Small Brook Fishing Pt.26 - Otters and Otorhinolaryngology

That little dream stream of intrigue, the enabler for that seeker of solitude away from this modern world of madness, that much needed short term feeling of utopia, the dangling of the maggot. 

That feeling of connection where believe it or not those theatres' of dreams do exist outside of those periods of rapid eye movements, oneirology and the much needed consumption of the blue cheese ...

....you just need to find them.

Ok no footprints to be discovered from long-necked sauropods called Cetiosaurus and the smaller meat-eating Megalosaurus to appease those blog reading paleontologists, but for us anglers who like to target specific fish  often there will be dace and sometimes roach of eyebrow raising proportions. 

 

Streams and small rivers are probably the most numerous and yet the most underfished of all waters. Only a few of the best and most carefully tended are fished intensively. 

Some rarely, if ever, see an angler on their banks-possibly because they are so small, insignificant, and overgrown that many anglers think they are unfishable. 

Yet most of these streams will contain fish, and some fish of specimen size. I have seen a 3lb trout caught from a tiny rivulet only a foot across, and have caught roach over 2lb, and chub over 5lb, from streams which one could span with out-stretched legs.

At first it might seem difficult to judge what species of fish a stream is likely to contain, but once the angler has learned to recognise the obvious signs he can often assess quite accurately just how rich in fish life each stream is likely to be. In general, the best of these small waters are clear, and rich in plant and animal life. 

The poorest are rocky and almost totally devoid of either plant or animal life. These differences are inevitably reflected in the number and size of the fish to be found in each water. 

In the world of nature everything is interdependent: a water that is rich in natural organic foods often contains large fish of several different species, whereas a water of poor quality will rarely contain big fish. By comparison, the size of the water itself is unimportant. The smallest of streams may contain many fine fish, while larger rivers and streams may hold few, if any.

Dace are comfortable in a range of water sizes, including these small overgrown streams that see little or no angling pressure and where the black death is unlikely to tread its webbed feet, leaving those forgotten fish to thrive in their more often than not turbid environment. 

Now dace seem to prefer faster flowing, well oxygenated streams, but can also be found in slower moving, deeper water, and in my own experience those bigger dace don't mind the coloured water at all either. In-fact my PB dace of 12 ounces came from this tributaries parent a short bike ride away when the water clarity didn't look inviting at all, but it just goes to show doesn't it.  

My best dace on this small waterway is around 8oz's if I look back at my blog, which ain't bad really is it, especially when those that walk past it probably don't even realise there are even fish in it. Anyway I was back armed with a pint of maggots and a slice of bread and that was it. A small float set-up with a Guru QM1 hook, a landing net, oh and a bag of bits. 

The canal was frozen over on-route with the odd ice free patch where the overflows were and the air was rather nippy I must admit. After disturbing a menacing looking Heron It took a while to find a swim that produced a few bites but then a few nice chunky dace came to the net that succumbed to the maggots. 

To be honest I could have done with the Korda Maggot Winter Toasting Table because they were very lifeless maggots indeed, but then it was hovering above freezing it wasn't exactly warm. Sadly nothing of the size that I have caught on this stretch but then after walking to another stretch to fish which is in the middle of the wood, I was sharing the piscatorial pursuits with another couple of anglers....

....these were a couple of otters however that I spotted out the corner of my eye and after switching on my SAS stealth mode I managed to position myself behind a tree to try and capture the culprits in action. That was easier said than done because every broken branch underfoot was amplified in the wooded auditorium. 

Now I've seen hundreds of otters of the years on all the waterways I fish, but this little stream meant I could get closer than any of my other encounters and one of them was obliging for a while with his gob full of a nice dace 😢 The other well he motored off downstream popped his head out of the water and started to hiss and growl at me. That wasn't very nice was it !!!

I decided to upsticks after trying a couple more swims for nada and venture to the Alne for the last hour where after walking across rock hard ground I trotted one swim with maggots without even a dip of the float. I think I need to consult Google maps to try and find another small stream to fish, this one could well difficult for a while. I'll give it another go for sure, I'm hoping the dace and the other species have found a good hiding place. 

Goodbye to 2024 and Welcome to 2025

Well this year couldn't have been more different to the previous year because not only was there only one PB caught from the rivers and that was a brown trout off the river Arrow, but a good reason for that because the number of sessions had reduced significantly over the 12 months. 

