Vagabond
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Posts posted by Vagabond
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Met Cliff when I was looking for an illustrator (angler cartoonist with warped S.O.H required to lighten the ramblings of a compulsive Rhadamanthinic piscator) After 2 minutes I had hired him, after 3 minutes we were planning fishing trips together. We fished for mullett in Essex (his place) Sussex (my place) and later the Severn and Wye for zander, pike barbel and salmon when Cliff had retired to Hay-on-Wye. I'm so pleased Cliff fulfilled his ambition with a 12lb salmon on fly in 2019
After retiring as a teacher, Cliff took a part-time job as a promoter of angling gear. Cut short at an angling show when a customer asked if you could stand up in the company's bivvies.
"Certainly!" said Cliff "Just dig a hole in the floor" ..... Alas, sales managers are by definition humourless.
Farewell Cliff, Glad to have had rhe privilege of knowing you.
Been a bitter March, Two of my fishing buddies gone, and just heard my former university mentor has passed away.
Beginning to understand the concept of "Last man standing"
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As readers of "Angling Vagabond" will know, my first reel I made myself in 1942 (aged eight)
Yrs, others were skeptical when I wrote about it back around 2002, so I persuaded the 9 year old son of a friend to make a replica (First I had to teach him how to saw straight and how to drill straight, and how to drive in a nail straight - whatever primary schools taught in 2002 seemed of little practical use) With a little help, he succeeded. Coupled with a rowan rod the oufit caught plenty of tench including four and five pounders for both of us. It was written up with illustrations for Freshwater Informer at the time. But that's for another thread - back to Mitchells
I bought my first Mitch in 1960, when I left school. £6-17=6d the best part of my first three weeks wage; It had a claw pick-up and I still have it. I have since used many other fixed spools, centre pins, closed-face, spin casters, bait casters and mulipliers.
Tackle dealers will hate me , but the truth about expensive reels and rods is very often -
Its not the rod or reel that counts - its the angler behind it
Yes, given a choice, it's nice to use the "best" tool for the job. but having fished in some out-of the way places, (eg Amazon Basin, Aussie outback, Southern Ocean, Okavanga delta) one can come across an unexpected situation, hundreds of miles from the nearest tackle dealer. When you have to improvise with just the gear you have with you, it's amazing what the "wrong" rod and reel can be made to achieve
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On 3/13/2021 at 10:16 PM, Martin56 said:
You should be able to fish from the wall between the boats even if not a boat owner.
Not everywhere ! Brixham Harbour has two notices on display One by the Lifeboat launching slip. telling people not to park there and threatening offenders with a penalty of about thirty quid, The other notice is where the mullett swim, and says NO FISHING and warns offenders of fines up to £1000 - yes a grand.
Strange priorities - obstructing a potential life boat call-out apparently considered trivial beside the heinous crime of dangling a worm in the harbour. Who makes these "rules" ?
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I have caught mullet on light float tackle (think roach) using red harbour ragworm. live sandhoppers, maggot and bread. All work sometimes, but I suspect that casting float tackle spooks the mullet fairly often. I have had better results using a brown or green nymph, about #12 and tied fairly sparsely -fished a la Skues (read up anything by Skues, Ollie Kite or Frank Sawyer) this method particularly effective in tidal creeks and channels where and when there is an appreciable current.
Direction of light with respect to fly and fish is important - ie if the fish is uplight of the fly and downlight of the angler - use "real image" tying. if fish is downlight of fly. use a silhouette pattern. But be aware mullet are a very taxing fish on the fly - difficult to deceive, and your troubles only really begin when one is hooked - they are up there in the bonefish/tarpon class for power and stamina.
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I posted this in the obituary thread - or I thought I did
SORRY MOD, PLEASE RE-ALLOCATE
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Revisiting the title of this thread, lets try hindsight from a different perspective.....
If we had stayed in the EU (ie if we had listened to the socialists) we would not have been able to negotiate a vaccine supply, but would have been caught up in the present EU vaccino-politico-claptrap.
Instead of over 25 million of our citizens being vaccinated, we would still be awaiting a dribble of vaccines, and still squabbling over "priorities"
That would have meant a number of us catching Covid-19 (or one of its mutants) with the inevitable result of hospitalizations, ICU, intubation, "!ong covid" and or death for the unlucky (that could have included you, the reader, or me, the writer or both of us)
Puts arguing over fish quotas and queues at Dover into perspective.......
