Opening day - early morning on the Windrush

June 16th has been a magical day since I took up fishing aged 10 or so - even more magical than the previous day, June 15th, which is my birthday.  For the next few years after I was 10, I would have new fishing tackle for my birthday and could try it out the next day.  There was the year I got my first "Avon" rod from Billy Lane's tackle shop in Coventry.  Or the year I got a Mitchell 300 reel (which I still have - not sure about the rod though).  This tradition of fishing-related presents has even continued this year - one of my presents was Matt Hayes' book Fisheye: A Guide to Angling Photography.

So the alarm goes off at 3:30 this morning and I can hear the sound of rain.  Not huge amounts, but some.  I am up and out of the house by 4:00, for a shortish session on the Windrush.  My goal is to catch a barbel, which is really quite a foolish plan.  For one thing, the Windrush barbel stocks have been decimated over the last dozen years or so - indeed, I haven't caught one since 1996.  But, on the other hand, there was also the issue of river height.  The constant rain in June has pushed the rivers up.  The Windrush is a thick chocolate colour at the moment.  This suggested that chub, my main quarry, might be very hard as well. 

Over the last few days, I have baited four swims that regularly produced barbel in the distant past and by 4:30 I was settled in the first.  Conditions were worse than I had thought.  The flow was very fast and there was quite a lot of debris coming down.  I was constantly getting taps on the rod time and the occasional stronger looking pull which would turn out to be a clump of weed.  I moved swims every 20 minutes or so without any sign of a real bite. 

However, in the second swim I fished I did see an otter for about 4 seconds and this had appeared in the background on the video I shot.  Otters are one of the main reasons for the demise of the Windrush as a fishery and so I have rather mixed feelings about seeing one.  This is actually the second I have seen this year.  Most people will never see a wild otter, so there is some pleasure in seeing this one.

I also scared a heron that was only a few yards from me when we came across each other.  They are surprisingly big birds when you meet one close up!  I am still very keen to get some good, close-up video footage of herons.

One effect of the trip was to produce my worst hayfever attack of the year so far, with my right eye in particular being really badly affected.  I have bought some stronger eye drops - it would help if I wasn't tempted to keep rubbing it!

So because it was the glorious 16th, and because I have a small clip of an otter, I have made a video from today's trip.  Going forward, I am not sure there is too much point posting film of blanks, but maybe if something interesting does happen . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdEcbLOd8qk&feature=plcp

Only two more days to go!

Up at 5:00 for a walk along a nearby stretch of the Windrush.  Over the last couple of days, the water levels have peaked and have now dropped an inch or two - still a murky brown colour though.  Ideal for roach and (possibly) chub, maybe passed the peak for barbel.  Nonetheless, barbel are my target for Saturday.  I have been baiting some "old favourite" swims on the Windrush, but the vibe remains very poor for the prospects of catching barbel on this river - even the lady in the tackle shop yesterday had nothing good to say about such prospects.  It's not like it was in the 90s it seems.

A large flock of what I think are greylag geese are in residence on the Thames at Newbridge and I've taken some video footage to use as filler when making fishing videos in the next few weeks.

Mid-morning I went for a second walk, this time along the Thames.  Still up a foot or two, but some swims look really good, especially a couple of new swims where trees have fallen into the water over the last few months.  One or two swims just scream "perch" so I may have a go for them if the colour remains till Sunday or Monday

One of my better wildlife photos - heron near the Thames at Chimney

RAIN, Rain, rain . . . and more rain

We have been away in Italy for the past week - many days on sunshine and temperatures into the 30s.  Apparently back in the UK, it has rained more or less constantly for the past week, slightly spoiling the Queen's Jubilee it would seem.

While this is good for the drought (which should really be over for the summer at least), it has started to cause me some anxiety about my opening day plans for river fishing.  When thinking about all this over the last month or so, I hadn't really factored in the idea that the rivers would be in flood. 

I had intended to visit the river a few times this week to do some prebaiting.  Though I have made a gallon or two of hemp today, I'm not sure I should be throwing it in the river quite yet

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)

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.

DIY fishing videos

While looking for fishing videos on youtube, I stumbled across a series of videos called "Barbel fishing on the Swale". These are filmed and presented by an old guy (would "codger" be the right word?) called Charlie. He has the video camera fixed on a tripod and he gives a little bit of commentary on what he is up to, then is usually seen catching a fish or two. Remarkably, he is up to video number 89 in this series, each about 10 minutes long and covering in total about the last two years fishing.

I think these videos are really good and I have been inspired to dig out our video camera and finally get round to working out how to use it properly. I have just bought a light travel tripod, an upgraded memory card and am about to buy a bigger battery, so I would be able to film about 2 to 3 hours in one set up. For my type of fishing, which is based on fishing spots for about 30 mins each time, this could suit this video set up quite well. So next season I am planning to film my fishing year!

Charlie mainly fishes the style of barbel fishing known as "codding". He typically uses two rods, pointing high in the air, and doesn't bother with quiver tips, just using the standard rod tip and baitrunner reels - so his bites are huge pulls on the tip and line running off the reel - the Stef Horaks approach. He seems to use pellets for most of his fishing. And he has certainly caught some great fish. It would be really good to have somewhere relatively nearby that offered such consistent barbel sport. And wouldn't it have been amazing if I had filmed the capture of my big barbel!

Over the next few days - when I am doing most of the trading while Jerome has his kids for the first part of the holidays - I shall watch a few episodes a day, focusing on learning as much as I can about how he shoots the videos. Excellent stuff. Well done Charlie!

Charlie addressing his fans and with a typical Swale barbel.

A long walk in the country

I have had a cold for the past week but have finally felt like doing some exercise. The weather has continued to be unseasonably warm and it occured to me that a long walk might make a change from going to the gym. Six miles later, in the very hot midday sun, I might have a different view of this.

So I went down through the village, over Harrowdown Hill to the bottom of the Pickfords stretch on the Thames, then along the Thames path to Chimney and back to Hinton up the farm track that Bernie the crayfisherman uses (and which I'd like to park my car on next winter). Three hares spotted in these fields.

With the fishing closed season now in force, it is rare for me to see the river in its spring glory. Many of my favourite chub swims have trees in blossom on them - quite a change from the bleak mid-winter or even the last week of the fishing season. By June, the river will be lush and green and very different to how it has been. I was also struck by the huge amounts of lilies that were coming through.

I'm not sure if I will fish the Thames in the summer. I might wait until late September / October when the boats have more or less stopped and the vegetation is dying back.

Chub lurk under the raft and by the near-bank reeds

I had my best catch of float-fished chub from this swim, just against the bushes on the far side.

Lilies coming through - or "cabbages" as us fishermen refer to them

The whole of the inside bank will be full of cabbages come the summer.