Post Office...

Is it any wonder the Post Office is struggling against the competition? Going public seemed to help them out, but whenever I need something done, there seems to be an issue of some sort. Can't post a mobile phone with a battery in it because it's hazardous, really?? I had a long parcel to post today, 170cm 'Oh that's too long for here..", give me strength...

I get they need to post everywhere for a fixed cost unlike the other mail providers, but they're just difficult to do business with. DPD by comparison, have a driver tracking service so you can pin point to the nearest 30 mins when your parcel will arrive. Isn't this the approach to customer services and convenience Royal Mail should be adopting in the modern age? Maybe the post man should pick my parcel up on his way through tomorrow, now that would be convenient.

Fernworthy, Roadford and the Exe

Now back from a three day fishathon in Devon, I thought I'd blog our success, or lack thereof, as a couple of the waters we tried get little mention.

First of all we fished Fernworthy, up on Dartmoor. Whilst the rain mostly stayed off for the day, there was a ferocious wind, which even coming over your left shoulder, made casting very difficult and accurate casting an impossibility. Apart from the slightly cold wind, it was an overcast day and there was a good foot of wave.

Given the conditions, muddlers formed the basis of our attack, with a couple of hawthorn fly imitations and the usual small black stuff thrown in for good measure. Despite two of us fishing hard for the whole day and the third member of the team for a half day - we only had one fish to show for our efforts, a brownie of just under a pound which took a gold bodied, clipped deer hair muddler I was fishing on the bob. Apart from a couple of plucks a few casts earlier, I only had one other take, again on a big black deer hair muddler. Between us we fished various wet flies, some small dries and even a couple of dry daddy long legs to no avail. We did move a couple of decent fish on the surface, but there was little other action. A disappointing but puzzling day all in all, I think the wind was just too strong to fish it effectively and certainly to fish a hatch.

Having planned to visit Roadford the next day, conditions on the Exe looked very good and we were able to get on. We took spinning and fly gear, fishing salmon flies on the point and a trout fly on the dropper, to hedge our bets... Despite conditions looking good, spinning produced nothing at all, but we were at least able to land a couple of brownies on the fly. We later investigated that one of them was crammed full of beetles and a few small slugs. We also saw a chap lose a circa 10lb salmon at the net on the next beat down...

Finally, we took the trip to Roadford, having never fished there before. The day dawned grey and windy, but cleared and calmed so we had almost perfect conditions when we got there, it getting a little too bright later on. An oversight meant we were without an electric motor, and Roadford is nay a place for oars....

We battled our way out, being overtaken by a few cheery dinghy sailors in the middle of a race on the way. The first bay on the left was as far as we could realistically go, so that was it. The water was gin clear with visibility to nearly 10 ft. The first drift through produced nothing on teams of wets and no sign of movement, yet it felt fishy. A few fish started to then move on the surface, but we couldn't see what to. After a further couple of hours with no action on dries or wets, I was fishing a drift down the bank only about 20 yds out from the bank and there was a vicious swirl in front of me.

Nothing happened for a second then there was solid pull and what at 20 yds looked like a rainbow went airborne in front of me, we were in business. Ten minutes later and after a very hard fight of aerobatics and boring to the bottom, I was very pleased to land an absolutely pristine 3lb 1oz brown trout. These fish are stocked as fingerlings and it was in perfect condition, fat and well fed, much like a limestone loch trout. It had taken a black and peacock spider I had on the middle dropper, fished with a floating line. Apart from that, we could conjure nothing else save for a couple of swirls, but we did see more fish of similar size moving. They are definitely there, but it's a very hard venue.  

Why do they always look smaller in the photo...

This is compounded by it being hard work walking round the bank and too big really even for an electric motor to get everywhere. If it were possible to hire proper outboards it would really open up the place - there is some absolutely first class fishing to be had for very good sized, near wild, brown trout in peak condition. We shall definitely return, perhaps it would fish  well on the evening rise.

So, a tough weekend all in all, not helped by the weather conditions at Fernworthy, but much was learnt and there's no question these little fished reservoirs offer the chance for some first class brown trout fishing.

River Kennet - Barton Court

I haven't posted for a while and my resurgent interest in coarse fishing has since subsided, mainly because the FAS waters are so crowded with carpers, but it's a cheap club ticket so you get what you pay for. I'll make more of an effort to find some less pressured day ticket waters.

Meanwhile I've got back to my primary interest and have been doing a lot more trout fishing, most recently on the Kennet in the middle of the (late) mayfly hatch. Its a pleasant environment and much effort has been put into improving the water habitat. Comprising lots of feeder streams it's a little hard to gauge where you can and can't fish initially, but it didn't take too long to get to know the place. Stocking is mainly browns of about 1.5lbs as far as I could see, plus a few rainbows. There were also some roach feeding on the mayfly (of which I caught two), and I also noted a number of large, black, bream sculling about in the smaller pieces of water.

