hard and backed up the back to drag it out the weeds and a hard tussle allowed Nemp to net 6lb of common and 1lb of weed. The hook was well in but bent, so I switched to a thicker wire then. Nemp slipped off and I got some small rudd, a 3lb common (F1?) that went like a dingbat on the lighter rod and as the sun set, the last gasper slurped down an optimistic crust plonked on the far side of the reeds for the 4lb common. Top day.


  • 19th April 2009. Arfleet Mills. Back pool was crowded so I went around the back of the newly deepened top lake. I put up a float rod and tried for anything with a size 14 and managing a couple of small rudd, but a cockle went untouched. As fish are moving to my right I chuck out some floaters and spend over an hour missing takes on a MKIV carp rod. After a bit I opt to change this for an 11ft Avon and a Cardinal 66, so after swapping rods and settling the fish back down, I miss one on floaters and switch to crust, miss one massive take and then hit one which really pulled, trying to get into the weed beds, but eventually at the net is 8lb of common. I fish on the float for a bit and get a solitary 1½lb rudd, then get a tiddler as well. In the interim I feed more floaters to my left, as carp are about and after a hour, a small common and ghostie start on the ones not 8 feet from me. I drop in a big bit of crust and a large shape materialises and takes it straight away. It's a big lump and even with the 12lb line it takes some bold holding, but after a bit of a thrash I net a 14lb common. Good enough.


  • 13th April 2009. Highbench. Nice day. Sun shone and Nemp poled out about 60 fish, with a good lot of Crucians and next swim up I scratched out about 20, with a couple of crucians, 6 decent bream of a pound or more and one big rudd, perhaps 1.5lb. Worse days have been had. Very nice.


  • 10th April 2009. Arfleet Mills. Busy evening, and I fished about as far from the entrance as was possible on the lower lake, as there were several folk fishing. A chap on the bank near the car park had not long had a carp and plenty of fish were about. I managed to miss about 5 good bites with various incompetence's and eventually got a nice tench around 2.5lb or so. Tried corn, cockles and paste, corn seems to get the most activity, including my one fish.

    Some large carp rolling on the North bank, which is currently off limits. Back pit with at least two bivvies, not a lot of space left on that lake. Strong feeling I didn't get my share of the fish this time.


  • 3rd April 2009. Once More unto the Breach. Monday, Santiago; Tuesday, Oporto, long hot day, finally through the gate, airside and there is the piano and player leaking classical music into the open plan whiteness, a starving bird cry in an artic waste. So far so good. Then the call from The French Customer, my bane, my karma for a past life transgression, must be. I wish for curved yew, slender white ash with blue-grey bodkin heads. I walk up to the far end of the soulless space and sip cool water, worn down suddenly and then joy, I have a new Waterlog in the bag. Peace and 90 minutes glide past, with a float tip in the passing current.

    I board, JAFA, stick 'Queen Rocks' on when the seatbelt sign allows and burrow further into Cervantes and the psychotic Don Quixote, the original box of frogs. 'Garage Inc.' then, 'Astronomy', what is that song about? Seatbelts on, Cervantes only.

    Gatwick South Terminal, 'Appetite for Destruction' on the headphones, 'Welcome to the jungle' strangely appropriate and a good beat to walk from plane to passport control. Then "It's so easy"…'I see you standing there, you think you're so cool, why don't you just F-' "Good evening how are you?" and with my "I'm as interested in your life story as you are in mine" straight face with a hint of very tired but polite anyway, hardly faked, I hand over my passport. I'm still me. Good.

    I get coffee and a toastie snatched en passant like the Night Train's mail bag. 'Evanescence' for the car in the dark, skipping the songs that require a special knowledge of bipolar disorders and at a flat legal speed reach Stockbridge, pull in, past closing time and lean on white railing where a thread of the Test jinks between the road and the path, in daylight haunted by bread bloated rainbow trout. I sip coffee, still warm, watch the streetlamp reflection shimmer in the curving water and its echo in the coffee held in front of me. I breathe in, out, shut my eyes and listen to the water, picking out two beats, the side to side waves of the water caught between two near right angles and then a longer one, maybe a standing wave, the reflection under the road from the first bend and it's return. Then I realise the real sound is the stream chuckling at the absurdity of it all and I feel myself smile back in the dark. See, water is good for you.

    Wednesday, back in the car, Abacabok, thudding Tuareg music, with the flat sound impedance matched to the still cooling sand around the tented players, an optimum power transfer. Zurich on Friday. Once more unto the breech, dear friends, once more.

