Ferreting About

Me and TCG decided to try another little river,  again, it looked perfect, lots of flow and a bit of colour.

In short, it was another great day. Fish from half a dozen or more swims, mostly really good sized dace with some nice roach and chub thrown in.

You learn so much about the river when trotting. Where the snags are, the deep and shallow bits, where the fish like to sit. Your brain is constantly processing information and building a picture of what lies beneath.

Catching fish from multiple swims was encouraging, the river had a big pollution incident and number of years ago and suffers from severe abstraction issues, but it seems that life carries on, at least in some places.

Downstream of a little outfall was an absolute discourage. Baby wipes and all types of detritus everywhere, in addition to the discarded cans and plastic bottles that we apparently have to accept as the norm.

Next to nobody gives a damn about it and you can be sure "the authorities" will do absolutely feck all about any of it. Makes me so bloody angry.

Before the weather turns again we've got a couple more small streams to try for a monster dace. But really, I just like farting about in new places.

Oh, and I involuntarily cheered two Man Utd goals yesterday. Don't know what came over me.

Cadgwith, Cornwall, Summer 1978

We were on holiday in Cornwall and were visiting some relatives in Cadgwith, a classic Cornish fishing village. 

When I was a kid my mum and dad didn't have a record player. All they had was the radio, which was permanently tuned in to Radio 2, which in those days was full of stuff like Sunday with David Jacobs, Pete Murrey and if you were really lucky, Ed Stewart's Junior Choice. It was utter turd.

I'd been starved of access to good music, I knew nothing about music and frankly had never heard anything the piqued my interest. Well, you wouldn't listening to that shite would you ?

Whilst visiting the relations and becoming more and more bored as the adults talked, I asked if I could use the record player. After brief instructions, I donned the headphones and put on the first record that came to hand.

First track, a massive riff started up, quite slow and repetitive. What the feck was this ? After it finished I put the needle back to track one. I instinctively turned up the volume and played it over and over and over again,  until the volume was up to max and the riff pummelled it's way into my brain. My ears were ringing and I'd discovered something magical. 

The track was Sweet Leaf and the album Master Of Reality by Black Sabbath. Still a banger as da yoof would say.

Ever since then I've been mad on music.  First band I really got into was The Stranglers, then The Clash and The Fall.

Peel always referred to them, rightly, as The Mighty Fall. The awkward, cantankerous, contrary genius that is Mark E Smith died an incredible eight years ago but ( cliche alert ) the music lives on.

Different tracks periodically get in my brain and get played repeatedly, the incomprehensible lyrics and unique delivery casting a spell.

Recently it was "Impression of J Temperence", a story of a dog breeder, peasants and domestic violence. Like almost every other Fall song it makes no sense.

There's been dozens more, but the one that gets played more than any other is "Blindness".

A menacing, repetitive ( that word again ) baseline, a weirdy sinister sound from what sounds like Woolworths keyboards and Smith muttering and shouting, "I was on one leg ! Blind man! Have mercy on me !"

Search for the live versions at Hammersmith Palaise and Renfrew Ferry especially. 

It's a glorious, malevolent, chaotic racket, never to be repeated again. Ever.

Two Streams

The mini freeze was over, with temperatures climbing to a balmy 10 degrees C and amazingly the river levels were perfect, or at least they were on the upper river.

Two weeks without going fishing, I was mad keen for it, so arranged to meet The Chubmeister General at a little venue precisely thirty eight miles away and taking a ridiculous one hour twenty minutes to reach, due to the tiny roads.

No sign of TCG, so I started without him, in a pacey swim at a junction of two streams. I was immediately in to fish, dace, chublets and roach. 

By the time TCG had turned up I was in a different swim, catching chunky dace and roach and was in to my third big ( for a ten foot wide stream ) chub which had the magnificent "Dace Ace" rod bent double.

Having previously said he wasn't feeling it, he immediately siezed the rod and refused to return it, his enthusiasm back to normal levels, until we decided to have a look at an even smaller stream ten minutes away.

