Sandwich - once again

With our Scottish trip getting ever closer, I have decided to have one last bash at Sandwich Coarse Fishery before we; Luke, Benno and I, undertake the 600 mile drive to Loch Awe. Most of our preparations are well advanced but, there are the usual, last minute, tweaks which need to be finalised.
It was with this in mind that I travelled over to Sandwich, this morning, as Luke had booked in for a 24 - hour stint. We had a few bits to sort out. He'd already taken three small (not doubles) carp overnight, and had a fourth fish whilst I was chatting with him.

Once again, Luke showing me the way to go.  Only a scamp Common, but very welcome on a day like this?

If I had not been aware of the current situation I'd probably not have bothered. So I am, this evening, at home boiling up my hemp and getting the gear ready for one last fling, before we head north. Luke's approach is very today, dumb-bell pellets and pva bags - my insistence on using traditional methods/techniques is, by contrast, completely alien to the vast majority of anglers who frequent this venue. One thing that is very apparent is my undeniable lack of success during the colder months. Some of these modern techniques are far advanced from my simplistic approach yet, as the water warms up, I feel that there is plenty of opportunity for me make a statement and redeem myself?
Tomorrow will, once again, see two Duncan Kay's with Mitchell 300's attached, perched upon my Kevin Maddock's rod-pod system - a semolina/soya flour boily on one and chick peas on the other. Binoculars around my neck and extension tubes fitted to the camera; I'm sure there'll be something to entertain me should I continue to demonstrate my recent lack of angling skill? I am only going to give it six hours, at best, before this gear gets stowed away and pike angling, once again, takes centre stage. I've got a supplier of Cornish Sardines - less than 36 hrs from capture to freezer - which Luke and I both feel will aid our cause. Benno has a supplier of rather more exotic baits which are pivotal to our confidence and techniques. As this is our final sortie, I am happy to reveal all when we get home - don't hold your breath because it is nothing too remarkable. This final trip has all the ingredients to be an epic session (we have a twelve day time slot)  - Davie Robertson joining us for a day - so we can catch up with what's going on in Central Scottish Pike Angling circles.

Available to anyone who wishes to look

The weather has been glorious, post shift, for most of the week; the mornings being rather misty but burning off by mid-day to reveal a splendid afternoon (the joy of being on earlies!). Insects continue to dominate my interest as I go about my daily routine, Green-veined White being my latest addition to the 2015 butterfly list - I'm now on four!

A mind-blowing combination of colours - but for what purpose? Bottom line, do we really need to know?
Is it not possible to look, and enjoy, without the requirement to explain every nuance of evolution?

It was a garden encounter with the micro-moth, Esperia sulphurella, which allowed me to play around with the extension tubes this afternoon. What a stunning colour scheme for such a tiny insect? 7 mm, plus its antennae, only really able to be appreciated when seen up close, therefore an ideal subject for digital macro photography. Quite why this intricate combination of colours and iridescent scales is required by such a small creature is just another excuse to keep me looking; as if I need one?
This particular creature is common, around Thanet, but I am sure that very few human residents have ever bothered to pay it any heed. I can't sit indoors, watching "Spring-watch" on T/V, when I know that there's so much more to discover, for myself, right on my doorstep. The use of the extension tubes being yet another way in which I am able to enrich my journey through life.

Making the most of it

Not the most eventful day at work, but I did discover that I was over-qualified, by some considerable margin, for Government funding, when I attended a session to enrol on a Business Improvement Techniques NVQ course. No great shakes, but it would have been far easier if this had been explained before I said I'd "give it a go!" My shift over at 14.00 hrs, I was home within ten minutes and out in the garden sorting out our decking area. The phone went, Gadget telling me that a Hen Harrier was coming my way. I could see the gulls going nuts, but sadly missed the bird, two Common Buzzards providing minor compensation. I do have Hen Harrier on my "patch list" but only the one record - it is therefore, a fantastic sighting and I'm gutted at missing this bird. It appears to have passed by, away to the east, hidden from my view by the rooftops of Prestege Avenue?

