Summer Part 2

A Milestone

This is my seventy-fifth blog entry which, considering they are fairly concise (some would say long-winded) and my otherwise astounding lack of dedication, is fairly remarkable. I have had it in mind stop at a hundred. No idea why but probably best to forewarn you. In other news I had a lovely email from one of you this month. Feel free to do the same.....

the.power@tesco.net

Barbel Hunt

In my formative years I caught loads of Barbel. Sometimes ten or more in one session. On one particular visit to the river Trent I remember struggling while my mate was catching one every cast. It would have been around 1990 and as I was only young he let me have a cast in his swim. Now bear in mind he'd had probably about fifteen fish at this point. I got one straight away and we were both in agreement- it was the biggest one of the day. How big? Three pounds and ten ounces. Different times.
Double-figure fish were virtually unheard of, especially off the Trent. I did briefly held the river Soar record with a fish of eight and half pounds though. At the turn of the century I moved to deepest, darkest Lincolnshire, a Barbel desert (a barren area, not the confectionary course, that has two s's).
The main aims this year were to up my PB's of Bream (done), Tench (not done) and Barbel. With this in mind and being bombarded with pictures of big Trent Barbel everyday on social media a trip to the Trent was in order. The tidal part is closest to my house, about sixty miles. Our friends Dave Owen and Martin Barnatt also joined me on that first trip.
Even though I'd never fished the tidal Trent before I had been doing a bit of snooping. I manged to get hold of some match results which with three hundred odd pegs to choose from, narrowed the choice somewhat. The first peg was a good one. After feeding a few pellets I fished the straight lead with two six mil' pellets on the hair. First fish was a Chub and then I had a couple of Barbel, around five or six pounds. Dave was struggling above me though and with the late arrival of Martin we agreed to move.
Martin was keen to give Dave the downstream peg but I wasn't convinced it was a big deal. Besides the pegs they were looking at were upstream of a peg that stuck at like a beacon on the match results.  Martin was right. I had two more Barbel and lost a couple to hook pulls while they blanked. When Dave looked at my hair rigs he called Martin over and they both had a good chuckle at my ineptitude. Apparently the line was coming off the hook the wrong way or something. Hey, I never said I was good, better to be lucky. Biggest one was this seven and half pounder.....

A week later I was back, Dave was with me again along with Andy Lewis. Dave wouldn't go anywhere near me and ushered me upstream. Fine by me, I had the latest match results and was going that way anyway. Besides I had the chaos twins with me so being out of the way would be sagacious. It was a fair old walk and after the previous weeks debacle I decided to give myself a google refresher on the knotless knot on the way. There is a right and wrong way! Who knew? Anyway. here's me and Harriet waiting for our first bite......

Despite a near gale force wind hampering presentation it wasn't long before I had a take, this time on a fourteen mil' pellet. At just over nine pounds it was a new PB. That was short-lived though as my next fish was bigger. Would it be a double though? Just. 10lb 1oz and mission accomplished...

Species Hunt

Every August the Specimen Hunting UK group have a species hunt. The format was simple, catch as many different species as possible in a month. I say 'was' because being a specimen based group we decided to have bonus point for the biggest of each species this year. Great idea in theory but almost impossible to administrate. Anyway my fishing time in August is always severely limited due to work so I needed to catch big fish straight off the bat. Withern Mill Trout fishery was my chosen venue and it didn't take long to get among their stocks of lovely Rainbows......

The Brownies were proving elusive though. On my way out I had a quick chat with the owner and she told me of a spot on the river where the big Brown Trout usually hung out. She was absolutely spot on, first cast and I had a savage take and heart-stopping fight with my new PB Brownie, 4lb 6oz.....

A few days later I spotted some big Rudd in my local drain. Well, one and it was in shoal of about fifty fish. I managed to actually manoeuvre a bait into its path and it took it straight away as I haplessly struck into thin air. A near 10oz Dace from another river was a decent effort but by this time the front runners were streaking ahead. Martin, Nate and Mike were all posting captures almost daily. 