It was a foul day but we got a few hours dry weather in the morning, following by persistent showers for the rest of the day. I only had one mayfly on me (a green drake), which they didn't seem to be confident with, lots of missed splashes and fish turning away. They were not very interested in the Mayfly nymph either and I'd had one pluck on a pheasants tail.

The mayfly hatch started to come on better after lunch and after about five hours with no fish but plenty rising, I caught my Mayfly in a tree. In retrieving it, I found another one up there which I was also able to rescue. I put it on and immediately caught the fish that had been refusing everything else - it was child's play. So I finished with three brown trout and a rainbow to 2lbs, plus a couple of roach. The mayfly I found was actually a wet french partridge mayfly, designed to be pulled through lochs, but I got it to float with liberal dosings of Gink.


A good fun day all in all if very wet, I'm not sure if I enjoyed it more than a good day on a loch, especially with sea trout, but I'll probably go again. The Test is next on the list, perhaps later in the season.

CB500 cooling problems - fixed!

Took delivery of a heavily 'modified' CB500 from Fast Bikes Mag a few weeks ago and have just finished sorting it out today, it had been sat around doing nothing for a couple of years.

I found it was overheating in traffic - and the fan wasn't kicking in. First suspect was a faulty fan or fan switch. However shorting the wire between the fan and the fan switch to ground produced sparks and span the fan up - so the fan worked OK....

So then it seemed the sensor on the radiator might be at fault, harder to test without draining the system etc, but it still might be the thermostat not letting coolant get to the fan switch. So taking the tank off allowed me to get at the thermostat, which I took out and boiled up in a saucepan of water, it opened fine. So water was able to circulate but I wasn't sure it actually was. So I ran the engine up with the radiator cap off allowing any air to escape and sure enough it did - I was then able to add more coolant. Despite the coolant level looking fine, it seemed there may not have been enough in there, the coolant I could see inside the radiator neck must have been held there artificially.

So it turned out there was an airlock in the coolant system somewhere, meaning coolant wasn't circulating and hence not getting the fan switch hot enough to turn the fan on, making the situation worse. Having topped up the coolant, I put everything back together and took it out for a spin, the temperature was much more stable and, when I got back and left it ticking over to see what would happen, sure enough the cooling fan now kicked in as it should.

Problem solved! Hope useful for someone else...

Badshot Lea (Big) - great Bream fishing

Great day at Badshot Lea Big today. Was there by about eight, but it was a cold morning and not much doing. Was in my usual swim on the pin, one rod about 3/4 way to the rope and one about 1/2 way. Had a running method on the long rod with two 10mm crab & crayfish boilies and a ton up / fishmeal on the feeder. Same mix on the other but fishing a cage feeder standard paternoster style with a 60cm hooklength to single boilie on the hair.

First fish was on the long rod and probably the best of the day, a 6lb 9oz Bream just before 10am. That rod then started going a bit better but the shorter rod wasn't getting anything. Deciding the cage feeder / paternoster rig probably wasn't great on the buzzer, I switched it for a small method with a corn hair rigged on a 14, which immediately started producing fish. The shorter rod then caught most fish during the day, but a much better stamp was coming from the longer rod with the double boilie. A great day, shame I had to leave early, mid afternoon - but caught a good 40lb or so of Bream from 2lb upwards.

HTC Hero

Got my new HTC Hero this week, very impressed. Having come to despise my LG Arena to the point that I really couldn't hold out until next year to upgrade it, the time had come to find myself another phone. Got a great deal on a new Hero on eBay, with it arriving a day later. Switch on and you enter your details of the various social networks, then you're away. First thing i did was update the firmware which apparently is a marked improvement, once done, I had to go through the setup again. Setup is very simple and the phone is a breeze to use. There are plenty of full reviews elsewhere so I won't attempt one here. However if particular note is the contact integration and swipe down notification area in the top. Blue RSS is the best RSS feeder I've found from the Android Market.

Getting HTC Sync to work on Windows 7 64 bit was less easy. First try it installs fine but says its missing a driver. Connect the phone and it won't see it. You can then manually add the the drivers which many have had success with, but that didn't work for me either - the problem is getting the ADB driver installed and listed in Device Manager. The solution eventually came by installing PDA Net: http://www.junefabrics.com/android/index.php It's then just a case of doing the update from Devices and Printers, which changes it from 'Android Phone' to 'My HTC Hero and you're away. You have to remember to initiate sync from the phone though, or else it will sit there doing nothing.

Then yesterday I hear word that HTC are preparing an Android 2.0 release for the Hero - so we get voice navigation on Google maps amongst other things. I'm feeling exceptionally smug with my new purchase!