Hoverflies feeding on umbelifers

I spent a couple of hours in the garden, getting quite a bit done, before deciding to take a walk around the farm, the weather being that good. I took my bins and my camera, fitted with the 18 - 55 mm lens with a 14 mm extension tube. It was always going to be about inverts - I'd seen my first Tawny Mining Bee, of 2015, as I came home. Although there was a chill to the NE breeze, the afternoon sun was very pleasant in the lea of the hedgerows and insect life was plentiful. I saw my first Swallow of the year and a Chiffchaff was singing from the bushes around the "White House" - Spring has definitely sprung!
By deliberately fitting the extension tubes to my camera, I am forced to seek subjects which lend themselves to macro photographic techniques. Today it was a pleasure; of course it would have been nice to get a shot of the Swallow or Chiffchaff - both were well within range of my "big lens" - but it wasn't why I was out on the farm.

This insect was superb - not knowing what it is called doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the encounter.

I derive immense pleasure from macro photography - I'm not particularly good at it, but that is not going to stop me having fun. I suppose I was out for 90 minutes - I took 87 images. Hoverflies were the most numerous subjects, my guess that at least five species were on the wing. I did see another Tawny Mining Bee, but it didn't want to play. However, there were two insects which were completely new to me, one was a fly sp, which was feeding on an umbelifer, the other was 10-spotted Ladybird. Just by forcing myself to look in this fashion has produced two new encounters for me. So what if I missed a Hen Harrier, as great as that record is, I've seen loads of them during my life - those two insects are the first examples, of their kind, that I've ever knowingly set eyes upon.

10-spotted Ladybird.
The first time I've ever knowingly seen one of these creatures. The use of my extension tubes and small lens
being directly responsible for me bothering to look for such subjects

Out of the gloom

The day started quite brightly, with extended periods of sunshine during the breaks in the clouds. I took a quick stroll around the farm, that first Wheatear must surely arrive soon? Nothing much to report; four Rooks amidst the Carrion Crows, foraging next to Pyson's Road, single Blackcap (male) and Chiffchaff plus a surprising number of decked Meadow Pipits - possibly 30 birds? A smart adult female Sparrowhawk flushed the Wood Pigeons from the cauliflowers and a lone Skylark passed west, overhead - back home for a spot of breakfast before the call of Wicke's and B&Q - we're looking at new flooring and doors!
I'd really fancied it for a Buzzard today, but the clouds gathered and grey skies persisted, conditions were less than optimal. It was, therefore, quite a surprise when, arriving home from our DIY recce, the gulls were mobbing a bird, high up, right above the bungalow. I immediately called buzzard before rushing inside to grab my camera. Back outside, within seconds, I was delighted to discover that the bird was, in fact, a Short-eared Owl. This was a triple whammy! A year, garden and patch tick - quality! My images are not Mark Chidwick quality, but serve the purpose for which they are meant.

A very welcome addition to the patch and garden list. I am aware of one other patch record,
of this species, which was seen/flushed by a dog walker from stubble in
Autumn of 2003.

Silence was deafening

Well - I've got home after a complete waste of effort. The other guys, who were at the fishery, are there for the entire holiday period and I was left to take a very un-fancied swim which covered a shallow bay in the SW corner of the lake. I saw, or heard, nothing to suggest that there was a carp anywhere close during my entire stay. I will make no more excuses - I simply am not that good a carp angler to be able to turn up and expect to catch fish wherever I am fishing.

A lovely grassy area on which to pitch my bivvy.  Sandwich Coarse Fishery is a nice place to be - catching or not.

I prepared my two spots in a manner with which I was happy and my baits were positioned accordingly. I played around with bite indicators, switching from my tench swingers to hangers as the wind dropped away towards dusk making this change possible. I couldn't use monkeys on needles due to the platform I was perched upon - a situation which will be rectified very soon with a little Blue Peter technology.
Spent a while playing around with the camera, whilst the evening sun persisted, getting some shots of the pitch and my gear. On the plus side, I have to report no major issues with my bivvy, bed chair or sleeping bag - it's looking good for Loch Awe again.

