The Ringtail

I have bought a license for the stretch of river at Passenham this year. It looks like a fairly under-fished stretch of river, but I like the look of it and would like to put some work in on a water this year. In my old birdwatching days I had a ‘local patch’ - a local area that I visited regularly and got to know well over the course of the year. I am going to apply a similar tactic to the river here and try and get to know it well over the coming season. By all accounts there is a good head of fish in the stretch - chub, roach, perch and the odd barbel and carp - so I am hopeful of a good season. Chub and roach are my main target, and I know there are some good sized specimens of each in the river so they could well turn up in this stretch.

I had a brief luring session there on Saturday which turned up nothing, but a good float session on Monday evening, catching some small chub, roach, and (I think) dace. I’m hoping to get a good handle on the river here and to get into some of the bigger fish as soon as I can. It will be a while before I get back into the swing of float fishing after a rather long break, but it’s such a welcome change to be getting into the fish that I am happy with the smaller fish I’m catching now.

At the moment the luring is on hold while I concentrate on float fishing and I hope to post up some good catch results soon. I’m taking the camera with me next time so I’ll start to put up some pictures of the swims as I work my way through them.

The picture shows the end net of fish I had from the canal the other day. Not bad for an iPhone snap I think!

I got out on the opening day day for some luring in the end. I was planning to go for a bait fishing session, but my wife had the car so I decided to go off luring on the bike instead. It was a glorious evening (multitude of flies notwithstanding) and the river looked fantastic. I started just by the canal aqueduct in a nice spot that had a fairly fast flow to the near bank, with a slacker area opposite. I tried a few of the old faithfuls through but didn’t have any interest. Last year I had seen some small perch in the swim so I stuck on a size 1 Mepps spinner - if there are fish to be had, I don’t care about the size! Second cast through I hit something which took off at speed and gave a hell of a scrap. I was sure it was a pike to start with, but then I caught a glimpse and realised it was a big perch. I slid the net under it and got the spinner out and had a good look - definitely a PB perch and must have been over a pound. Super start to the season!

I had one other little perch and a good bit of sport with a jack pike who followed my lure in three or four times, but nothing else. Still, I went home very happy and pleased that my first session on the river this season had gone well. Next time I will be out on the float rod as I haven’t float-fished this river yet. Watch this space.

Long term readers of my blog will know that I have a bit of a thing for text editors, and TextMate in particular on the mac. I’ve recently had to start using the Mac again full-time after a brief stint with Linux (current project needs use of Flash every day) and I have to say it’s darned good to be back using Textmate again.

Even better is that Allan Odgaard has broken radio silence and updated his blog with a post about development work on TextMate 2.0 (read the full post here). The new version sounds better than ever and will, I’m sure, be a worthy update to the current version. There has been a lot of talk on the Textmate mailing list about when it will be ready, quizzing Allan on why it’s taking so long, etc. and he has dealt with it all with great dignity I think. Personally, I can’t wait.

Well, with the river season nearly upon us, I have been investing in some ‘normal’ fishing gear for roach and chub fishing as well as my usual lure fishing. I thought I’d give the gear a try on the canal today, and I have to say I had a wale of a time. I caught about 30 fish - a mixed bag of perch, roach and a few skimmer bream. One of the roach went about half a pound which made me think about when I started fishing…

I started my fishing career on the Oxford Canal with my Dad. With a crowquill float, a scoop of maggots and the expectation garnered from watching ‘Catch 77′ and ‘The Great Maggot Race’, we had a session of about 3 hours right next to the bridge between Kidlington and Yarnton. My Dad didn’t even take a rod, he just sat and helped me put into practise all the knowledge I had picked up from the Peter Stone, Billy Lane and Richard Walker books I had been getting from the library all summer. I caught six fish on that day - two gudgeon, two perch, a dace and a half-pound roach. The half-pound roach attained an almost mythical status for me from then on, and it was a long time before I bettered it.

Today’s session reminded me of all the times my Dad spent with me, teaching me how to fish, teaching me that the fishing was important, not the size or number of the fish, but the being there. I do love lure fishing, but I felt a lot more ‘present’ today than I usually do when I’m out luring. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t partly because I actually caught some fish today, but it was more than that - it was a connection to a time and place gone by, and to the person who taught me the most important lessons in life and fishing. Thank you, Dad.

I have recently set up a Milton Keynes chapter for the Lure Anglers Society. A chapter is an informal group of members, based loosely by area, which provides a way for people to meet up and get to know other anglers and waters around where they live. We have about 10 members now, and I have set up an MKLureFishing Twitter account to give out messages and news for anyone who is interested. We will probably have a couple of fishing meets each year for everyone to come along and meet each other, with other members hopefully meeting up in smaller groups more regularly as well.

Should be great fun, follow us on Twitter for news or keep subscribed here for occasional write-ups of meets.