An Angler Most Stupid...

Keith, who came over to Longford a while back for a go at the canal, picked me up yesterday afternoon for a trip to a water that was completely new to me and apparently contained a fish that I have not caught or even seen for perhaps thirty years; the mysterious shy biting creature, the crucian carp.

Thoughts on Shoaling Fish

John and I went out again the same afternoon and caught perch after perch on maggots, so we tried big worms but they produced only the occasional larger fish and nothing over twelve ounces. The roach were sunbathing

Perca Perca!

Things have been so busy of late that I've not had the time to run this blog as the diary of days that it wants to be, so this entry is something of a round up of recent fishing stuff. Unfortunately the roach are once again slowing down and approaching uncatchability

Myth in the making

Big pike have a way of assuming legendary, even mythical proportion in waters where they are least expected to be. Take my encounter with a truly massive pike just a few days ago as an example of this myth making process in action - I have told people about this pike, as you would because there is nothing quite so juicy in fishing as a monster pike story

The moving shadow

The gallery is currently hosting a student event over two nights. The trouble with students is that they live in a bubble of the university's making; everyone says yes, nothing is negotiable, and the student comes first, always. The trouble is with the real world is that the university rules are inverted

A mixed bag...

I managed to get out for a late evening session, back to the spot where I'd caught a gorgeous rudd a short while back, but on arrival spied some commotion under the bushes some way beyond, so of course, I had to see what was causing it

I was on my way to the tackle shop...

When I met up with this little fella stalking a shoal of the tiniest yearling roach innocently sipping stuff from the surface.

Slabs

Well not quite, but bin lids at least. That was what I saw when walking the dog, feeding vertically as bream do, and waving their tails in the air

Out of the corner of my eye...

At last, after many months of stop-start fishing, the canal seems to be a place where life is in full swing. Fish of all species seem to be on the move, and feeding freely. Fishing has becoming really great fun, the lovely rudd has put me in such a great frame of mind that I really don't care what I catch right now

Serendipity...

Well, because I had nothing much to do till nine o clock in the evening when Judy would come home from her weekly late session at work (verified non dubious!) I went back the same afternoon to the same spot, after a trip to the tackle shop to get some fresh bait, to see if there was half a chance of a roach being around

A dream of dream fish...

My sleeping dreams have been populated by big roach of late, all caught in strange places, and under queer circumstances. A large but very strange, almost dead ghost roach from the sea, for instance; the capture of a huge fish from the garden pond followed by a quest for set of lost scales to weigh it with, hidden away in a dusty decrepit attic

Circle hooks for Perch???

Having a ravenous pack of small perch occupying what was, for a short while, a roach stretch of the local canal has its drawbacks and its benefits. The main drawback is that there may well be larger perch hanging around but they don't get a look in, the main benefit is that they provide me with an experimental testbed where I can learn something about catching perch in general

On Roach - The Purist Fish

Roach fishing is one of the only disciplines in coarse angling where 'how' a fish is caught is far more important than 'if' a fish is caught at all, in fact roach fishing has a hierarchy of preferable methods ranked according to the skill required to effectively fish them

On Mastering an Art...

The Spring time transition period is well under way, the weeds on the allotment are exploding from their Winter dormancy and any inch of soil left unturned will be covered in small plants in just a few weeks - left unchecked, these vigorous young shoots will outstrip anything I plant amongst them and within a month or two will have reduced them to nothing