A couple of views of the kit I was using and the layout of my pitch.

After a decent, uninterrupted, night's kip; I was awake at dawn listening to the early Spring dawn chorus. A Chiffchaff joined the Blackbirds, Robins, Chaffinches and Great Tits with a nice bonus of a Mistle Thrush belting out it's song from a nearby wooded area. A Little Owl and a Common Buzzard added to the noise and a Kingfisher perched, very briefly, in a Sallow adjacent to my rods as the sun started to break the horizon - there are worse ways to wake up?

An Andrena bee sp. - on our decking woodwork

A beautiful Easter Sunday, so I spent a while in the garden hoping that a Buzzard or two might decide to pass over Dumpton. A lone Sparrowhawk was as good as it got and I was reduced to wandering the garden with the extension tubes fitted. Not too much to get excited over, although I did manage to record my third butterfly species of 2015 when a Comma flew through. An Andrena bee sp. - sunning itself on the decking woodwork - was the best I could do with the camera.
So, it is very true that my angling was a complete flop, but my session wasn't without worth and life continues to provide enjoyment wherever I am, whatever I'm doing?

An over-nighter

I've secured a night session at Sandwich Coarse Fishery, for Saturday into Sunday, my first one of 2015. I have a few ideas which I want to attempt, before I take them into a serious angling situation. A chat, this morning (Friday), with Kevin was an enlightening encounter - there was a guy who took twelve fish, including three twenties (I've seen the photos!) on Wednesday night. I have absolutely no idea (or desire to copy) what bait the successful angler had been using - I just needed to know that the carp are having it. If I'm good enough, and my approach suited to the conditions, I'll have some of this action.
I had a quick walk around the venue, one lad landing a modest carp - on float gear, whilst I was there; the carp are getting on the munch after their winter lay off! I'm going to do much the same as I'd done on the tench venue. A decent spread of hemp and liquidised sweetcorn with a neutral buoyancy 12 mm pellet on one rod and a "snowman" on the other (two rod limit applies here). My boilies were made last night and are a very basic concoction of semolina and soya flour - plus a few other bits? They are deliberately left uncoloured, as I want them to appear "washed out", like they have been in the water for an extended period. I'm not sure if this makes any difference, but it is something which I have been experimenting with over the past season after seeing some stuff on Youtube. The theory seems to be based upon sound logic?

My first, and largest, carp from the fishery.
I'd be very happy for a repeat performance tonight.

I'm going on my own, there was only one place available when I enquired, the limit being six overnight anglers on this venue. At least there'll be someone handy should I need a photo or two. I do have a secondary motive for doing a night and that is to check out my gear, prior to Scotland, if something needs replacing it's better to find out now and not wait until I'm on the banks of Loch Awe.
It'll be my first carp session using Mitchell 300's and I still await my first fish on any of these reels, it should be very entertaining. I have no ambitious desires for the session, I just want to bend a rod and try out a few ideas. Whatever the outcome I'll make a post about the experience on Sunday morning when I get back home.

Barbel - my story so far.

My rather ragged copy of Top Ten. Still an interesting read, but
not in the same class as The Big Fish Scene.

In 1983, Beekay Publishing released a book entitled Top Ten which was, in reality, an up-dated version of The Big Fish Scene of five years previous. In this compilation of species accounts; how to catch them, the author of the chapter on barbel was Roger Baker, who, at that time, was a very successful angler with seven doubles to his name. To get this into some type of perspective, I was fishing for barbel during this period under the guidance of Fred Crouch. We'd fish The Compound on the Royalty Fishery (Hampshire Avon) and King's Weir on the Hertfordshire Lea, accompanied by Chris Scott on the majority of sessions. I caught, and saw caught, a good number of fish. A six pounder was a nice fish, a seven always worthy of a photo whilst anything over eight pounds was a right result. In all my time with these two fine anglers I only ever saw one double - Chris Scott's 10 lbs 2 oz fish from the Royalty.

