Vagabond

Boat fishing the top end for barra, we had a few on dead fish, but every so often we got "snagged" After a bit the "snag" would move and march out of the water onto the creek bank. There it would snap the line. Happened twice each to Norma and myself. Each time the snag proved to be a bigger saltie than the previous one. After the fourth saltie our skipper decided to move - "the bigger fellas are more savvy" he said "and will work out where the free fish are coming from, and try to get in the boat after them" He showed us some scratch marks on the keel to "prove" it, but I have known too many guides show us home-made "leopard/panrher/puma/jaguar footprints" (funny its usually a single print) to take that without a pinch of salt. However, there were plenty of barra and no crocs at the new location.

Almost a re-run of post #2 - except the temperature and the wind had dropped and it was quite chilly as we tackled up at 8 am. Absolutely dead until nine, when the loose feeding of very little and not too often began to pay off. .Lots of small perch and roach to maggot - singles only - bunches were refused - all morning until 1pm when Norma suggested going home to lunch soon. "Just ten minutes then" I said, packed in the tiddler-snatching and tried an old trick - a bigger bait on the fringe of the loose feed area, and at last a good run, and a pound and a half perch to put a bend in the rod.. Just like post #2, packed up and home to hot home-made soup - well=spiced tomato this time.

There are good sensible reasons why some wear baseball caps back to front, just as there are good sensible reasons for wearing them the "right" way round. A politician might say that gives the wearer a "choice" Me ? I combine the advantages of both, and wear a deerstalker.

...and the commercially made ones are just not elastic enough to grip the float firmly enough,- so you are suffering from "depth cheat" after a longish cast because the float slides along the line during the cast. Better to get good quality rubber tube (model-makers' shops etc) and cut slices off it

For "dink" fishing (ie tench or anything smaller) in ponds I have always used porcupine quills, painted the top inch with fluorescent red, orange magenta,, pink or yellow model-maker's paint and attached by an eighth-inch slice of cycle valve rubber top and bottom. I acquired a lifetime's supply of valve rubber about seventy years ago from a mate whose uncle kept a cycle shop. Dusted with French Chalk and stored in a closed container in a cool cupboard, it seems to last for ever - there was about a yard of it originally, and I have about half left - so it will last me until about 2088 No problem with tangles, I usually make it my business to get close enough to the fish so that I fish under the rod tip. Yes, if you want to cast a porc, you need to realise they are heavier than your shot string - I use bird quills for longer casting of floats, ( crow duck,goose, swan etc) with appropriate shot.and am always running short of the right sized float rings for them.

I have just checked, and I own nine greenheart rods, in various stages of repair or disrepair, ranging from a spliced-joint salmon Spey rod of 14 ft to a very light Wanless-style spinning rod of some 7 ft. All I have owned for fifty years or more, none were bought new, but acquired for a few shilings when everyone else went crazy over fibre-glass. I suppose the whole lot cost me the equivalent of thirty quid of today's currency. All except the Spey have caught me the fish they were designed for. Yes, they need getting used to, especially the slower action of the larger rods. However, i doubt, at the age of 84, that I will ever use them again, as at long last I find fly-fishing too tiring with all but the lightest rods - I used a ten-foot greenheart wet fly rod until well into my seventies - single-handed - are we men or mice?

Apologies to those who have heard this before,but in my triploid rainbow era I used greenheart fly rods and these new-fangled split-bamboo rods.. Everyone else used high tech carbon fibre plus various exotic additives and made snide remarks about "grandpa's rods" There was unmistakably a culture of one-upmanship about the syndicate I had many rainbows in double figures and up to 21 lb odd and to be fair, most people caught doubles - there was little skill involved apart from playing a strong fish on light gear. Many used lead-headed flies lures. If such a lure hit the carbon rod during their many false casts it produced a weak spot. The next fish that put a decent bend in the rod found that weak spot and the rod snapped - this happened at least three times that I remember and my response each time was to chuckle, shake my head and audibly wonder "why people went in for cheap plastics rods". (they were about £700 a throw last time I ;looked) That left me decidedly one up

I always used to favour "Anchor" shot, but nobody stocks it around here now, and "Dinsmore" is the next best thing. I like soft shot because I squeeze it on GENTLY with forceps. Apply too much force and there is a serious risk of weakening your line. It means I can readily remove shot with a thumbnail - good for changing rigs, and for recycling your shot many times (I also use float rubbers top and bottom so I can change floats quickly) The only disadvantage with lightly-pinched-on shot is that a big fish will stretch your nylon - and stretched nylon is thinned nylon, and some of the shot may drop off as a result. Hopefully, if one hooks a carp whilst roach fishing, one hopes the hook will straighten instead, saving shot and valuable fishing time. It is easier to renew a hook than a string of shot.

