Walking the Thames - Northmoor

After several days of heavy rain, it is just about bright enough today to tempt me out for a walk along the Thames.  Today's chosen route is from Bablock Hythe back to Northmoor Weir following the Thames Path.  Years ago I used to sometimes fish this stretch, when I think it was on the Newlands ticket (or some other club, not sure).  So a slight surprise when I started walking was the occurance of signs for Reading and District Angling Association.  When I was on their website somewhile back, I don't remember seeing this stretch mentioned.  But it would be very interesting if it was.

The other side of the river is owned by David Gow, who may be the "Farmer Gow" of Appleton, though that actually may be his sister.  We used to take Daughter to their farm to see the spring lambing when she was about 5.  Today the lambs are out in numbers in the fields and are charging round like lunatics as lambs do.  This far bank is quite overgrown with unpollarded willows along much of the stretch.  But this is a good thing for fishing, providing lots of cover.  It could be fished reasonably well from the Northmoor side though.

Northmoor weir is one of those old fashioned weirs based on lowering wooden slats down alongside groved wooden posts.  Some time ago, there was a plan to replace it with a modern automatic weir, but that plan seems to be on hold at the moment.  I had a brief chat with the lockkeeper at the weir and he said that in his 8 years of work there, he had only sold a handful of tickets to fish the right bank, but that such tickets were still in operation though the stretch being shared with another club. 

It is ages since I last fished a weirpool and I have Northmoor weir as a possible candidate for next season.  Today's weir configuration resulted in two main flows, left and right of centre, which produce a calm area between the two flows.  Were I fishing today, I would be ledgering in this calm area, on the edge of the fast water.  I have been watching more of the fishing videos set on the river Swale and noting the bolt rig methods he uses.  There was also an article some years ago on fishing at Burghfield weir on the Kennet which suggested something similar - so-called "codding" set ups with semi-bolt rigs, baitrunner reels, etc.  Northmoor weir might be a good spot to adopt such a tactic.

It rained quite hard on the walk back to Bablock Hythe but the wind was behind me and it wasn't unpleasant.  The river is up about a foot on recent levels and has quite a rich chocolate colour - the first time I've seen that for some while.

I called in at Barnes Lake on the way home.  This is a small trout fishery just down the road from where we live.  No one was fishing there today and the thought has occured that this could be the venue for a fishing video test.  So I have re-stocked with trout flies this afternoon - my usual early season order of daiwl bach nymphs, plus red, black and orange hoppers.  I rarely use any other type of flies.  Maybe I could go Monday or Tuesday next week?

And back home I confirmed that Reading DAA have taken a new lease on Northmoor after a year without it on the ticket.  I have been looking at some of their other waters - famous stretches like Upper and Lower Benyons on the Kennet - and I might well join them this year.  I suspect that the stretches I've just mentioned are very popular, but my fishing niche remains that I mainly fish during the week, so maybe they wouldn't be so busy then?

Another Sunday morning on the river

Wife and I had spoken of regular trips to the river and nature reserve to see the development of spring, but the lure of extra sleep was too much this morning for someone.  But I made it out before 7:00 on what was actually a really nice morning - a brief gap in the recent rain.

Armed with another bag of bread crust, one aim was to see what might be tempted to rise this time.  In the first swim I tried, at least 10 pieces of crust were taken, but downstream, interest seemed to peter out and very few takes occured.  I haven't caught a chub on floating crust for about 20 years - that would make a good video later this year.

My goal at Chimney was to get some film of deer, but none appeared in the 90 minutes I was at the hide.  I did get a brief film of a blackcap in the hedge, plus a short clip of a moorhen leading 3 chicks along the stream.  A couple of sightings of deer, but too far away to film.  And then when I did get close to one, I accidentally switched the record function off and missed a decent few minutes of film.

