Friday Forecast & Contentment.

I had intended to go and wet a line over the weekend, but alas, other things got in the way, but as there is only a couple of weekends to go before the closed season on the rivers begins, I do intend to get out for a couple of hours over the next couple of weekends.

Fish Forcast is pointing towards Chub as the top species to target from

The Fish Forecast App for iPhone

Thursday with Carp and Barbel as second and third choices respectively. The forecast for Friday looks good (if I manage to get a couple of hours in) with a temperature of around 15 degrees and a light East to South Easterly breeze with 20% cloud cover and no rain, although Thursday promises 17 degrees and a light Westerly breeze with a 4% cloud cover and no rain.

Fish Forecast is a great app if you have an iPhone. Click on the link to find out more about it. Why not download it and try it for yourself? I’ll be putting it the test in the future.

thetuesdayswim

thetuesdayswim.

I’d Like To Share With You…

… A few extracts from chapters that will appear in a book, recalling memories of my early fishing days.

From: The Angel Steps
“During these early days, it was very rare that dad would come fishing on the river with me, declaring that it was ‘too much like hard work’ and preferring to stick to the stillwaters around our Worcestershire home”.

From: Morning Roach, Afternoon Bream
“We arrived at Unwicks Farm to find it a veritable ‘mill pond’. We plumbed for the larger of the 3 pools and set up a couple of swims apart with float fishing tackle. Fish were ‘topping’ as we set up, even in the early morning light including a couple of reasonable looking carp. I was feeling confident, even though we hadn’t fished here before”.

From: The Joy Before The Pain
“I briefly looked over towards dad to see him muttering some expletive to himself that was something to do with my ‘luck’ and that I seemed to have more of the strawberry conserve than Hartley’s”.

As you can tell, I did a fair bit of fishing with my dad when he was alive,but in recalling and recording these short, but everlasting memories to share them with others, gives me much pleasure and I hope you will all enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing about them.

The book will be published later this year in hardback, details of which will follow nearer the time.

The Traditional Fisherman’s Forum • Index page

The Traditional Fisherman’s Forum • Index page.

Tweed, Tea, Cane & Carps

A Restoration Project.

I’ve just bought a very old rod off that infamous auction website with the intention of getting it back to usable condition. The rod itself is in good condition, but the line guides need replacing and the brass fittings need a good clean and polish up.

Antique rod for restoration.

The butt and middle sections are bamboo with a lovely ‘burnished’ look to them and the tip section is whole cane. The handle seems to be either hardwood or sheet cork and once the line guides have been replaced this should make for a very usable rod.

The length from end to end is about 10ft 9, with the handle being about 18 inches, which leads me to think it may be a light spinning rod, although I intend to use it for touch ledgering or worming for perch. It could be a float rod, although perhaps feels a little stiff for that method, I won’t know until I find out more about it and have done the line guides and run some line through it.

Wonderful 'burnished' effect on the bamboo butt and middle sections.

The rod has no identifying marks to say a makers name or fishing style it would be used for, but I have sent some images and a letter to someone who might know.

It’s always nice to see old rods like this being used, which I intend to do. I don’t believe in buying things to put them in a shelf or be hung up to gather dust.

I am awaiting delivery of another vintage rod, that I will look to use for touch ledgering with my centrepin for some big perch and chub on the local Fen’s. That rod need’s no restoration so I can start using it straight away. Would Chris Yates be proud? I think maybe he would…

Musings & Frozen Fens

Between 2007 and 2009, I started to write about my angling adventures from my younger days, before my dad passed away in 2005 and I ‘retired’ from fishing.

The other day, I found the small red exercise book on a shelf and although they are not in any particular order, just written down in the order I remembered them, I did want to try and work towards writing them properly and trying to get them published. Upon reading them again a few days ago and although they are only short musings and recollections of my angling days gone by, I’ve been thinking about putting them into a short book and getting them published.

Stories of angling adventures past.

I admit, I’m not much of a wordsmith when I comes to writing these kinds of things but they are alas true tales of some of my earliest angling days. And I know I could never hope to be a patch on Chris Yates – not that I’ll let it stop me trying!

I may post a few extracts on here in the meantime… Watch this space!

Also lurking on the same shelf, was a short piece I wrote a while back called ‘The Art of Trotting’. I will post that up, possibly on it’s own page this week as well.

I was driving along the A47 between Peterborough and Wisbech today and noticed how the River Nene was still frozen over, as was the River Nene Old Course and the Middle Level Main Drain. The same probably goes for the Old Croft, Old Bedofrd and Wissey as well, which kind of put’s paid to any fishing for the next few days on the Back River and Kings Dyke then as they will probably also be frozen over too. Still, gives me a little more time to do some research and give more time for my cheese paste to ‘mature’. Not sure what the other half will think once that starts to enter the atmosphere. Mind you, she’ll probably think it’s my shoe again!

I was hoping to get on Kings Dyke before March 15th and have a go for a few late big perch on the lob worm, but there’s plenty of time yet.

Anyway, until next time…

Lovely Weather!

Well it’s the second week of February and finally, winter has arrived. Here in Peterborough we woke up to about 5 or 6 inches of snow over the weekend, so there was not much chance of wetting a line.

The scene from our window on Sunday morning

Might make for some interesting opportunities once the snow begins to melt and the rivers start to get a bit of colour with the inevitable extra water that they will get coming down.

It will probably not be worth targeting the Nene, so it’s tributaries might be a better bet. Such as Kings Dyke and Back River. Chub on cheese paste? I’m game!

I’ve got a nice old Avon rod on the way so might be a chance to try it out if it comes before the weekend. Meanwhile, I’ve got a few books to get my head into while I await the ‘big thaw’, including a first edition of Alexander Wanless’s, Angler Creel, published in 1934. I’m reading BB’s, The Fisherman’s Bedside Book, so that will have to wait a while.

I go in and out of phase of reading books, weather it be one of the many wonderful pieces of angling literature or my other love, motor sport and vintage cars.

My recent reel purchases: Left to Right - Abu 501, Shoadowlanda Centre Pin and Mitchell 330

Some of my recent purchases (shown right) have arrived.

Two of the three reels pictured are ‘reel’ (excuse the pun) classics. The Abu 501 (left) one of the best reels for stick float fishing and fishing in the wind and the Mithchell 330 (right) another classic course fishing reel, both of which are very collectable, but me being me, I haven’t bought them to put in a case to gather dust, I will put them to good use catching fish. The Shadowlander Centre Pin reel might not be an old reel, but it does hark back to traditional styles of fishing and the traditional method of ‘long trotting’.