Stillwater Back Lake

Finally got a a day in today at Stillwater back lake. More scenic than I remembered and plenty of space as a week day. Started on maggot feeder and float but too much going on so stuck with float (mainly skimmers) and changed to a method with boilie. Forgot my carp rod and avon rod so had to make do with what else I had.
Boilie was quiet most of day, but a load of small stuff on the float. Around three o'clock I got into a shoal of perch about 2ft down, provided good sport for a hwile Then finally got a decent drop back on the method and was a mirror of about 5lb 2oz, pictured. Soon after the rain started and while I was dry under the brolly it just got heavier and heavier until I left at seven. Not a bad day all in all if a little uneventful.

I still can't find that water that keeps going on Bream and Tench all day on the feeder with maybe the odd Carp, then with some decent Perch, Roach, Rudd and Crucians on the float....

Summer Solstice at Frensham

Evening Tench fishing, summer solstice

Fishing at Lodge 160509

So after a bit of a late start I headed back out to Lodge in the hope of some bream. Got there, got half my kit out to discover in my rush to leave the house I hads forgotten both my landing nets and my unhooking mat.. So I packed everything up again and headed to Borden Angling Centre for the necessary items, getting myself a useful folding trout net for later in the season, so not all bad. Back to Lodge and the far right swim by the dam was free on the nearside, so plumped for that as it was now nearly midday and would save the walk round. I lobbed a method out to the dam on the quiver and fished a float in front of me next to some lillies.

Caught a small roach on the method straight away but then it was fairly quiet. I'm very pleased with my new John Wilson avon / quiver rod, plenty of power, perfectly balanced, great finish and really doo bite indication on the quiver. On the float I was straight into small roach and gudgeon on maggots so changed to corn for some slight better sized roach and skimmers. This went on for a while, but the float wasn't looking as though it would produce anything useful and fishing an inline elasticated method on a quiver I decided probably wasn't the best approach for bream. On top of this, I found the lake to be much shallower on the nearside, I had a hunch the bream would be further out.

So I set up a carp rod with the remaining reel I had, fishing 30g method, but this time running, to a size eight hook with a hair rigged 10mm boilie - hoping to get into some bigger bream. Having eventually found a place I could get a rod rest in the ground just off the hard packed gravel, I fired the method out a good 40 - 50% away across the lake and set it up running, with freespool on and a bobbin. Meanwhile I sacked the float rod and set the quiver up with a maggot feeder about 25% out, but this never did any good.

It was only about 10 mins before I had a good run on the method and leapt out of my chair to get across to the rod (have since bought a rod pod to deal with the hard packed gravel everywhere). I struck into the fish but it was off almost straight away. I searched up the dam again with a few casts at longer range, but bites definitely only came when away from the dam in clear water. After changing to a t-shaped boilie stop as they kept falling off with the dumb bell type, I got another run and was pleased to land a bream of about 4lb. From there on in they were unstoppable, with runs coming only 5 - 10 mins after casting. I stopped weighing anything that looked under five lbs then was very pleased to land a PB of about 8lbs - a fish with a big fat belly on it. Despite the freespool on my reel failing, making playing fish very difficult, the runs kept coming. This, it seems, is defintely the way to catch bream at Lodge. Frustratingly I had to leave early to get back as Fullers was doing a dinner party, but had I remained I think they would have kept coming. So next time it will the same rig on two rods, setup on a pod with bobbins - I'm expecting a sack full of bream and inevitably the odd carp.

The old John Wilson TV programs always had him fishing a similar setup for bream, so I reckon using a combination of the new method feeder, with the old free running technique is the way to go. No need for this self hooking stuff it seems, as apart from losing one fish I didn't miss a single one - nice long slow runs that are easy to hit, safer rig as well. Forgot to take a photo of the fish, but am hoping to break my PB again there soon!

Fishing - Lodge

Mainly a carp pool but in a good secluded location with some big Bream as well. Bream came straight to the method fished near the dam in the morning, culminating in a PB of 5.5 lbs, with another 4.5 lb and 5 lb fish as well. Float didn’t do much but there were plenty of small roach to catch when the method was slow.

 

A good day in all – I want to return properly targeting the bream, which apparently run to 12 lbs or more.

Fishing - Stockbridge Pond

A really nice secluded lake surrounds by trees with lots of lilies. A total absence of the carp brigade with their bivvies and buzzers, just a few old boys mainly fishing the waggler. Float was lively all day on the Crucians, but never got very big. Nonetheless having not caught them before my PB was a ½ lb or so.

 

The method was quieter save for some big pull rounds that infuriatingly broke me twice when I struck into them. Overhand loops seemed to be the culprit – I need to change that knot. However I finally hit one fish which did me straight into the lilies and locked up. Luckily patience and allowing it to take line then going back in hard freed it and I finally slipped the net under a 2 ¼ lb (1KG) tench – the first of the year and as I can’t remember the last time I caught one, a PB! It fell to the method and hair rigged 10mm fish boilie.