Back by the river and an odd sight - 45 swans gather together at the bottom of the field, all feeding on the grass.  Quite rare that you see so many together.  This gave me an idea for another video clip of just them, so I shot about 20 minutes of them from a variety of view points, which might be interesting.

Further upstream again, I managed to get about 20 seconds of a heron sitting on a branch in the river, including a shot of it taking off.  Attempts to get a clip of ducks taking off have proved quite tricky, but I may have got a single clip of about 5 seconds.  I also attempted to film a kite in the air, but had difficulties keeping it in view and in focus.  Still not really sure how the auto-focus works.

So now I have enough film for about 3 more video projects.  Firstly, the various birds coming to our feeders in the garden.  Secondly, the swans.  Thirdly, the current Chimney Meadows film, though this needs more deer and perhaps another heron clip.   

My second video project - chub taking floating crust.

Last time at the river, my attempts to film chub taking floating crust rather failed.  I managed to get just one take on camera and that was 30 yards down the river and barely visible.  But a second trip has produced over 20 takes caught on camera, a sign perhaps that I am beginning to think more about video recording and am getting better at it.

The most surprising set of takes occured in the second glide on the stretch, just downstream from one of the spots that I have floatfished for chub.  I have never fished this spot but it produced a dozen takes of which I managed to film six or seven, including one really big, splashy rise at the downstream end of the swim.  So this spot will definitely be added to my fishing plans for the start of the season.

On a couple of occasions I was able to see the fish concerned and they looked a nice size.  One was certainly over 4lbs.  My best ever chub caught on crust was something like 3-08 from the Cherwell years ago, so this is a target that I have a good chance of beating next season.  And one fish that I was able to watch closely for 10 minutes or so, resolutely refused to rise to a piece of crust despite something like 30 pieces passing over its head.  Still, much of this bread then became the free samples in the next swim down and were taken there instead.

It took me a day or two more to edit the video - I am not very good at this at all yet and will be putting much more thought into this going forward.  But it has turned out ok, and I was especially pleased with the captions I used this time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjdwQ3sMW3k&context=C498e460ADvjVQa1PpcFOSWvR1If_Bz48TItOyaBWDvllCLRJc5v4=

A rather extreme chub take from my video

More practice video - feeding chub

Another video testing day, this time mainly about comparing the two tripods I now have. I suspected that the heavier, but taller tripod would turn out to be best afterall, but a decent test was worth doing to confirm this. So off to the river again.

But this time I have a couple of slices of bread crust and one aim would be to see whether I could attract and film some chub taking the crust off the surface. I felt my best chance would be a relatively shallow glide which is slowly filling up with lilies as spring rolls on. So sighting the camera at the head of the run, I threw a dozen or so pieces of crust across the river and lo and behold, several pieces were taken. The photo below shows a few pieces of crust over to the left of the view, while the chub that took the bread were all down by the raft on the right hand side.


I followed the crust downstream about another 100 yards and one or two more pieces were taken, but I managed to film none of the them well. What I did discover is that it is better to move the camera as little as possible while tracking the crust, and also that a tiny piece of crust is quite hard to find using the little viewing screen. Focusing is not easy either.

One chub was actually seen - one about 3 lbs which had a very good look at a piece of crust as I was watching. Maybe tomorrow, armed with more bread, I will get some better video.

My first video upload to Youtube

After a few days studying some notes on how to work Movie Maker, I have produced my first video for Youtube, 8-55 of wildlife footage shot at Chimney Meadows over the last few weeks. I am actually rather pleased with this, especially the footage of the two mallards and the coot and moorhen. This is a practice for when I try and shoot some fishing videos later this year.

http://www.savetubevideo.com/?v=WAU2CzBOeAg&context=C4486d00ADvjVQa1PpcFPek9EzK7fIvLTrmkfSlSzmOgPWt1ziqs0=

The first of many I hope.

