A surprisingly easy evening trout fishing

Way back in time, just after 9-11 in fact, I was due for a day's trout fishing at Chew with my banking friend Robert and the famous fishing guide, John Horsey.  Due to 9-11, Robert couldn't attend so John and I shared the boat and both fished.  When I got there at 12:00, John was really excited saying that huge numbers of fish were hovering just below the surface and we would have a great day on dry flies.  And so it proved.  We caught something like 120 fish that day, split 75-45 to John.  Despite becoming acutely aware of John's obviously higher skill level, I was really pleased with my 45 fish, all taken on dry flies - who wouldn't be?  I doubt I will ever have such a day trout fishing again.

But yesterday came close!

Actually really easy fishing days are, in an important sense, actually quite uninteresting as there isn't the challenge there is usually.  The story was this.  I fished Bushyleaze trout fishery arriving at just after 4:00pm.  Bushyleaze is one of my favourite fishing spots though I have only managed a couple of trips to it over the past few years.  In particular, it responds well to my preferred fly fishing method of dries or nymphs just below the surface.

I started in the bay at the south end of the lake and soon discovered a huge collection of fish holed up by a tree and keen to take dries or nymphs.  In the next four hours, I had about 40 takes, hooked around 20 fish, and landed a fair few (including three foul hooked fish - which is a bit unusual, but just shows how close to the surface the fish were), all of which I returned.  Best fish was 5-05, two others over 4lbs and the rest about 2 1/2lbs.

It didn't seem to matter that there were frequent disturbances to the area from hooked fish, the others just kept on taking.  I actually hooked 9 fish on the same fly, until it became so tatty that I had to replace it.  Virtually every fish was caught on a size 12 daiwl bach nymph - the one with the touch of red.  And in the end this actually became a bit dull.  Once past about 6:30, I rarely went three casts without a take, at one point hooked five fish in seven casts, and on another occasion had three takes in about 10 seconds, two of which I missed and one fish I lost.

But it is also important to remember that such days are really, really rare.  Hardly anyone else caught anything (a guy I showed the fish location to had a couple from there) and I have had many, many hard days catching one or two fish after hours of effort.  So such freakishly good days should be accepted gratefully when they occur and remembered fondly when times are much tougher.

Because there is so much action on the video cameras, I have ended up posting three videos of the trip, edited so it doesn't quite look like I am catching one fish after another!  I suspect this is rather over-the-top but it did give me lots of good practice at making the films and to do some experimenting with editing.  No doubt there will be plenty of videos later in the year where nothing much happens.  One thing I did notice with the video is that it appears I am fishing really close to the fish.  There is a slight telephoto effect from the camera.  I am actually about 15 to 20 yards from the tree, casting down to it so that the fly lands as close to the tree as possible.  At times it looks like I'm virtually on top of the fish!

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6PA_v_bbE0&feature=related

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuF1sWGWGoA&feature=related

Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYFKb7z_kcU&feature=related

New thoughts on filming - a second camera

I was talking to my friend Jerome the other day about video making and he happened to mention that he had just bought a secondhand video camera on ebay for about £10.  It was three or four years old, but seemed fine for what he wanted it for.  So with that in mind I went onto ebay to see about acquiring a second camera exactly the same as my current one.  Several hours later, I now have two Sony Handycams, having paid the princely sum of £29 for another one.

It seems to me that this has quite an impact on my planned filming.  Now I can have one camera quite close by to which I direct comments and hopefully show off caught fish, and then I can have a second camera sited well away from me that just takes longer range shots. I have also picked up a long life battery for the new camera as well as a couple more memory cards.  Now I can shoot about 6 hours on each camera.

Finally, I came across some tiny video cameras used by people skateboarding, snowboarding, mountain biking, and so on, to take head cam shots.  Another £20 has got me one of these.  It shoots to a 32GB memory card but apparently has really poor battery consumption.  This could be quite a nice add on though.

So now I am really kitted out with video stuff for the new fishing season

Another walk by the Thames

The constant rain of the last few weeks has finally abated and we have had a few days of dry weather.  Getting up at 5:30am on a Sunday morning to walk the river was a bit of a shock but I thought it might enable more wildlife to be seen down there. 

Duxford ford was still very high but the path further downstream was no longer under water, though very slippy.  I was quite surprised by the evidence for how high the water had got - maybe 3 or 4 foot higher than it now is from the silt that had been deposited over the plants growing by the river.  Also I was surprised by the number of big tree branches that had split off from their main tree trunks.  In 3 or 4 places, the path is now effectively blocked.  And much further down, there is now a new tree in the water that could potentially be a very good new fishing spot. 