What an incredible place it was, in woodland full of birdsong, fast shallow riffles, deeper bends, steady glides. A perfect stream.

Every likely looking swim produced plenty of fish, on one particular bend we took it turns to trot down and had a bite a chuck for over an hour, it must have been thick with them.

I actually stopped fishing before dusk, sat down and watched the TCG trotting his centre pin for the last half hour. I was fished out.

Winter fishing doesn't get much better.

Poking About

A new club ticket was purchased for a river on the edge of the Fens, a venue that rises on chalk and generally runs clear, the upper reaches holding dace,chub and trout and the lower end classic Fen fish, rudd, bream and if you're lucky tench.

Waaaak and I arranged to have a day looking round just after Christmas, but his car troubles ( sing along with Adam ) meant I was alone.

First stop, an absolutely tiny stream, mostly unfishable, due to it being only inches deep. In a rare deep(er) pool I spied dace, but didn't fish, noting the spot for a future visit.

A few miles down the road in a hillbilly town, I walked an overgrown, almost canal like section, festooned with floating detritus, plastic bottles, cans, the usual stuff. Groups of bored kids roamed the banks ( sounds as if they're more feral and delinquent than "walked" or "played aĺong". I've been ready the Daily Mail you know ).

It was all rather uninspiring.

I came to a little weir pool, plenty of flow here. It looked great, if you ignored the masses of bankside rubbish. When you usually fish in a rural environment you forget what dirty bstards some people are.

First trot down and the float shot under. A lovely, good sized dace, the first fish on the beautiful ten foot, cut down 1990s Drennan Crystalite, customised by the legendary Lord Lobkin of Wivenhoe. 

More dace followed, plus some roach and a couple of decent chub, all this with an otter working the pool the whole time.

After an hour I jumped in the van to check out a section further upstream. A wooded, scenic, very slowly flowing piece of water.

By now, the light was fading fast. A handful of maggots in a likely looking swim and the float again buried first cast. A nice roach. And so it continued,  with some dace thrown in for good measure.

An interesting, enjoyable,  if unspectacular day. It's been said a thousand times, but trotting a float down a winter river takes some beating.

Pre Christmas Fishing

Couple of sessions last week.

On Monday it was Waaaak Baines, who turned up at the river fully laden with his entire collection of fishing gear. We were planning to have a rove, so Waaak decided to bring, not one, not two, but three rods. Ideal if you've got a sherpa or two, but not if you're a sixty two year old big'un.

Waaak had two or three chances of a chub, but unfortunately luck was not on his side.

I stuck to the float and endlessly trotted all afternoon for just two bites, which luckily I converted into two modest chub.

Tuesday and it was a visit from Barry the Mullet Man, who was after his first chub for twenty five years.

I didn't fish for a change, I just ghillied and baited the swims.

First chuck Barry had an absolute corker, a really short, chunky fish of 4lb 3oz. As you'd expect,  he was chuffed.

He ended the day with three nice chub, so a really good result.

Great to see and fish with mates.

2025

When the world is on fire and everything is seemingly going to ratshit, what's the correct response?

Well, the answer to misery is not more misery. Try and do what you love, see your friends and family as much as possible and don't let the bastards grind you down. That's my view anyway.

Apart from the poor oldies ongoing and worsening health problems, I have to say it's been a bloody good year. Of course there's been some ups and downs, but that's life.

At the back end of last season I had some sessions trotting with The Chubmeister General for dace and roach on the Suffolk Stour, Blackwater, Little Ouse and Brain. Nothing huge but lovely fishing and something I want to do again next year. 9

The Great Ouse continued to provide some brilliant mixed fishing with some big rudd, perch and clonking silver bream thrown in.

In April the mullet arrived and as you'll know if you regularly read this blog, I fished for them and the bass throughout the warmer months,  catching the last one on 13 November. Learnt lots and had some superb sport, with a few big ones thrown in too.