Nice roach Rusty - any roach over a pound is good news.

As many as that ? I am not surprised -, only disappointed.

The last few weeks has been hard work, just small fish and a 3 lb eel during the dry spell. So the tail end of a hurricane might stir things up, thought I Nope, at first,the same story, lots of tiddlers yesterday morning whilst fishing in a howling gale, until about 11.30 then the wind changed suddenly - from driving into our left ears from WNW it dropped , the ripples died away,then a gentle breeze from the SE sent a raft of floating leaves and twigs across the pond (They had been torn from the surrounding oaks and all those floating in the pond had been piled up by the gale into the shallow corner to our right), The whole change took place in about ninety seconds. Just before the nor westerly gale dropped, I had a run on a deadbait (tiddlers have their uses) which proved to be a perch of a pound and a half, Not a big perch in the grand scheme of things, but one of the better fish in this small pond, When the gentle breeze started we decided to stay an extra couple of hours, but despite the "improved" conditions no further perch materialised. We settled for a late lunch, for which hot soup made from sweet potato and Thai spices was served, most welcome and a sign that summer is over. No more gazpacho until next June ! Now I know that perch are not supposed to like wind, but this is not the first time recently that I have caught better-than-tiddler perch in a howling gale. Have they adjusted to climate change (Climate has been changing ever since Earth had a climate) - whilst we are still running around in circles arguing about whose "fault" it is ?

At least one useful item has been produced by the mighty carp tackle industry - small rubber beads, one of which placed upline of the swivel stops damage to my nice agate tip rings which adorn my nice split-bamboo light spinning rods.

Some of the hands went a bit close to the shredder, fingertips in would lead to your wellies being shredded......... or is this from before the days of "elf an' safftee innit"

Well done John. The catch is less important than "Being There" Yes, everything now takes longer, I need glasses to thread hooks and tie knots now, and the developing tremor in my right arm doesn't help either, but I did get out after perch this last week, only small perch caught, and the one three-pounder was an eel. A very considerate eel though, no slime on clothes nor tackle (I beached it) and once on dry land it obligingly shed the hook - bundled it into a plastic shopping bag for weighing and return _ I wish all eels were as co-operative I am having to give up the more energetic styles of angling, where scrambling is involved - rock fishing and rough stream trout in wild places have gone, as have sea trips (legs wont hold me upright in anything over Force 4) but that still leaves plenty to go at - even fly fishing is possible in ten minute bursts with a rest in between - I take a folding chair. Keep at it mate !

No need to go abroad for zander - we have caught plenty from the Severn whenever we go that way, Norma and I have caught 501 different species worldwide - some species have interested us enough to want to catch more - such as tench, perch, bonefish, mullet, marlin, barramundi and wild trout. Other species we have caught, but not been too enthused by them, and moved on to another species Black bass, carp, cod, bream and mackerel belong to this latter group It has nothing to do with sheer fighting ability, rather it is an intangible matter of how challenging it is to catch a good one. Just how irrational this feeling is can be judged by the fact I put roach in the first category and rudd in the second. I once had a roach-rudd hybrid of 3-12 and didn't know if I should be pleased or not (Gozzer pointed out it was 1-14 rudd and 1-14 roach, so I still had not caught a 2lb roach) Plenty of places and species to choose from, "The world is your oyster" - or as Arthur Daley put it ".....your lobster" Choose a venue (or a species) and I might be able to offer more specific advice

"a cuppa " at the angling shop - yep I remember, six communal chipped mugs, stained mahogany inside.........happy days. USA just the same, but coffee instead. John Geirach described tackle-store coffee. "Strong enough to take four spoonfuls of powdered creamer without changing colour" Fortunately I have acquired/made enough gear to last until about 2050, by which time I will be 116 and considering retiring.......

