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Winding down


Vagabond

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On 10/3/2020 at 12:02 AM, Peter Waller said:

I worked up until I was 67, enjoying my piking with a passion, and building up my tackle with a view to retiring and fishing with absolute enthusiasm as I progressed through my dotage. What I hadn't bargained on was the health issues surrounding close family members and eventually myself, my mobility is now severely limited so like Dave I have had to wind down and find manageable alternatives, instead of thirty pound pike I now seek two pound roach with great pleasure! Thank goodness my garden runs down to the water's edge.  Regretfully my wife is no longer able to fish with me and I need to be within her calling distance. 

The moral of this lament is obvious, don't leave it too late. I never bargained on a failing body, nor that of others. At least I am still fishing but am no longer able to roam my beloved Broads as I used to. Getting old is not what I expected but I am enjoying the change of discipline and interests. There is something hugely satisfying in flicking out a stick float and using my Angler's Net centre-pin although this summer has been the year of big bream and rudd rather than big roach. 

Peter, that sounds amazing stuff! 'The year of big bream and rudd' from your own garden! And quest for big roach. I'm sure we'd all love to hear more

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john clarke

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1 hour ago, The Flying Tench said:

Peter, that sounds amazing stuff! 'The year of big bream and rudd' from your own garden! And quest for big roach. I'm sure we'd all love to hear more

Nothing amazing, I'm privileged to live besides one of the Norfolk & Suffolk Broads, luck of birth! The local 'bream patrol route' runs past my garden and bream are notoriously easy to catch, especially when using molasses and garlic flavoured cloud bait. Okay, so the gear used clearly makes a difference. Depending on the tide I'm fishing in one to four feet of water and a size 18 under a self cocking float, no additional shot, one red and one white maggot or a knob of garlic flavoured bread paste on a size 10 fished 4 to 6 inches over depth normally does the business during summer and autumn. Some variations if it's windy and blowing onshore then I do add a shot or two, even a ledger. It can be all to easy! Bit harder for the rudd though, still a self cocking float but fishing up in the water and over the weed rather than on the gravel and silt that the bream appear to like.  Come the winter normally it's pike and perch, most likely from a dory or a kayak although I'm finding that increasingly hard so I'm more likely to be fishing from the bank now and casting a swim feeder out into the deeper water of the main broad after roach or bream which I'm really enjoying. In truth Broads piking is in serious decline, as I am, so roach is now number one!

 

Edited by Peter Waller
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Several rudd the right side of two pounds and a healthy number of bream in the five to eight pound bracket. What has been good is that many of the bream have been hooked in less than two feet of water and when it is that shallow some, not all, have gone off like rabbits in headlights. Have had bigger in years gone by but not in the same quantity. Our local Broads Authority have been dredging nearby which I suspect has interfered with the bream's usual patrol route thus they have holed up for the summer in my corner of the broad. I hear that other anglers have had good roach fishing, several fish well over two pounds elsewhere on the broad but such fish have evaded me, perhaps excluded by the bream? 

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This is wonderful stuff! As a teenager I used to read things about The Broads being an angling mecca, but I had the impression it was all a thing of the past. Which broad is it? Is there a resurgence generally? I must think about a fishing break on the Broads - may well not be practicable, but who knows?

john clarke

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  • 2 weeks later...

Like all fisheries the Broads has its ups and downs. At the moment it's generally riding high. Whilst there is plenty of waterside accommodation, much with good fishing, there is even more if you holiday afloat. How's that for next year's holiday?

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  • 1 month later...

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