More filming at Chimney Meadows

Early Sunday morning and a trip along the river to Chimney Meadows with the video camera - the main aim being to test out a travel tripod I have bought as an alternative to the trusty but heavy tripod I have had since I was 16.

I am the only one about at this time as one might expect and before 7:00 I am settled in the hide that Wife and I visited the other week. Over the next couple of hours I shot film of two muntjac deer, some mallards, a coot and a moorhen, and a roe deer. No heron this time, and the roe deer film was very distant. But the footage was reasonable and the tripod seemed to work ok.

The other test I wanted to do was of various fishing spots to assess ease of filming there. This showed up some problems as the tripod is quite low and is unable to fit in much of the river. At times I will need the camera to be at about 5 to 6 feet high and the travel tripod is barely half that. So perhaps I will end up having to carry the older one.

Next task is to work out how to use the basic editing programme I have on the PC. I will put together a 10 minute extract from what I shot today and post it on Youtube, hopefully by the end of this week.

The first of what I hope will be many nice videos over the next few years.

Day out at Chimney Meadows & a fishy pub

Wife is not working for the next few days and we decided that today would be our "wildlife" day for Easter, with a trip to Chimney Meadows, the local nature reserve. Over the past few months, I have seen loads of interesting wildlife down there while fishing - my hope was that Wife would also get to see some today.

As it was, we were in luck. On the walk down there were loads of birds around which we were just about able to pick out in the trees. We saw a hare close up, which we startled as we rounded a corner and entered the field it was in, plus lots of ducks and swans as usual. By Shifford lock we spotted the three female roe deer which I have seen loads of times over the past few months. At the time, I thought this was a shame as I'd have liked us to have made it to the bird hide before they had appeared, but soon after we got to the hide, two other deer, probably males appeared and were happy to feed for the next twenty minutes in the open space. I had brought my video camera with me (but don't yet have the travel tripod) and did take about 10 minutes of film of them. Later a heron flew in and settled quite near us and I got some decent film of that too. Over the next couple of days, I will use this footage to learn how to edit film and how to post to youtube.

We then drove on to Burford and then back round to Faringdon by the scenic route that took us past the Swan Hotel at Radcot. We stopped here for a drink and I was delighted to find that it had a bar with loads of stuffed fish in it - a pike of 15lbs, two cases of bream (around 5lbs each fish), two trout of up to 7lbs, a perch of 2 1/2lbs, two cases of chub (5-07 and 4-10) and a barbel of 8-02. All caught locally as well and dating from about 1950 to 1962. I wonder how much a cased barbel costs.
One of the stuffed chub from the fishy bar.

Brian Clarke's Angling piece in The Times

Monday's Times has a thoughtful article by Brian Clarke on whether success at fishing is a matter of luck. It focuses on Neill Stephen's recent capture of a 9-05 chub and the preparations that went into this. The essential economy - economy of action. Pretty much all the effort goes into preparation. The cast itself is no random event. Clarke contrasts Stpehen's approach, where fishing has to take a back seat to the normal pressures of life, with those anglers who are said to "bore" fish into the net by fishing days and nights at a time.


I was reminded of a famous Dick Walker set of principles which were mentioned in something Tony Miles wrote recently. There are five such principles, and all successful captures involves compliance with them.

1. Location. The fish must exist in the venue and you must fish for them where they are in that venue.

2. You mustn't scare the fish

3. Your technique must fool the fish and, once hooked, enable you to land it.

4. You must fish when the fish are feeding

5. You must use a bait they will accept.

A successful catch means you have fulfilled each of these. But a failure can be down to any one (or all five). And there are dozens of ways in which each point can fail. Most anglers are principally concerned with rigs and bait - factors 3 and 5. Location is mainly sorted out by fishing commercial fisheries. Factor 2 is usually ignored by adopting a bait and wait approach (where the initial disturbance is inevitable but just sat through). Factor 4 is met by being there all the time and using bite alarms.

It is for these reasons that I don't fish commercial fisheries.