At the end of the month, Mike had caught a remarkable thirty-two different species. Nate had caught thirty-one but tellingly, he had the bigger examples. He had large Carp, Catfish, Pike, Chub, Roach and Sturgeon but for me his best fish were a 12oz Dace and 12lb Barbel. What Nate caught that month (and to some extent Mike) was nothing short of incredible. Most anglers would be happy with those fish in a year, a decade, a lifetime. For Nate to catch them all in a month was simply astonishing......

Species Hunt 2017 winner- Mr Nate Green....

Species Hunt 2017 loser- Mr Mike Lyddon

Grafham

The start of the predator season on the Anglian reservoirs is always an exciting time. We booked some boats at Grafham Water for the opening two days which this year fell on a Friday and Saturday. The second day would see us fish for a trophy. Mrs P manged to turn an old ladies darts cup I bought for a fiver off a carboot sale into this sumptuous vision of glory........ 

The first day I was paired with my Lincolnshire homie- Martin. Going on  the previous years experience we headed straight for the dam wall. Three hours later we concluded that, annoyingly fish do move, especially given a year to do it. Mind you the algae wasn't conducive to great fishing........

Eventually we did mange to find a few fish, small Perch and Zander but it was hard work....

Martin with the best Perch of the day to our boat......

While many of our party struggled Darren Clarke managed to catch decent Perch, small Zeds and this fine looking Pike.......

James Aris located a few bigger Zander right at the end of day one......

Day two saw me paired with strawberry blonde angling supremo Will Barnard. After the sensibilities of Martin the previous day, it was somewhat of a culture shock.....

After choosing our first drift more or less at random it became clear the fish were up in the water. Every Perch we hooked had two or three others following it up. It remained like that for much of the day. We had around forty perch and a couple of Zander between us....

Will with a Zed taken ten feet down in forty feet of water.....

My best perch of the day.....

It was obviously easy for us because Will invented lure fishing (his words). Of one thing there can be no doubt about though is that his wife makes a fine sandwich. Superb. What a great day even if it was blisteringly hot and mill pond flat. Will had a large Perch completely engulfed by a enormadonic Pike right under the boat that he sadly lost. My best Perch weighed 2lb 10oz and as the competition was based on percentages of records I was in with a shout of the trophy. Andy Wilson came close with this Zander.......

Jamie Potts, who hardly ever weighs fish (he's a measurer) selfishly weighed a Perch, also 2lb 10oz. Bugger.......

I charitably elected to give him the trophy. Well done Jamie......

Hound Hunt

Most of the summer I've been desperately trying to up my Smoothound PB of 10lb 14oz. While I have had my best ever year (80+ fish) the really big fish have eluded me. One memorable session saw me kick of with a 9lb 4oz fish then a 9lb 10oz example followed by a 10lb 12oz fish. Sadly they got smaller after that. My camera was also playing up so you'll have to make do with one of nine pounders.......

Roach Hunt

The past few weeks or so has seen my workload diminish so I have managed to get out a little more. Nothing too serious, just a spot of Roach fishing with Dave. The really big ones are proving bloody hard to catch. In one session Dave and I fished a five hundred yard stretch one peg at a time in a bid to locate some better fish. 1lb 9oz was the best I could muster.....

Dave making a 1lb 7oz fish look about three pounds. Stunning photo and fish mind......

SHUK Round Up

Andy Lewis with a fine midlands Zander......

Chub supremo Martin visited a famous southern river.....

Andy Wilson stayed closer to home and bagged this belter of 6lb 10oz......

Joe Miller with a stunning 6lb 2oz PB............

Dave Owen getting a Eel holding lesson from his young son...........

Andy Wilson had a Barbel bonanza on the upper Trent.....

Leo Heathcote had his lure gear surgically removed so he could do some proper fishing....... 

Ste Newton with a chunky Trent barbel......

A nice Perch for Dave......

Nate, making the most of an unproductive Rudd session......

Lee Fletcher finally cracked the Smoothound conundrum....

Carl Arcus with a cracking canal Zander......

Photo's

Me, eating my sandwiches having just set off......

Zander action.....

Will, inventing playing a fish.....

My new t-shirt.....

Till next time.........