My 9 lbs 2 oz fish from The Thames - a capture of which I'm rather proud.
Taken from a swim I'd identified after reading a match report in The Angling Times.

By September 1985 my PB had reached a very respectable 9 lbs 2 oz - I'd taken two fish of this weight. One from The Avon the other from The Thames at Mapledurham, Berkshire. Both fish fell to swimfeeder/maggot tactics fished using my Match Aerial centre-pin - just as Fred had taught me. Happy with my results I left barbel fishing and went off in search of other angling challenges, particularly the Wels Catfish of the Leighton Buzzard AC waters, whilst also continuing to Tench fish at Wilstone on a regular basis.
Well that was it - my angling came to an abrupt halt in August 1993 when I moved, with my job, to Kent and all things birds and birding dominated my leisure time.
I have to fast forward to May 2011 before I pick up a fishing rod again - there'd been an awful lot of change whilst I've been on my sabbatical. My brother Simon and his friends had been fishing throughout my abstinence and caught a number of double figure barbel from several different rivers. They were using hair rigs and trout pellets; all very alien to me. The barbel record had risen from 13 lbs 12 oz to over 18 lbs in this same period, something very dodgy was happening to our rivers to enable such a massive increase to occur in such a short period. Whatever it was, it wasn't natural! As I attempt to catch up with what is current in modern angling, a barbel of 20 lbs+ is reported and a Bream of 23 lbs! There is an ecological catastrophe taking place before our very eyes, but myopic big fish anglers are completely oblivious. For species to attain such weights there has to be a glut of food. In a balanced environment this will not happen, thus something very major must be impacting on the situation to enable this phenomenon. I believe it was Jim Gibbinson who first raised the subject of eutrophication, within an angling context - the artificial enrichment of a habitat due to agricultural fertilizer run-off. A direct consequence of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) of EU origins. He used it to explain the exceptional growth of "cyprinid" species (Carp, Tench and Bream) which were flourishing in the newly created gravel pits of the 1980's.
So there I was, in 2011, faced with a situation which, on balance, was very similar to that which had occurred on Wilstone thirty years before. Fish growing to extraordinary sizes because of man-made intervention. In the still waters it is easy to use modern farming practices to explain the situation, in running water the answer is a little more complex. Not only do the agri-chemicals play a part, but so do the effluent levels (including the female birth control hormones - as administered by the NHS) which our water providers are legally pumping back into the various river systems. This is a chemistry lesson on a mammoth scale! Nutrient rich water with high levels of pollutants - obviously there will be winners and losers. Our favoured cyprinids will have no problem with these environmental conditions, although the birth control hormone might impact on spawning success, the fish which survive will have almost limitless food supplies and, therefore, growth potential. The "Specimen Hunters" dream scenario - not too many fish, but every ones a good'n! These same conditions will be the cause of the demise of our native crayfish, minnows, stone loach, bullheads and so many other aquatic life forms.

However, it is this heady combination of factors which has seen barbel angling become the second most popular form of specimen hunting - behind carp fishing. Roger Baker and his seven doubles now look ridiculous. Shaun Harrison tells of taking twenty doubles between mid-June and September from a single river, Lawrence Breakspear recalls the capture of his 200th double whilst my brother, Simon, bumped into an angler, on St. Patrick's Stream, who claimed to only take photos of fish over 16 lbs! Whatever the science behind this, there can be no denying the fact that there has never been a better time, than now, to go barbel fishing in the UK.
It was the summer of 2012 when I began to think about the barbel that were present in The Kentish Stour, stocked, with the full backing of The Environment Agency, by The Canterbury & District AC. The river record is an incredible 17 lbs 1 oz and Benno knew a guy who'd taken a double from a section that we'd been chub fishing. The seeds were set - Benno took two very small fish that first season (not session!), I totally blanked. So it was in June of 2013 that I was to finally relive the thrill of playing a feisty barbel. Sadly, it was not the Stour but, the River Severn at Hampton Lode. Benno and I had a two day-er up there, he finished with four fish I landed just two, but I was off the mark!