I had brought a few slices of crust with me, more to examine the floodwater flow than on any expectations that I could persuade a chub to rise.  But much to my surprise, at one spot, I did actually get about a dozen pieces taken.  That was the only spot though where they did seem happy to take it.  I wonder if that is a new potential strategy - floating crust in receding floodwater!

I walked as far as the chapel near the downstream end of the section.  Some swallows or swifts have arrived down there and were feeding over the river.  Attempts to film them in flight failed completely.  Two herons also about but I couldn't get near enough to them, and a pair of tufted ducks - the first I've seen this year. 

I did take some more video, mainly for a possible short film showing various spots back in March when the river was low in comparison with now when it is just past the peak flood.  But I didn't walk all the way round to the hide at Chimney this time. 

The weather is supposed to continue improving and we may get some sunshine this week.  I might be able to have an afternoon / evening trout fishing and quite fancy Bushyleaze this time.  Maybe Tuesday or Thursday.

Latest fishing reading

With just a few weeks to go to the new season, I am doing a spot of pre-season, fishing-related reading.  For the last couple of days, I have been reading John Wilson's account of his fishing in 1990.  Years ago, when I had only been fishing for a year or two, my parents bought me John Wilson's A Specimen Fishing Year.  This remains one of my all-time favourite fishing books and was the main reason I started a fishing diary back in the mid-late 1970s.  Go Fishing Year is in the same style but his fishing now has a huge international bias to it, related to the TV shows.  I was hoping to glean some valuable fishing-programme-making tips, but it seems that the main lesson is that the teams that make the TV shows are actually quite large - 5 or 6 people - and that each show takes several days to make.  But the info about filler and continuity shots was interesting and is exactly the sort of stuff I am thinking about lots at the moment.  Really nice photos too.

I bought Targets set and Achieved directly from Phil a few months back.  I am a big fan of his fishing blog and the book very much follows the same format as the blog.  The individual entries are all very interesting and I have been thinking alot about some of the points made.  So overall, I rather like the book.  My one and only gripe is actually the whole "targets" approach.  I don't think the fishing stories are enhanced particularly by this overall theme - they stand up themselves without it.  And it does lead to the unfortunate feature that once the target is caught, that's it, its off to another place. 

This book is a self-published affair and interesting because of this.  A fair few typos and some odd phrasing here and there, but actually a really good effort more or less on his own.

Next up will be Chris Yates' The Deepening Pool, then maybe Miles and West's Quest for Barbel, both older books from my collection - and I want to read the 60 back issues of Course Angling Today that I acquired over the winter. 

Tentative goals for the new season

Much of my thinking about fishing for the new season has been driven by my planned filming. Within these filming plans, a tentative list of goals / venues is beginning to form.

I expect most of my fishing to take place on the Thames between Duxford and Bablock Hythe persuing chub and barbel - about 4 miles of river, with four or five distinct venues. Northmoor weir is one of my first planned venues on the theory that, early season, fish will like the well oxygenated water. This might be where I first try a "bait and wait", two-rod approach for the first time.

Other nearby venues include the Evenlode and Windrush, both of which I plan to fish for barbel on during July and August, though the chances of catching anything at either venue are not high.

Further afield, I have a couple of stretches of the Kennet which I want to fish a dozen times or so over the summer.

Finally, two rivers that I only plan to fish two or three times each - private stretches of the Hampshire Avon (after a huge chub or barbel) and the Frome (after a personal best grayling).

One other possibility might be to go trout fishing in the Lake District - I thought I might try one trip on Esthwaite Water and maybe one trip to one of the high tarns after tiny wild brownies. I will also do a couple of fly fishing trips to Barnes Lake and Bushyleaze.

I have been studying the various issues involved in filming these trips and am beginning to get an idea about what I am really trying to achieve with this. I am intending to shoot all trips, blanks and all, but perhaps edit consecutive blanks together into shorter clips. This way, the videos will be a complete diary. I am also going to try and film a number of fishing techniques, including things like floating crust for chub, so the films have a good level of variety. My goal is to make somewhere around 50 films in 35 weeks. That is hugely ambitious I suspect.

Walking the flooded Thames

A brief pause in the almost constant rain and a chance to go for a walk along the river - or so I thought.  At Duxford the river was over the bank upstream of the ford and the ford itself had virtually disappeared - the water flow over it left it virtually flat.  I would guess the river was up about 2 foot.  This meant that the footpath downstream of the ford was underwater and it wasn't possible to get much further down.

Following me down to the river were a oldish couple who were apparently there to scatter the man's mother's ashes at Duxford ford.  I think they decided to wait for a better day.  The man looked quite a lot like famous barbel angler Ray Walton, but it probably wasn't him!