....and we would be sitting under a leftwing government, wieh Corbyn thinking he was in charge, awaiting salvation
Just be thankful we are where we are - look at the situation in Italy and the rising "Third Wave" across the EU
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Pete, a great all-round angler. Known for many good roach from the London reservoirs, also many good bass, some fly-caught salmon, and not a few big mullet
He founded the London Specimen Hunters Club and seemed ro attract namesakes as his fishing mates - I remember one such gathering that included Pete himseld and Petes Grundel. Mead. Ellis and Hall. Go fishing with that lot, hook a decent fish and shout "Pete, Net !" and you had five chances of assistance.
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On 10/29/2020 at 9:09 PM, bluezulu said:
chesters the pool i caught them from is stuffed with brown gold fish and all the locals that fish it think they are catching crucians. they won't have it when i tell them otherwise.
I could tell a similar story about a pond stocked with bream and silver bream. I was called in to settle a dispute. One bloke reckoned he hsd caught a 3 lb silver bream. Half the club supported him, the other half hated his guts and wanted his fish, him, and all his tribe
extermer disqualified.I was authorised to dissect a couple of small samples and examine their pharyngeal teeth. It will not necessarily show anything I told them, but they said they had looked the numbers of teeth up in a book They would examine the teeth they said, they just needed me to provide them, as they didn't know what they looked like, whereabouts in the fish they were, or how to get them out ! They had already done fin-ray and scale counts, but the book hadn't helped, everyone who tried to count came up with a different number which matched neither fish's fin-ray or scale count.
The entire club turned up to watch the dissection,, plus their sisters and their cousins and their aunts. Dissected the fish, waved the pharyngeals at the mob. One row of teeth, plus one row of four boney knobs pretending to be teeth. "Definitely not bronze bream" I said. ( Bronze bream have two rows of five longish pointed teeth each side, Silvers have eight stubbier teeth in two rows, five and three) Great roar of triumph from the silver king and his acolytes.
"However" I added, "I cannot certify it as a silver bream, because a hybrid of bronze and silver could show exactly the same pharyngeal pattern as we have here - in fact you can't say for certain that any fish is a silver without a DNA test - and even then the results might be arguable". Great roar of triumph from the other half of the club, whilst Silver King and his mates went home to make plasticine models of Vagabond and stick pins in them.
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I've pulled forward my post of two years ago. If I had followed my schoolboy whim and become a bookie, I might well have become a billionaire like Denise and left the day to day running of the betting shops to underlings whilst enjoying the proceeds. I could have afforded many more trips abroad after exotic species, more salmon fishing, my own marlin boat and luxury back-up etc etc.. - and as a result of the life-style that went with it, probably died of a stroke in my fifties - or not - as Chesters might put it.
The amount of money spent by betting firms on advertisements during televised sport programs is an indication of how lucrative a business bookmaking is.
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On 8/10/2018 at 11:35 PM, Vagabond said:
Sherlock Holmes "For some reason it seems to perpetually astonish the British public that one horse can run faster than another"
Our R I master (sanctimonious old humbug) used to preach and screech about the evils of gambling, which made me inclined to take up bookmaking as a career.
By contrast our maths master, after our final School Cert exams (yes I pre-date GCEs) spent the last few maths lessons of our school careers taking us through the mathematics of making a book. That nearly convinced me to become a bookie - and stopped me from ever becoming a punter !
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Thanks BB for a good summary of how wind affects carp
Also see my comments on venue 2 in the earlier thread "Winding Down"
As Dick Walker once said "How much intelligence, for the love of Mike, does an angler need to realise that floating food will go where the wind blows it ?"
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Try the slack buffer zone just above the bridge piers - it seems counter-intuitive but there is often a good trout there.
A place I have often found disappointing is the fishy-looking pool below a waterfall. It always looks inviting - sends me the clear message "now here be monsters" but I can't remember ever catching anything but "run-of-the-mill" fish from such spots
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It happens to be convenient for us to use three similar bank accounts - her money, my money and a household account. As some sort of compensation for a miserly, derisory and sheer bloody "stuff you. moosh" rate of interest, our bank has cut a "deal" with a publishing company. As a result we get a "free" monthly mag with each account. One on Birdwatching, for Norma, one on preserved Steam Locomotives for me, and as no other candidate is worth considering, thought "Improve Your Coarse Fishing" would provide a laugh or two.
The first two are acceptable, a bit "Mickey Mouse" in places, but one or two really good articles most months. Not the third magazine though. Unfortunately to call IYCF "infantile" is to grossly inflate its credibility. Here is a quote from a recent article on surface fishing for carp
Quote
"Pay attention to wind direction.
Ideally you want to find a swim with the wind blowing from behind you. This will help when it comes to feeding, casting and tackle control. If it is blowing in your face , your loosefeed will simply end up back at your feet."
