The Tiny River Alne - Timers and Timberheads

It was nice seeing the car I've been working on for over 4 years the Polestar 5 going up the Goodwood Hill, but there is still plenty to do I can tell you, stuff I cannot go in to here. Lets just say there is no let up in the CAD bashing, however it will be good to eventually see it out the door, rubbing my hands as it disappears over the horizon. 

Don't get me wrong it's been a great team where when I started there was only 70 R&D staff in the UK, now it's >500. (Polestar lost 10% staff recently because of some software delays from Volvo effecting the business plan) But cars like this are complicated and considering it was a clean sheet of paper it's nice to see it as real car not in digital. And a production representative car not a Frankenstein mule which the previous prototypes were. 

Ok we are not talking James Webb space telescope levels of complexity but this is the 2nd electric vehicle I've worked on and coming from my first car that had points for ignition, and a car I could fix with some spanners and a big hammer, these beasts are next level. 

I had a patent awarded for an engineering solution that supported the design theme that was a novel kinematic solution that hasn't been seen before. That won't be seen till the cars are given to the press to review but we've had parts off tool for a good while now that are in various durability and climatic tests as we speak, and thankfully nothing major thus far.

That's why getting back to basics is rather nice isn't it, away from the turmoil especially when this part of the world where the only disturbance to the solitude is when a sheep farts in the distance, or a kingfisher sounds his arrival. 

Now Sam fancied joining me for this session where not long in to the session he wanted me to set a timer for 45 minutes and 29 seconds which would call the end of the trip out for chub. The Alne was chocolate brown after dropping a good foot however the bread could be seen a good foot down through the gloom.

There is plenty of cover this time of the year so we fed a few swims with bread mash and would leave them rest a while before fishing a big bait in the pre-baited swim. 

The first bite came quickly where a small chub picked up the bait and after a couple of rattles on the quiver tip it bent properly round and the fish was on. I really small swim this and it tried to get in and amongst some tree roots but I managed to steer it away from there and Sam did the netting honours.

Like any small river it is often a one bite wonder where roving is the key to extract some more fish, so we headed downstream and fishing the likely holding areas and those that we pre-baited. It wasn't going well with the countdown timer in full swing bit the key was to negotiate the bridge of death to fish the deeper swims below.

We were biteless in the banker swim but when I reeled in to move on the break flake must have come off the hook. I'd fed some mash when I got there so decided to try again with another large piece of breadflake where the bait had barely touched the bottom before Sam struck in to an unmissable bite.

It was giving him a merry dance taking line and I had to take over at one point to avoid the inevitable but after that snag was avoided, Sam took control of the rod again and I netted it for him.

Not a bad fish for the Alne, where anything over 2lb is a good'un. We moved to the last swim where it was clear within minutes there was only small fish in the swim. The bread was being attacked from all angles judging by the indications on the 1oz glass tip. The timer sounded the end of the session soon after but an enjoyable short session at this handy water where the often ad-hoc fishing fix is often ticked off.