My first barbel in twenty eight years. Gazing down on that fish is one of the most treasured angling
moments I can recall. Size was completely irrelevant, I'd, once again, caught a barbel.

We returned home, buoyed by our success and within a week Benno hit the jackpot with his first Stour barbel of the season - 11 lbs 6 oz of pure hard-earned joy. The biggest barbel I'd ever seen and man, did I want one of those! We were both keen as mustard to add to our tally, but also to learn about the fish in this lovely little river. It proved to be painfully slow going, my first fish coming six weeks into the new season. At 7 lbs 14 oz it was a nice fish, but it wasn't what I was hoping for, the campaign continued. It was a couple of sessions later when, from the same swim, I took my second fish. This time it was a beauty, weighing in at 11 lbs 9 oz - cracked it? A new PB and everything I hoped for was beginning to come together. Five crazy days in August 2013 was to see me discover a new swim and beat my PB twice with two magnificent fish of 13 lbs 5 oz then 13 lbs 14 oz - I was living in a dream. The reality slap came when we only had two more fish by November, mine 6 lbs 2 oz and Benno taking his second double at 10 lbs 4 oz.

Benno gazes down on his second double of the season - 10 lbs 4 oz

We ended the season with a combined total of eleven fish (including Bunny and Tom's fish) - five doubles. Encouraging enough to already be making plans for 2014. It was whilst we were away in Scotland that Luke decided to join the fray - he'd not caught a barbel ever! By choosing to start on the Stour it was quite possible that he would remain that way! Our original section of the river had been decimated by the flooding of the previous winter and we were forced to start looking elsewhere. We were back to square one!
The new season got off to slow start and it was six weeks in before anyone had a fish. I got lucky, exactly a year after my first fish when I took a superb specimen of 12 lbs 10 oz from a new swim, Luke was quickly off the mark, ending up with four fish, two doubles 10 lbs 4 oz & 10 lbs 6 oz. I stuck with it and was finally rewarded with a second fish which, at 11 lbs 4 oz, was some reward  for my perseverance
.

Benno returns my first Stour double. Chest waders are an essential part of our gear. Not only do they allow the
safe return of the barbel we occasionally capture, but they also provide an impenetrable layer
against the bloody mossies!

Benno and Luke had enough and went off in search of lure caught chub, I became increasingly frustrated and, by the end of August, finally threw in the towel. These fish really are very difficult to locate.
So why am I going back  again? All I will say is that Benno and I stumbled across a group of four feeding fish, very late one night. If someone takes a twenty from this river, I have already seen it. One of those fish was truly monstrous - Benno has nightmares about it, they were on his bait!
With one, very notable, exception (a guy who claims to have taken over 1,000 barbel from this river!), everyone I've spoken with speaks of how hard these fish are. The guy in Fatfish, a tackle shop in Thannington, told me of other anglers who have experienced the same type of frustration that I've endured. Basically, the fish have been taken from swims where the angler "feels" barbel should feed - not swims where barbel have been seen. You put down a bed of particles and place your hook bait on top - and then you wait! If the angling gods are in favour - you'll get a fish, but it doesn't happen that often?

Barbel are magnificent fish, they fight with a tenacity which few other species can consistently match. The fish which inhabit the water of The Kentish Stour are the most challenging angling project I've ever undertaken. They have caused me more anguish than any other fishing situation I have ever experienced. Looking at the basic figures, nine doubles from seventeen fish, suggests that this particular river is capable of something very special in the next few years. As the saying goes "You gotta be in it to win it!" That fish which Benno and I saw might just be the one?