    "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
    Or close the wall up with our English dead.
    In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
    As modest stillness and humility:"

    Henry V. Act 3, Scene 1


  • March 28th 2009. Silent Woman. Another afternoon with Nempster. The weather was pleasant for March and it was good to be out. The downside is that the lake was again completely dead. While there was some limited movement, contrasting with 12 months ago when any bait was plagued with rudd and roach and small carp popped up often. The thick green weed beds are gone as well. It might be that we are failing to change our ways, but we moved three times today, and although a solitary carp showed later in the day and Nemp managed two tiny rudd, it's hard to avoid the conclusion the lakes best days are behind it and some sea-change has occurred, perhaps run off or rising acidity. Ah well.
  • March 21st 2009. Crooked Willows. Went down for the afternoon with Nempster and despite an early flurry of a dozen rudd and this nice bream and carp on the move, it went quiet after a couple of hours and to make it harder a wind sprung up. Nemp had a good afternoon, pulling out smallish rudd and stripeys from under the trees on the island, but it got slower and slower as the day went on. Funny little lake, nice afternoon though.
  • March 15th 2009. DSW#1. One of those grey still days matching the water here, often a blue-grey. Despite the lack of colour in the water I scratch out two tench on paste-cane-and-centerpin and miss a third. A small roach makes a last minute appearance at dusk, so pretty quiet, but there are no bad tench.


  • February 18th 2009. Homeclose. This new fishery is a little outside Oakham and I had a pleasant afternoon with the sibling, but the carp were not really playing today. I scratched out a couple of rudd on maggots, really just becuase I could. Not technically a blank. I really want to try the large lake for the tench (no carp in that lake) when it warms up a bit.
  • February 1st 2009. Crooked Willows. Cold. It snowed briefly and I caught a few roach. A strangely enjoyable afernoon.


  • 28th January 2009. The Last Straw. These days, I always fish accompanied with my all-purpose radio-controlled fishing correction submersible. This is surprisingly compact at 4' 11", considering that it has several useful operating modes for the traditional angler.

    "Complete Balls mode". In this mode the submersible seeks out small round objects in the water, collects them and then pounds them flat for safe disposal, although not necessarily in that order. I'd advise against standing waist deep in the water. Of course, for some this is shallower water than for others.

    "Heron mode". In this mode, any high pitched noises are monitored and then instantly jammed with an phase-inverted copy of the original sound. This means that most runs will start with a strangled "meep" and end with a twang and very possible with a noise just like a rod pod being yanked into the water. Followed by a noise not unlike like a traditional angler having a laughing fit. A mild side effect of this mode, is that all the birds in the area, except bitterns, will find they are strangely silent. Most of them will sidle sheepishly into the undergrowth during this time. The extended use of this feature may make it advisable to avoid any pre-fishing comestible with a high spice content, unless you can emulate a bittern and to be honest, if you can pull that off without 'accidents' then fair play to you.

    "Bait boat mode". The submersible has full surface-to-surface miniature explosive harpoon capability. See if you can guess what for. Again, I recommend not standing in or near the water, especially while holding any equipment. Sorry, that should be "electronic equipment".

    The on board state-of-the-art computer also use character recognition to single out the word "Drennan" on any item of tackle and obliterate it with sustained mortar fire. Someone has to. Think of this as a fringe benefit. Trials on a similar feature designed to eradicate 'realtree' camouflaged items, have been so far unsuccessful and it's fair to say that the birds that sidled into the undergrowth after the 'Heron mode' trial were fortunate indeed.

    The submersible comes with a built in Kelly Kettle, a reserve porcupine quill, 2lbs of Pampered Pig's best Pork & Leek sausages and a 12 inch (steady now) cider and whisky fruit cake. An emergency single malt hip flask is situated in the port nacelle (Mike). The speech recognition circuit will ensure these items are only released to an appropriate adult when it detects the secret password. This is shrouded in mystery, but I can tell you in rhymes with "hoppy bat" and it's the name of something can be used to keep things off your head.

    Extensive trials on Loch Ness have resulted in hardly any casualties, statistically speaking, especially if we discount the incident of the prize ram wading across the shallow bit at the end, tourists, and the two gentlemen salmon fishing at the head of the loch. I understand the ram's best breeding days were behind it and extended convalescence on a bed of mint will restore it to usefulness and that neither of the Spey casters were using spliced joint rods, so they had it coming anyway.

  • 25th January 2009. Dairy Farm. To follow...
  • 18th January 2009. Crooked Willows. To follow...
  • 3rd January 2009. Horton Lake.. Crikey it's cold today. It's new water for me and after some investigation and finding out the lake was old and large enough not to be frozen, I thought, with a whole day to spend I'd give it a try. I walked on around the lake, find a couple of lads at the far end and they said it fished well, with a lot of average carp to mid doubles and had had a run. I find the lake pleasant but the banks are very very muddy, saved today only by the mud being solid under my feet. The water colour is that odd translucent grey-green winter lakes sometimes are. I spend several hours hooked in behind a tree, cleverly out of the little watery sun-light there is, trying for, well, anything with two rods. The wind is spiky, lancing through my layers and after 2-3 hours with nothing to show, I move towards the entry-end where the ghosts of old lilies persist and try my curried maggots against the pads. I feel more confident and after an hour, while the line freezes to the rings, I get 'the buzz' and a slow bite, which I miss. I try again; think my best chance has gone, but 10 minutes later, away it goes, one-elephant-strike and no mistake this time. A smallish fish 4-5lbs perhaps but a hard fighter for the cold water. By the time I take a picture the net is solid rime and my feet feel the same way so I hobble off to the car.


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    Sunday, 01-Aug-2010 11:33:05 BST