Sovereigns of the Stony Bottom - Stone Loach Pt.2 (Quest Complete !!)

In warm weather, maggots tend to chrysalise very quickly and it is advisable to keep them unrefrigerated conditions. This has been known to give rise to domestic friction in cases where the female spouse was not wholly in sympathy with the piscatorial ethos. In such cases a little subterfuge is called for.

The simplest method is to label the tin with the name of some innocuous product before placing it in the salad drawer of the refrigerator. Bread Paste or Cheese Paste are quite safe: the Wife knows they are something to do with fishing but are also quite hygienic.

Do not on any account use the name of anything which could conceivably be served up in a meal especially Long Grain Rice. 

This excellent product bears a strong resemblance to maggots in a refrigerated torpor. More than once it has happened that a short-sighted housewife has picked up a tin so labelled and made a curried rice dish for the local babysitting circle. 

There's nothing wrong with it, mind you, but few things are more heartrending the angler than to find that the maggots he went to so much trouble and expense to breed have been wolfed at one go by a bunch of twittering women.

So long as nobody tells them about it, surplus gentles can be served with safety at meetings of the Weight Watcher's Club. They have an extremely high protein content, are low on carbohydrates and served curried and with the appropriate sauce, do not taste bad at all !!!

No pinkies well didn't end for some of them because I left the bait fridge door ajar and the little blighters to escape the sweat pit managed to crawl through the tiny holes in the lid, whoops !!!

Thankfully the wife was at yoga because they were everywhere. Under the washing machine and tumble dryer and also crawling around the general area. So out with the vacuum cleaner and she was none the wiser !!

I had quite a few left thankfully so after clearing away the mess I decided a morning reccy to the Alne to try and catch a stone loach.

Minnow after minnow put a bend in the Tenkara rod and wading from section to section the faster flowing deeper areas were fished to try and stumble upon a stone loach. Some nice shady swims too where the bigger minnow seemed to be laying up.

Then out of the blue a long thin fish surfaced and the quest was complete !! 😁 that didn't take long now did it !!

Probably the smallest in the river mind you, but a stone loach is a stone loach at the end of the day and caught by design which was nice, the pinkie doing the business and the tiny hook. I stuck it out in that swim but again it was minnow after minnow. 

I had the lure rod with me as well and I also managed two small trout in the gin clear water. By this time the sun was beating down and it was getting very hot indeed.

So after fishing two more swims without success on the lure I ventured back to the area where I had the stone loach from and decided to spend the last hour there.

Again minnow after minnow but them 'boom' another stone loach 👏😝💪 succumbed to the pinkie and size 24 hook.

This one a little darker but again very small like the first one. I thought I'd found the method and location and one or two more would crop up. But that was that, I was getting minnowed out !! 

Another quest done and dusted !!! I need another one now, answers on a postcard