About 15 years ago I purchased a headlight from a mail order outfit that has since gone the way of "everything for the carp fisher" (The company, not the headlight which latter BTW is still working) I no longer buy from this firm, but they still optimistically send me a large catalogue annually I look with some amusement on the expensive accouterments such as "buzzer bars"" etc (I still use a forked stick with rod-butt on the ground.....) I thought I would share the latest "essentials", Boilies are expensive enough, and for those who believe in groudbaiting with boile fragments, making some with a hammer is an easy but expensive way of increasing ones chances. No longer ! Enter the "Advanced Boilie Crusher" This machine will "chomp its way through 1 kilo of boilies in under one minute" (No its not electric, you have to turn a handle at the side like playing a hurdie-gurdie - but the handle is detachable for easy transport) A bargain at £43.99 For those not content with one sort of boilie, there is an accompanying plastic "modular bucket system" holding (wait for it) ......up to 30 litres of boilies in three containers Price £19.99 Illustrated as black - dunno about camou or stainless steel......

In the old days, highland lairds stocked mountain lochans with trout, carried up in wooden barrels on a ghillie's back. Not an ergonomically or economically sound exercise, but of course little cost to the laird. I've trekked to quite a few such. Sometimes they are ful of tiddler trout, but soetimes there are fish over a pound apiece in quite tiny lochans.

Yes, that's what I was hinting at, but I never fish commercials now, and sadly, many club anglers are putting pressure on their committees to turn all club still waters into replicas of commercials - overcrowded fish swimming about in a milky-coffee coloured soup of stirred-up bottom debris, fish crap and surplus groundbait. There is some illusion of skill in catching what is called "a good match weight" from such waters. Any skill involved is the skill of the assembly line rather than that of a hunter I used to fish a lot of these places for free to help provide "features" for a mate who edited a fishing magazine, but one soon gets tired of what is not too far removed from shooting fish in a barrel - there is no way I would part with money to do that. But then, I'm a grumpy old bugbear who was brought up on sight-fishing in clear watesr, As the above mentioned mate said before he passed on "Dave, I think we have already had the best of it"

I would just add the thought that sweet corn (dunno about maize, supermarket tinned corn is cheap enough for me) seems to work on heavily fished waters, but not so well on the sparsely fished waters I prefer. I always remember a trip to Redmire in the days when very few anglers were permitted to fish there - the water was gin clear, and I had been told the previous angler had left ten days before. A preliminary "recce" established that one swim was carpeted by bright yellow sweet corn - an area about five feet by five feet, No fish were in the swim (although fish could be observed in other swims) so I elected not to fish there (Pitchfortd's Pitch for those who know the water). The corn was still untouched when I left at the end of the week. The contents of two or three dozen tins (or perhaps a catering pack or two) must have been in there. Not good practice. I wonder how much sweet corn goes into the average commercial fishery, let alone the other gubbins. ....and yes, I did catch at Redmire - nothing spectacular, but carp, eels and gudgeon all fell to lobworm

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 !

I think Kipling's ironies are beyond the comprehensions of the modern-day "politically correct" Kipling's racist soldier ruefully complaining about his Indian mistress ".....for she knifed me one night 'cos I wished she were white" focuses very neatly on the attitudes leading to racial problems. To call the poet (instead of the soldier) "racist" is just crass.

indeed, John, but remember how the fable ends,,,,,a real wolf and nobody listening. Personally i think the analogy of water finding its own level applies . French vintners want us to buy wine, German car firms want to sell us cars - they wont wear "punishing" the UK with tariffs - if they do, then Aussie/N Zealand wines and Chinese/Japanese cars will flourish instead.

Dave, i think you are missing the point - i'm not talking about warming tea on the firehole shelf, nor frying eggs on a shovel. I'm talking about working a steam loco with up to 220 lbs per sq inch boiler pressure - highly dangerous unless one knows exactly what one is doing. Man is slow to learn, and it took lots of boiler explosions in Victorian times before the lessons sunk in

When I worked as a volunteer steam locomotive footplateman, I used to do that all the time !