Dies Atrox...

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”

I rose to a lovely Sunday morning and decided to go back to Ansty after the perch. It would be just the kind of spring day I needed, warm and balmy

The canal starts to reveal its secrets...

An old boy once said to me in passing, 'crack the canals boy, and you can fish anywhere...'

Well, this canal roach campaign of mine, now in its third month, had taught me next to nothing

End of the drought?

Sleeping we imagine what awake we wish,
Dogs dream of bones, fishermen of fish

Fawkes' Idylliums of Theocritus, 1767

The blanks had got to me. I was getting to think that the canal really was crap after all, and that my optimistic forecasts for an increase in the frequency of bites that the warming weather would surely bring, was unfounded

Bird brains...

I shouldn't complain about my recent string of stillwater blanks, because it's pointless, there's no-one to complain to, but the ducks! Actually they are little sods aren't they? Not on rivers, where they are quite entertaining, but on shallow stillwaters they certainly are...

Thirty percenter...

Because I don't subscribe to the idea that a barbel of 10lb 1 oz is any bigger than one of 9lb 15oz, or that it really means very much to pass the arbitrary double-figure barrier for this species, or whatever that specimen figure might be for any other species

A Game of Three Halves...

For the penultimate day of the season it had to be a river, or nothing, and because the gallery was hosting a classical music event on the last day, Sunday, and my services were required the whole day it would be my last chance to fish rivers for three months

Uncanny happenings...

I was just thinking about buying a brolly, then went out the door to take the dog for a walk, and found one abandoned on the towpath. A bit old and leaky, but it works OK for me

The Ribble - Tackle Graveyard of the North

Judy had to go see her mum in Blackburn Hospital on Sunday, and because I would have been an awkward spare in such a delicate close family matter, but was also required to accompany her on the round trip, had to figure out some way to idle away the hours of the whole day

Stripey's lair...

I had it in my head, in fact I woke with the notion fully formed, to go trotting the new stretch of river I had 'found' last time out at Bretford. I figured that only trotting could cover the stretch in a proper way and besides I'd neglected the method all winter