I wish I were joking, but that is what it said. For the benefit of any newcomers to angling, read our experienced members' comments on this pearl of wisdom (NOT) - that quote could hardly be more wrong. I won't comment further at this stage but will let the rest of you have a go first.
Its all yours, lads and lasses.
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6 minutes ago, chesters1 said:
Show off! I had a close call with a toad once
I've met him ! A minor club official with delusions of grandeur. Didn't have any I.D. on him but demanded to see my club card and licence. I told him to go climb a tree.
Re the salties...
The only other occasion where wildlife stopped me fishing was on the Oykel Fly fishing for Salmon , wading a rapid, above a deep pool, and was attacked by midges. I was not being bitten much, but two eyes full of midges meant I couldn.t see - in a fast current in midstream. Chucking handfuls of river water into my eyes was all I could do and the midges came back as soon as I stopped the irrigation. Was damn glad to get out of the water
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16 hours ago, Bobj said:
You want excitement? Try barramundi fishing with 10 to 14 ft crocs eyeing you as a potential meal
Bob, we've had some ! Fishing the Top End in a tinny, we were free lining blueys into likely barra spots and slowly retrieviing them as we drifted uo a tidal creek. One spot seemed pretty good, several barras around the 10 lb mark. So we put the hook down. After a bit I got snagged - pulled for a break, and the "snag" went away across the bottom. then climbed up the creek bank and revealed itself as a 4 ft saltie. Then Norma hooked another "snag" - a 6-footer this time . We had a few more. "Al" I said to the guide, "is it my imagination, or is each croc we see bigger than the one before ?"
"Too right" said Al " and as the last one was 10 ft the next might be trouble" He drew my attention to the gashes on the side of the boat from past attempts by salties to get aboard. He reckoned that the bigger the croc, the more likely it was to work out where all these blueys were coming from. "Time to move" he said, and I wasn't gonna argue....
Iv'e fished a few mangrove swamps on foot,and the possibility of crocs really sharpens up your awareness and fieldcraft. Fished a few jungle streams in big cat country too, and that keeps one on alert also.
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Chris, Steve - I have a draft for another book, following on from A.V. My indoor hobby, now that tackle making and fly-tying are beyond my tremor-racked hands, is postal history, especially rail-related postal history ("The Night Mail crossing the border " etc ) - it does not leave much time for book production - since retiring I have often wondered how I ever found time to go to work !
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Hi Bobj We have a range of orchids indoors. Cymbidiums, Cattleya, Masdevallia, Odontoglossums, Oncidiums, Paphiopedilums, Phalaenopsis and Dendrobium. All flower regularly except the Dendrobiums, all three of which flowered once, two years ago, but nothing since.
Have followed what the books say re watering, humidity, temperature, light etc, but they show no sign of flowering. Good healthy new growth but no flower buds. We must be missing something, Dendrobia are supposed to be easy to grow and flower. Any comment ?
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On 9/28/2020 at 11:05 AM, Huge_Vitae said:
Tap on your own name on the post above, when your box opens tap on “edit profile” top right of page.
Done that twice. Typed a new version into "Profile" Saved it. Can't find a way of replacing the old version with the new one.
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As an RNLI governor, I agree with Chesters, and will be "considering my position" "Saving Lives at Sea" is one thing, facilitating illegal immigration is something else. ...... and Yes, I fully realise that finding the dividing line is difficult, but clearly, we cannot go on as at present.
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Would not accept my jpegs even after cropping, so considered my blood pressure and gave up. You will have to imagine a very ordinary silvery common of about 2 lb from Venue 1 captioned "one of many" and an eight-pound partly scaled yellowfin mirror from Venue 2 captioned "Fish from a barrel". Both are shown resting on the net, which is in turn resting on an unhooking mat, which id in its turn resting on the grass. All very comfy - keeps the carp huggers happy.
Next question - how does one get at what used to be called your "signature" on the old system ? I wish to bring the species numbers up to date.
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Thanks Chesters, and thanks again for the copy pf Carp Fever. good history of the early hair rig trials. I wonder what BB, Walker, Hutchinson and Maddocks would make of modern carp puddles. Those four are all good reading,
Glad you too have a good tomato crop. Norma has turned all our main tomato crop into concentrated soup, salsa, sauce and other products which have been bottled, frozen and otherwise stored -should last until next years crop is ready, although we are still picking. Stacks of Bramley apples this year also. Norma has just taken a gallon of tomato soup next door, they had a bumper crop of tomatoes as well, and as they supply us with free eggs, free rhubarb, etc and are better smallholders than cooks we barter a cooking service (and a chicken-sitting service - careful how you say it- if they take a holiday) In exchange for fresh produce.
