Tuesday 22 December 2009

On the Rocks.

In the grip of the ice...
I wish I could go after grayling tomorrow, I bet they'd oblige wouldn't they?

You see, I just can't be arsed with pike right now, even though they'd probably take a well presented free lunch, indeed my long standing personal best pike of fifteen-twelve was banked when I was fifteen on a sprat bought from Romford Market, and caught in conditions very similar to those we experience right now, at South Weald Upper Lake, Essex - the only difference being that when I caught that particular pike the Pistols were grinding out their curiously submarine anti-hit 'Submission' on the personal tape player that I'd brought to the the lake side.

I am, that old...


Unbelievable, isn't it?

I have not fished seriously for pike ever since.


The rebuilt theatre apparently a'float upon the Avon

Keith and I went and fished Stratford town waters on Sunday morning after first unpicking the birds nest of our tangled lines of communication en route (Keith has covered this in more detail, relieving me of the duty!) but in the event had bugger all in the way of piscine fun over our combined total of six rod hours of effort. A couple of swans did catch me though...


Keith gets grief...

We may as well have been invisible...!

I lost my feeders but the swans came to no harm, thankfully.

But, don't they 'ang on...?


Fishable water!

The cut is now frozen solid from end to end but yesterday morning on the way back from Tusses tackle emporium (new feeders) I came across an extremely rare patch of clear water, twenty feet square, the lucky result of a boat having passed through and pushed a whole sheet of ice under the next and thus created just enough room for two rods, and what's more, created the space at more or less the exact spot where I'd caught my personal best roach in very similar conditions last winter.

How could I not go fish it?

I made it back to the swim by one-thirty and settled in till dusk. My tactics were the usual two tip rods fishing big lobworms, an approach that I have found usually brings a fish over a pound in weight within three hours, if they are feeding that is. In fact three hours is now the limit of my patience with the canal roach. Any longer than this and I reckon I am wasting my time - they ain't 'aving it.


Don't ask me to say cheese, it's bloody freezin'...!

Today they weren't having it and my session ended utterly biteless, as one in every three does tend to. Never mind, the passers-by enjoyed the spectacle of a madman fishing a waterway frozen solid and actually I do like to be out and about when it's this harsh - it makes the capture of even a single fish something of a triumph and the capture of a really good fish, like last year's big roach, unforgettable.

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