So I returned to Hinton and walked down to the lock at Shifford via the path Bernie uses when he comes dow to lay crayfish nets on his quad bike.  The bottom field by the lock was flooded a little - enough to encourage swans to settle on the water and for me to get wet feet walking across the ground.  I took a little bit of video of some of the swims in flood conditions and might have some shots of the same area from back in March when it was desperately low.

A few years back, early summer floods rather washed out the first two months of the fishing season - much as I want rain to keep falling, I also want to be able to get to the river to fish, so a let up in the rain in early June, say, would be good.

Detailed review of another John Wilson fishing video

A couple of years ago, I transferred some old videos onto DVDs and then copied them onto one of the external hard drives on the PC.  Today's video review is one of my favourite episodes of Go Fishing, the one where John Wilson is fishing for barbel on the Wensum and catches two fish, including an immaculate double from just under a bush on the far bank.

This clip lasts about 10m 40s in total and is made up of 51 seperate clips, for an average of 12 seconds each.  Five or six clips are actually quite long, over 30s with a maximum of 54s, but these long clips are the sort I wouldn't be able to take, generally featuring a moving camera recording JW playing a fish.  Tremendously exciting, but not possible for me to replicate.

The film also has several shots of fish in the shallow water, also something that I doubt I could replicate. 

My next fishing video review will be something from Catching the Impossible - a very different style of fishing programme.  Then I will start to summarize my review results so far, and draw up a small checklist of things to remember when I am filming my own fishing.

JW heaving against his double figure barbel - just shows the strain that the tackle can take

Not a bad picture, given that it is a screen capture on a PC from a copy of a video made more than 10 years ago

First fishing video - "My Fishing life 1"

Producing my first fishing video started with a review of yesterday's footage - all 180 minutes of it.  Shots showing me casting well were highlighted, some bits of me fishing with bird song on them in the background, shots with fish rising and, in one case, jumping, the actual capture of a fish, various filler shots, and so on.

Gradually a structure for the clip came together.  The introduction is fine, there are some ok clips with me casting to rising fish, or the one jumper.  Then I switch to the other lake, finally catching the one fish of the day.  Shame this bit of the film has a poorly positioned camera angle.  The filler shots are ok as well.  I decided to not bother with music this time, but I did use some captions.  Also I was quite pleased to have hit on the idea of using a neutral clip of me casting for the title page and end page.

I am getting slightly better at edited as well, eventually producing a video of 13 mins 11s in about two hours.  As I write this, my video is slowly being uploaded to youtube, something which seems to take ages.

So what did I learn from film 1?  Well I did notice that my fly casting technique needs some work.  I am letting the rod slip back too far and not loading it properly for the forward cast.  And I don't have the rod low enough when I'm retrieving. 

And in respect of the movie?  I do need to concentrate on getting the shot well framed.  I could usefully have a notebook going as I film so I can find the interesting bits a bit easier than viewing it all.  And I need to do something to improve the sound.  And buy a second memory card so I can record 6 hours instead of 3.  And keep a notebook while fishing.

Finally, I did make one mistake initially, which was to prepare the initial upload in 4:3 format rather than 16:9, which is the youtube format and which I did shoot the actual footage in.  So the project did have to be uploaded twice before I got it to look correct on youtube.  If you do prepare the video in the wrong sizing format, then youtube displays a black border around the movie and it is relatively small on the standard screen.  Five minutes to fix, but another 6 hours to upload (we have such low upload speeds out here in the country!)

But overall, I'm actually rather pleased with the film.  Roll on the next trip.  Here is the video link

http://www.savetubevideo.com/?v=g6gAdwwNTx0

My first fish caught on camera - rainbow trout of about 2 1/2lbs

Trout fishing at Barnes Lake - first fishing video

It has rained more or less non stop for the past few weeks.  The rivers are pretty full round here, though the Thames is back within its banks having flooded briefly the other week.  But the main reason to not go trout fishing is that it remains quite cold.  The other day it was just 1 over zero over night - and its May!

I called into Barnes Lake last week for a quick look round and to take some "filler" filming of wildlife and trout rising.  It had looked pretty good then - indeed I should have fished then as the weather deteriorated again the next day and I've had to wait a week for it to clear up enough.  Today was not perfect, but it was the best appearing on the forecast for the next week or so.

My aim today was to try and shoot enough footage to make my first fishing video.  I intend to film most of my trips over the next season, so I need to get started on working out some of the logistics.  My plan was to set up the camera in each spot I fished and then take about 15 mins of video with one or two variations.  Then, depending on what I caught, I would cut it together about 10 minutes or so from it.

I was the only person there when I arrived at around 2:30 and I started on the corner of the smaller lake, where a number of fish seemed to be moving.  I was joined soon after by a guy from Newcastle down here on work and the owner, John Barnes, both of whom interrupted my first clip.  When they'd moved on, I was able to concentrate on fishing the ripples. I had one or two takes which I missed but probably got video footage of.  Some good shots of me casting, with some fish rising on several of the clips. 