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Have just tried to add a couple of pics - without success. I don't use third parties, and could not find a way to add files direct. Any comments or advice ?
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18 hours ago, Vagabond said:
Winding down - angling as one gets older and frailer.
Having caught shark, marlin, and sturgeon over 300 lb, and several hundred species from places as diverse as the Amazon Basin, the Australian outback, the Southern Ocean, the Caribbean coral flats and the streams of the American Divide. It is with some disbelief that I find age, muscle weakness and increasingly severe angina drastically limiting where I can fish. I have always loved catching wild fish in wild places, which has had me fishing in all seven oceans, and six of the seven continents. (went to the seventh – Antarctica – bird watching, didn’t fish as ice too thick),
So, my choice is either to give up fishing altogether, or re-appraise the easier club lakes, and even the despised “carp-filled mud puddles” that are the only accessible waters for someone who suffers intense chest pain (think elephant standing on chest) if required to walk more than 20 yards, to do anything in a hurry or stand up for more than three minutes. The only saving grace is that a dose of nitroglycerine ends the pain in about three to five minutes. Thus a distance of 60 yards needs three doses of nitro and three periods of five-minute rest. No good for a roving hillstream fisher !
So after thought, I made my choice, ie fishing from a chair is better than no fishing. So I have to fish only those swims I can get to – no sussing out where the fish are, no roving, no scrambling into difficult swims. But then, I am no worse off than the match fisherman who has to fish the peg he or she has drawn – so - you can only catch the fish in front of you or those you can entice into your swim. This in turn means one has to revise one’s expectations and set a realistic target. Above all remember this is not a match, so no need to hurry – fishing is a leisure sport – not an Olympic time-trial.
On the plus side, I have been fishing alone since the age of seven, so have eighty years experience to draw upon, allied to which I have had the good fortune to fish with some very good anglers indeed, so I must have learnt something. My adventures henceforth might be of interest to others confined to easily accessible swims. Here are three waters I fished this last week. Norma and I decided to have a week in the campervan, visiting bird reserves, and staying at camping sites offering fishing.
Norma would lead the birding trips, with me following on a hired mobility scooter. And I would lead the fishing trips, with Norma doing the netting, fish handling, and returning. Weighing and photography would be kept to a minimum. Occasional casting , loose feeding and playing a fish I can cope with. Handling any fish of two pounds upwards and getting it safely back into the water has me reaching for the nitro, so I am fortunate that Norma can take that on, and it gives me a short rest after playing a fish to the net.
NB All venues had similar rules, No bread, No floating baits, No braid, No barbs, No microbarbs No baiting with boilies.
So – Venue 1
Swim 20 yards from the campervan. Flat grassy bank, water surface one foot below the bank and one foot deep tight against the bank. Even slope outwards - the depth at a rod length out was 3 ft, A narrow fringe of Norfolk reed with an eight foot gap and a bottom of fine gravel with a little silt comprised my swim. The plummet told me that further from the shore the silt became thicker. What was out there ?
Keeping my hands low, I flicked 3 or 4 maggots into the swim, and kept doing that until small rudd and small perch began to assemble, then switched to sweet corn (no result) then small Spam cubes which brought better rudd and some small carp. Persistent loose feeding for about fifteen minutes brought nothing bigger than half-pound rudd and two pound carp. Observation of other anglers showed similar fish being caught from other swims. Having assessed the swim, time to fish. Set my targets, 2lb carp, half-pound rudd, and see how close to the bank I could hook a carp.
Tried several baits, maggot, dendrobena worms, Spam, sweet corn, Caught on all of them, except sweet corn (not a bite, neither on its own nor in combination with other baits) Most baits free-lined with perhaps a BB shot to provide casting weight. To stop dendys from wriggling off a barbless hook (or being sucked off) a soft pellet was used
Result. Lots of small perch, medium sized rudd to half a pound, about a score of carp all between ¾ and 3 lb. Nearest to bank, (a carp) half an inch !
Comment – Won’t fish there again, just too easy. Could have caught many more if prepared to hurry, but as stated before, that’s not my style.
Venue 2
Swim about 30 yds from van, ground level, so did it in one hop. A small pool about 80 yds by 30 yds, the owner said it held lots of carp (true). some bream, (unconfirmed) with “the biggest carp over 20 lb” (taken with a pinch of salt – you can safely divide most owner’s estimates by a factor of three) About four feet deep close to the bank with the water about 3 feet down a near-vertical bank, little vegetation on bank. Bottom very silty.
There was a howling Easterly that day and a bright sun, no cloud..
