Gone fishing . . . . .

The weather has been pretty poor for the last few weeks as far as fishing is concerned - indeed ,I have heard from a few sources that this seems to be a national problem. But the season is coming to an end and so I have to go regardless of conditions.

After two or three slightly better days, there is then a big rainfall. I had thought that I might be able to get a trip in before the river rose too much but this turned out not to be the case. Maybe up two foot when I arrived it rose another foot in the next five or six hours.

Hopeless conditions are chub fishing of course - I should really have gone barbel fishing on the Windrush instead. But it was not unpleasant out and I did see a decent amount of wildlife - some deer, a fox, etc.

The Evenlode stretch that I have been concentrating on for chub has really changed over the last few years. This is especially true of the deep bend where I have had many of my best fish. The raft at the top has gone completely and the tree at the bottom has collapsed into the river diverting the flow sharply. Hard to tell with the river so high, but maybe this will have spolit this little bit of the river.

So six hours out with not even the slightest possibility of a fish!

The flooded deep bend swim - usually I fish out where the last line of reeds is visible

Once or twice I have had some decent fish by the tree on the near bank - not today though!

Reading Shapin - thinking of fishing

Most current MSc work remains reading Shapin's The Scientific Revolution as part of my dissertation. But the last couple of weeks have been very poor from the point of view of work. Not really getting anywhere near as much done as I had thought I might have done.

There was a short article in the Guardian recently discussing the "agonies" involved in the act of writing. Of course the people interviewed were all fiction writers, but many of the points raised would probably apply to just about any sort of writing I would think. I certainly recognised many of the problems that I am having at the moment.

So my thoughts have turned a little towards fishing, with the season not having long to go. The weather hasn't been great for river fishing lately, with snow, frosts and then heavy rain. So the rivers are still quite high. From what I can tell on fishing websites and in the magazines, this is proving a problem for most fishermen at the moment.

But at least I have sorted out the fishing tackle and put a kit together aimed at chubbing on the Evenlode.

Fish, fishing and the meaning of life . . . .

Jeremy Paxman edited an anthology of fishing literature with the above title some years ago. And pretty good it was from what I remember. What always strikes me as odd about my fishing is that I don't go for ages, putting trips off for poor reasons, yet when I do finally go, the reasons why I love fishing so much come flooding back.

This afternoon I visiting Bushyleaze, a local trout lake. The other anglers seemed to be really struggling to after a quick review of what they were doing (mostly stripping buzzers and weighted nymphs) it was off to the far side of the lake (rule one - always walk the furthest distance from the car park to choose a spot to fish) and set up with a red hopper and a small Dwal Bach nymph fished close to the surface. It is rare that things pay off so quickly but within 20 minutes I had a fish of about 3.5lbs on the nymph.

The sun blazed down most of the rest of the afternoon and, sadly, as the sun set, so the wind dropped. So fish started to rise but presentation was very hard in the calm conditions. Fishing two hoppers, I did have a second fish about 8:30pm.

As always, I feel revitalised by a day out fishing. I really should think about having a good go after barbel and chub in September when we are back from our next trip abroad.