Social Media

The written word

Greetings dickheads. What? You're offended? How about some modern vernacular? Greetings cockwombles. Howdy asshats. Still getting the wrong idea? How about if you imagine you have just come around my house or you've bumped into me on the bank and I greet you in  the same manner but you can see me.............

You calmed down now? Of course you have, you can see me, I'm joking. My face and body language are communicating with you. The great thing about this is you don't even need to see the hand gesture. You can tell purely by my face. How about if I looked like this........

This changes the whole situation entirely. Maybe I do think you're a bunch of asshats and want to punch you up the bracket (I don't but how can you tell?). I hope you're getting the gist so far. Communicating with just words, no matter how articulate you are is a minefield of crossed wires, umbridges taken and friendships ruined.

Know it all

Kinesics, proxemics, paralanguage, haptics, chronemics and oculesics. Ever heard of them? Nope, me neither and I was subjected to a series of non verbal communication lectures at university (when I wasn't busy fishing). The beauty is you employ every single one of those techniques every day. I'm not an expert, I googled those terms which is another offence I could be taken around the back of the internet and given a good kicking for. The way we communicate without words is massively complex yet we do it automatically. I'll give you a very basic example, you will all have done this....

A bloke walked into the pub the other day. He trudged in with heavy feet and clambered onto the barstool as if he were ascending Mt Kilimanjaro. He slouched on the stool, head slightly bowed, dishevelled and quite clearly upset about something. His whole demeanour was speaking to me. As I approached him I uttered the immortal line- "Are you alright?".  

The answer was of course no, he'd just been dumped by his girlfriend. On a scale of being alright he was fairly low down the league table of alrightness, which I already knew before asking the stupid question.

Speaking with someone on social media gives you none of these clues. We've evolved over thousands of years to read each other physically and now, quite suddenly we are expected to be able to all get along merrily with most of our tools taken away. Little wonder we have so many fallouts. How do you know that person that's wound you up over something inconsequential isn't the guy on the barstool? You don't. They may be experiencing much more devastating life trials.

Lost Mojo's  

Take a look at your friend suggestions. How many of them are holding fish or have a similar interest to you? It's a total saturation. Gone are the days when the only fishing pictures you saw were grainy and once a week in Angling Times. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat in our circles are wall to wall, high definition tales of success and glory. Everyone is in on it. Get things into perspective. If forty anglers are on Chew Valley, one might get a thirty pound Pike. It isn't easy, I'm not saying that. It's just a fact. If someone spends a week bivvied up on the Trent and they catch a 12lb Barbel, well done. Given a bit more dexterity and a rod, one of my Labradors could do the same. Sometimes catching big fish isn't hard. The all have tiny brains. What are people jealous of? The capture or the amount of time or opportunity people have in relation to you? Be happy for people. Be nice. Take these posts for what they are.

John Wilson wasn't everyone's cup of tea but you got to see him in action. He absolutely loved every minute of his fishing. You could watch one of his programs with the volume off (some did) and still come to the same conclusion. That's back to non verbal communication again. We're all like that aren't we? Otherwise we'd be playing golf or constructing model railways. Most anglers are happy, let them show off. You know if people are catching the same fish all the time or lying. Walk on by. Everyone knows. Never compare your captures to others. Just enjoy that precious time you have doing what you love. I'm not going to lie, I like taking pics and sharing them. Do I place any value on it other that a bit of harmless showing off? No, its not even really showing off. Catching fish is relatively easy, admit it. We're not splitting atoms or doing stem cell research. Whether you like it or not, modern tackle and social media have made catching big fish easier. Go, plough your own furrow. Just get back out there and have a great time.

Final word

Think of the person that knows you better than anyone else in the world. Your partner, your mum or dad or sibling. Have you ever sent a text message or posted something on social media and they've got completely the wrong idea? I have. How on earth are people that don't know you expected to 'get you' all the time? They can't, it isn't possible. Keep that in mind next time you have a negative experience. Also be aware that, yes, there are definately some real bona-fide dickheads out there, people you'll never get on with. Walk on by, block them but remember- most of us are just that slightly embarrassing middle-aged man with a stupid grin on our faces holding a fish. 

Till next time...........

P.S New 'proper' blog soon.