“When the East wind blows and the sun shines bright,
Then don’t expect the fish to bite”
A bad omen, but I heeded the other one “”Carp follow the wind, and the stronger the wind, the more strongly they follow it” So I elected to fish into the teeth of the gale. The swim was not the nearest to the van, so that was one principle out the window. Sat well back from the water, flicked a few Spam chunks in and cautiously peeped over. There was a rugby scrum of carp after the slowly sinking Spam pieces. All from about two pounds to around 8 , Now one thing I have learnt is that carp become fearless (or maybe just careless) in choppy water so I elected to fish tightline, just a hook in a lump of Spam dangled into the choppy waves. The fish fought to get at the bait – very often all one could see were seven or eight round open mouths all seeking the same chunk of Spam and shouldering the other carp out of the way. I did my best to keep the bait away from the smaller fish and keep it available for anything that looked to be over 7. I only partially succeeded, as out of 15 carp landed, 12 looked about 6 lb or less, 3 of greater weight.. Norma weighed the biggest – just over eight.pound. Retired for an early tea.
Comment There were people up the other end catching two pounders,as fast as they could pull them in - the place was absolutely stuffed with carp. “Shooting fish in a barrel” came to mind.
Venue 3
This swim was “difficult” as it was 70 yards from the van, and uphill all the way. Two stops for nitro and the second needed a big dose and a fifteen minute rest.
The East wind had gone and it was a hot sunny day. There was an island in the lake and breeching carp by it, but only fishable from some steep swims on the opposite bank. Too far away, too unfriendly, so elected to fish the nearest swim , Steep, but some negotiable steps down to it. This was a bit like venue 1 – but a far thicker fringe of Norfolk reed, The channel leading into the lake was therefore twice as long, about 20 ft, This channel was 6 inches deep at the bankside and about 2 ft where it met the main lake.
Fishing through the gap into the lake produced rudd to half a pound up in the water, and nothing at all on the bottom. So I elected to bait up the outer part of the channel – it was fairly clear water and I could see there was nothing there, but I hoped to entice something in.
A liberal dose of groundbait was laid down in the outer LH corner of the channel with plenty of Spam chunks and halibut pellets (the maggots and dendrobenas were long gone) The afternoon wore on, still no action, the sun sank, and in the early dusk came the action I was hoping for. Carp patrol the margins at such a time, looking for the discarded bait that departing anglers leave behind. One was in the channel ! We waited motionless whilst it mopped up every piece of Spam, before picking up the hookbait and shooting into the LH reedbed. Lets say it tried to shoot into the reeds, for by now I was holding it rather harder than my 6 lb Maxima justified. Good old Maxima – tough as old boots. A bit more stick and the carp decided to try the RH reedbed instead, only to find itself hitting the back of the net wielded by the expert netswoman who I was wise enough to marry.
Result was a very angry carp thrashing about in the net, but fortunately the hook came free easily, the net handle was unscrewed, and the carp weighed (8lb) and returned, still thrashing angrily.
That experience was a bit more worthwhile, I felt I worked for and deserved that fish.
Comment After two somewhat disappointing results, it was nice to feel that with advancing years a bit of experience and watercraft has been accumulated over a lifetime and to a small extent can compensate for the handicap of reduced mobility.
Watch this space.
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On 9/20/2020 at 10:33 AM, gozzer said:
Not sure what's happening, but it took 3 attempts to post the above, I had to copy it, sign back in and then paste it back in to reply. Is there a new 'timed out' limit on the new layout?
John.
After losing a post about four-fifths done I produce a version off-line, then copy and paste it in. Saves an awful lot of frustration. Now to see about putting piccys in,
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Roach - sight or smell
in Coarse Fishing
Posted
Tigger sums it up "the water in front of you"
Most important is the water clarity - Fish have eyes to see with, and a sense of smell to find food with when they can't see - for example on a moonless night or in intensely clouded water (eg carp puddles) Obviously in partially clouded water they may well use both senses.
A secondary consequence of cloudy water is the colour intensity of the roach themselves - the cloudier the water, the more anaemic* the roach - and incidentally the more likely they are to be hybrids with rudd or bream rather than true roach. So the future holds fewer brightly coloured roach from sparkling waters, and more colourless mongrels from "commercials" and similar pools.
Oh, and don't forget sound (and its partner, vibration detection) - maggots, casters, hempseed, small pellets etc will soon train roach to come up in the water to the sound of a pinch of any of those being chucked in. - and of course the sound/vibrations of other fish gobbling food from surface or rooting on the bottom will grab attention.
* yes I know the dipthong letters should joined, but I have better things to do than teach my spell-checker Anglicised Greek.