About an hour later I switched to the big lake, settle in at the far end with the wind behind me to help with casting.  Quite a few fish rising, but generally a long way out.  Finally, just before 5:00pm, I had a firm take and hooked a fish.  This fought really well, though was perhaps only 2 1/2 lbs or so and hopefully made for some ok video. 

But after that, things went very quiet and the hoped-for evening rise didn't really happen at all.  Yes, some fish were rising but maybe at the rate of one fish a minute when a good evening rise would be over 50 per minute.  I did have a couple more takes which I missed.

I stuck it out till around 8:00, remembering to get a wrap-up clip.  A quick look at the video when I got in and it seems ok.  The one fish I caught is on the film, but the camera wasn't positioned very well for that shot.  Enough to make a movie from though, which I plan to do tomorrow.

A detailed examination of a John Wilson fishing programme

One of the many sound pieces of advice which I learnt from reading Go Wild with your Camcorder was that you should watch programme similar to what you are trying to achieve with your own films.  In particular, closely examine the time spent of each shot (surprisingly low), what angle the shots were taken from and whether they were far, mid or close-range.

So today I have made a detailed study of a John Wilson Go Fishing programme on catching grayling on the River Test.  This was an excellent example of what I would like to make, subject to the constraint that I don't have two camera men with me each time I go.

I have discovered that the programme lasted about 22 minutes and contained 193 separate clips of film, an average of just under 7 seconds per clip.  The longest clip was the re-cap clip at the end, 33 seconds, while there were a further 4 clips of 15 seconds or longer.  The shortest clip was 2 seconds, a splashy strike when the float disappeared.  Most clips were 4 to 6 seconds long.

But often there were clearly some extended clips taken from the same spot that were then cut apart afterwards.  And while some of the clips were ones I can't take myself (the occasional pan shot of playing a fish - all my shots are clearly fixed), many of the clips were exactly the sort of view I could take.  For instance, the shot below is the sort of thing I should manage ok.

John Wilson, long trotting for grayling on the River Test

But also by reading Simon King's book Wild Life, his autobiography of his life as a wildlife photographer, I have begun to learn something of the tricks employed in making such films.  Most importantly is the insight that finished films are not made chronologically.  Instead, once an important clip has been obtained, clips are then built to fit around it.

So, for instance, suppose I started off in the position John Wilson is above, and caught a fish long trotting.  I would have taken one long sequence with the video camera.  But having caught a fish, examined it and popped it back, I could then move the camera and take some filler shots from side on, then maybe a few clips from way downstream, including one that looked like I was striking.  Then perhaps I could focus on the float and film just it going down the glide.  And so on.  Then these other clips could be inserted afterwards, though they make it look like a continuous, multi-camera operation. 

Finally, I need some filler clips for each trip.  Clips of me walking the bank, baiting up, etc, or clips of wildlife seen (JW has swans, a buzzard and some sheep, and even some snowdrops).  These are used in the John Wilson programmes to break the sequences of actually catching fish and to mark his move to the next spot.  And I'd need some introductory remarks - where I am, what time of year it is, what I am fishing for, etc.  And maybe some wrap-up remarks.

Such a lot to think about but I am definitely making progress in getting it all straight in my mind.

First post - introduction

With a bit of effort, I have managed to create a new blog from my existing fishing diary.  This was a little more effort than it might have been, but then perhaps I should have started planning a fishing blog earlier!

I am hoping to fish several times a week from June onwards, with specific targets for barbel, chub roach, perch and pike.  I am also planning to film as many of my trips as possible, so this blog will also act as a link to my Youtube account.

All very exciting - I can hardly wait for the start of the new fishing season, five and a half weeks away now.

The Thames in flood

A brief trip down to Standlake to visit Barnes Lake, a local trout fishery that I am planning to fish for an afternoon / evening in the next few days (weather permitting).  It has rained virtually everyday for the past few weeks and the Thames has finally burst its banks at Newbridge.  What a contrast to the end of the fishing season when the river was really low and slow moving.  On the plus side, this might have finally cleared out some of the debris accumulated over the winter.  On the negative side, it might disrupt spawning.

Yet we remain in drought.  The effect of April's rain has been to just about contra out the lack of rain in March.  But the drought started two winters ago and ground water levels are the real issue, not vast flows in rivers and associated flooding.  I read somewhere that April's rain has only reversed about 10% of the drought's effects so far.  It is really down to next winter to clear the drought.  Another poor winter for rain and the summer of 2013 could be exceptionally bad.

The Thames at Newbridge, over the fields on the right bank.  The regular bank is where the faint line of vegetation is in the near foreground by the trees in the garden of the Maybush pub (to the left)