 

Definitely want to go back specifically targeting tench and was a delightful venue and I think there is more to come given I got smashed twice. There are no bream and only two carp in the place.

Fishing - Winchfield and Badshot Lea big

Started at the small Winchfield Farm pond out of curiosity, a very tricky place. Not a touch on the float all morning and too deep to really fish effectively. Nothing in a long method on the carp rod cast across to the far bank either. A small method up next to the memorial island finally got a twitch on maggots but nothing came of it. Then later in the morning the rod smashed round into what must have been a big carp. It stripped line straight away but then the reel locked and while I was fumbling with the drag to see what was wrong it broke me at the hook knot. Turns out the line clip was still on that I had so as not to hit the island – a stupid mistake but I’ll know next time. Following, I’ve stopped using the line clip for casting for fear of it happening again – there’s no substitute for good old fashioned accurate casting.

 

Given that was all that happened I called it a day at midday and headed off to explore some other waters. I may return again out of curiosity and just to get a fish on the bank, but it’s not a bagging venue and you have to work hard.

 

I went first to Stillwater front and back but was depressed to find it was carp central with nothing but bivvies rod pods everywhere.  I also popped into Wyke Farm but the three people already fishing had filled the venue.. Looked nice though so I’ll head there for a pleasure day at some point. Finally I arrive at Badshot Lea and looked round the big pit, small pit and Kings Pond. All looked pretty good and while there was the usual majority of carpers there were some interesting looking spots, so I stayed and set up near the car park. I’d left rods up and out them in the holdall so was up and running straight away with a method to the reeds and float just in front as was very deep. Touches on the method straight away was very pleased to bank another 5.5lb bream as the first fish. A perch of about a pound followed, but then it was just a few carp to about 7.5 lbs. A good day at Badshot all in all with a really nice sunny evening when I got the photos.

Fishing - Warren then back to Badshot Lea

So for final day of my four day marathon I decided I ought to check Warren and Tarn as they were the last two open waters I hadn’t seen. I didn’t hold much hope as there were only 8 swims, 4 of which were available for night fishing. Turned up just gone 8am and sure enough there was the usual bivvy village but seemed a nice enough bunch, a very different feel to Stillwater. Turns out chatting to one of the guys that he’d had a load of good bream (to his annoyance!), overnight and one carp. The place wasn’t advertised as having bream so was a pleasant surprise and I decided to give it a go despite the slightly cramped swims with low overhead branches. I chucked a method 2/3 the way across and noticed the line wouldn’t sink. I then set up the float and plumbed, only to find there was no more than 2 feet of water anywhere! I then got pretty much pushed out the swim by a whinging carp bloke I half said I’d give it to so moved down closer the carpers in a muddy swim not holding much hope. Float was useless with so little water so just fished a method. However when a swan turned up and nonchalantly started eating my feed off the bottom as it was only a few inches down I decided it was a lost cause and packed up.

I’ve no idea how he caught the bream as looking more closely I could see the bottom all over the lake. I shan’t be going back there in a hurry for sure, however Tarn next door looks better with  some proper depth on a brief inspection. Shall give it a go when it opens.

So I headed back to Badshot lea big and set up exactly where I was before on the same tactics. This time the float was much more lively and I was very pleased with a trio of bigger perch running to just over pound and one small bream / skimmer. It got hard though and having scaled up to size 12 with meat to hopefully catch a bigger perch it went quiet. I then found the only way I could get bites was to go back to a size 18 with single caster but then despite being confident were very hard to hit. I hooked a couple but never saw what they were before they came off, frustrating. Meanwhile the method produced a couple of fish but unfortunately just carp. The first was a horrible fat dumpy thing of about 5lbs then a better fish of 8.5 lbs which took me a while to land on lighter tackle, both mirrors. Couldn’t raise the tench or bream though unfortunately.

I think Badshot Lea needs further investigation for its perch, I think it would be hard to properly target tench and bream for all the small carp kicking about. The small pit will probably be worth a look as well.

And there ends the marathon! Was very annoying my new quiver rod didn’t arrive in time and I need to find some more flat bed elasticated method feeders, preferably the new Guru safety ones. I think some early mornings are in order a la Wilson for the bream and tench quest as well....

From MCN - Police to use 'horse box' speed camera

Police in North Wales have converted a horse box into a stealth speed camera to target motorcyclists, according to an insider.

The new hidden speed camera unit was due to be trialled yesterday in Llandegla, near the Ponderosa Café, our source said.

He said: “North Wales Police have purchased a horse box trailer for use in covert operations aimed specifically at motorcyclists.”

He said riders in the area should “use caution”.

North Wales Police made no immediate comment.

If you’ve seen the horse box speed camera, let us know by emailing steve.farrell@emap.com