As usual the midsummer camper trip was the highlight, 5 weeks of non stop fishing and cycling in Holland, Germany and Denmark.

Catching some big perch from the Baltic in Denmark was one of the many highlights, great fishing in beautiful surroundings. 

The lure fishing in Holland was rock hard, after lots of blanking I was eventually rewarded, landing two decent asp one evening on topwater lures, incredibly exciting fishing.

Obviously,  I have to mention the roach fishing. It was off the scale. The four biggest roach going 11lb 10oz , with the biggest a monster of 3lb 4.5oz. Incredible. 

Plenty of big ide too, with fish well over 5lb from three rivers, the Susa in Denmark and the Waal and Ijssel in Holland. 

The Susa river is fantastic, stuffed full of fish of all sorts. In one section, right by where the camper was parked, I saw a group of five carp, in fast flowing water more suited to barbel. The biggest wouldn't have been far short of 30lb.

The usual hitches and mishaps on the trip, including getting stuck down a little lane in Denmark and filling the cabin with smoke from a burning clutch, three tyre changes, one rod destroyed and two quivers broken.

 "All part of the adventure".

We stayed at all types of places, mostly harbours and free park ups, a few campsites and rather bizarrely, a night in a German bloke's garden.

Another fantastic trip.

When we returned, it was back on the mullet and bass, the fishing being at its best in October and November. A couple of nice flounders and a nice sea trout, all on lures, added a bit of variety. 

Oh, and a great day in September with Bully where I managed the Essex/Suffolk Grand Slam of a mullet on the fly, and bass and a sea trout on lures. Probably never repeat that.

I wangled a three carp from the river this year, all in mint condition and probably uncaught, a fish of 25lb 3oz caught on a lightweight trout rod being the highlight. Absolutely mad fight and chaotic scenes landing it. 

Didn't help that I was covered in blood and scratches, having fallen off the bike into a ditch full of brambles and stingers right next to the swim !

What of 2026 ?

Well, as usual I'll change my mind countless times, not book anything and go wherever flow takes me, I suppose.

Me and Bully have trip to Holland pencilled in for late March for big roach and perch, but other than that, nothing concrete. 

I also fancy a go at some very big grass carp in a canal near Gouda. We had a recce on the bikes this year and it looked great.

Hoping to go to the far north of Finland or Sweden for some grayling. Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't.

The big summer trip will probably be either the west coast of Ireland or Scandinavia, we'll see.

Spotify recently told me my most played album of 2025 was Ensoulment by The The, followed by Eton Alive by Sleaford Mods. I recommend you listen to them both, they're bloody brilliant. 

And finally, I'll leave you with this....

Toodle pip.

Bingo

You know the old cliché that comes out when someone has a good result ?  Effort = Reward.

Yeah, yeah, we all know that. Although it's trotted out all too often, it's true nonetheless. 

I've been prebaiting several swims. One is a known good swim and the rest are punts. 

This afternoon I fished three of them. The first, in a crappy, but fishy looking section, looked a cert for a chub. I sat there biteless for almost half hour, surprised at the lack of action.

Second swim, where I've seen trout and carp in the summer, another blank.

Third swim, a weir pool, carrying plenty of extra water, the only steady bit being my pre baited area. First chuck, a rattle. Second chuck the feeder didn't even hit bottom.

Thought it was a floating log at first. No, the rod kicked over, its alive.

Ahh...a pike has took the worm on the drop ? Better be careful, just in case it isn't a pike.

I'd got sort of stepped up chub gear on, 8lb line and a strong size 10 hook, so had a chance of getting whatever it was in, although the water, especially close in, was going like a train.

After five or six minutes it surfaced, a decent carp. It was a long drop to the water, the landing net just about reached, but not properly and I couldn't leave it in the water as the flow was so strong. 

Just as I was doubting I'd be able to land it, a young bloke I know turned up. He got on the net immediately and scooped it up first time. Top work mate.

A lovely 19lb common. Next cast a ruffe.

Wahoooooo !

A great couple of hours.