I'd still managed to get out every few days however which considering how pants the weather has been and the amount of holidays I'd taken this year, oh and the daily work drudgery still some decent banktime I suppose.

A memorable capture was this lovely 8lb 9oz canal Zander that fought like a demon and also a few new species caught during a holiday to Lanzarote back in February and another species from the UK seas when I caught a bull huss from Westward Ho! in November. A rather forgettable year really, oh well, I'm hoping 2025 will bring me some good fortune, oh and bring us all a better year outside the world of fishing. 

Targets for the New Year well Barbara the barbel is certainly one of them, but also some big canal roach, Zander obviously and more trotting on the Wye in the summer. I'm also going to have a rethink on the club tickets I have and maybe some shuffling about and out with the old and in with the new. The rivers haven't really been that conducive to trotting bread flake on the Avon so I'm hoping in 2025 we have more settled conditions than we have had this year.

Anyway see you all on the other side !!

Oh and it will be the 15th year of Piscatorial Quagswagging WTF !!! where does the time go !!

Tight Lines for 2025 Blog Readers

The River Arrow - Magic Twigs and Maggotoriums

Up and up go the prices of bait and tackle. Perhaps we've been too lucky for too long, but it does come hard when the cost of the working man's simple and innocent pastime starts to verge on the prohibitive.

I mean, it's not as if we were gambling, or boozing, or running around with women, is it?

Is it?

Pausing not for an answer, and looking neither to the left nor the right, he moves on to the next bit. Which is the Patented Piscatorial Quagswagging System of Piscatorial Barter.

The more I think about this idea, the crummier it seems, but that's probably what all the Great Minds of History thought when the still, small voice went Boi-oi-oing!

This system would do away with money and return to the old barter system. We'd just carry fishing baits and gear around to swop. A table of relative currency values would probably go something like:

• 2 pinkies = 1 specials
• 2 specials = 1 gozzer
• 2 gozzers = 1 wasp grub
• 2 wasp grubs = 1 lob
• 3 lobs = 1 hook
• 4 hooks = 1 float
• 2 floats = 1 swingtip
• 2 swingtips = 1 bobbly hat
• 5 bobbly hats = 1 wellie
• 2 wellies = That One More Cast Magic Twig you've never used 😁

• ... and so on. 

The advantages of the system are obvious even to the dimmest. (Get out of that. You can't, can you?) Having, by common consent, agreed to them, let us look at some of the drawbacks.

Things could get awkward at times, having to carry around pocketful of wellies, bobbly hats, pinkies and specials. You could have a back pocket full of small change one minute and should somebody inadvertently bump into you, a horrible squashy mess the next.  

It might be difficult to find a landlord who would accept a handful of specials and lobs in return for a couple of pints of bitter. And if you were to say, 'One for yourself, landlord,' what would you offer him for the round? Eight six-inch lobs and a couple of inches snipped off a ninth? Or would you give him all nine and say, 'Keep the change'?

Flag-day collectors might look askance if you stuffed their tins with bloodworms. They might get their own back, though, by pinning a dead gudgeon to your lapel.

Casters might be classed as floating currency unless you anticipated the swing and stuck a dust shot to each of their little bums. 

And gozzers which survived the hazards of your back pocket might suddenly go downhill. Right down your trouser leg. And thereafter be fit for nowt. Or debased, as we say in the City. So invest in nothing smaller than gilt-edged hooks, chaps, if you want to keep your currency stable.

But even hard currency is not one hundred percent reliable. Top joints can develop a permanent set, even if you stick them down your wellie tops. And nobody wants to handle bent money.

Floats can be a positive hazard. Have you ever seen somebody with a porcupine quill in his trouser pocket forget that it's there and sit down quickly? Have you ever thought how much it costs to mend a bloke-sized hole in the ceiling?

Anyway, to the Arrow forthwith before I get carted off in a straight-jacket, I wasn't going to go but the Avon was so pants 24 hours earlier I wanted to catch something to bend the rod before 2025 arrives. So simple roving tactics (Hello to Tom who has the same idea, hope you caught something) with bread to try and winkle out a fish. 

So not a bad mornings session, 3 chub caught from 3 different swims, the best above >4lb I'd imagine with the other two a 2 lber and a 3lber. The Arrow was clearing and pretty low but there is lots of features on this stretch so ideal for chub and luckily that's what I caught, I really do love chub fishing, Happy Days !!