The River Arrow - Conkers and Consequentialisms

Sam was still welded to the duvet when I went to see if he was up for fishing, but as expected despite saying he would be up for it, he looked up at me, and said "I'll give this one a miss". It wasn't exactly early either because it was 7.10am and he is up that time for school, however much like his mother bed is his happy place.

What I didn't expect was 10 minutes later when loading the car, the kitchen door to the garage opened and a little face appearing it Sam had changed his mind 🤯. The Avon is still over its banks however the Arrow drops as fast as it rises so at least that would be fishable. 

The Jimny is 5 years old, and looking clean for once because of a recent service and MOT where it nearly ticked over to 40k miles on this trip out. It was a chilly morning at a nadger under 6 degrees however when we arrived at the river Sam was right out the door and was on the conker hunt. It's mad that he didn't play it in school (banned according to Sam in Health and Safety reasons) but he really enjoys it, because it suits his competitive nature. 

The earliest records of mentions of the game of conkers was in the early 19th century, with the first mention appearing in Robert Southey’s memoirs published in 1821. The game grew in popularity in the 1800’s across England.

Now the tradition way to score in a game of conkers is based on how many times a player wins / smashes an opponent's conker. The score is usually attributed to the conker itself, rather than the player. So for example, a conker that has smashed just one other conker is called a ‘one-er’; a conker that has smashed two conkers is called a ‘two-er’. 

 An added complication involved in scoring is that if your conker is a ‘two-er’ and you beat another conker that is a ‘two-er’ your conker turns into a ‘four-er’ (i.e. you add the two values of the conkers together - with the victorious conker taking the combiner value e.g. 2 + 2 = ‘four-er’.)

Other uses of the conkers include horse medicines, as additives in shampoos, and as a starch substitute. Chemicals extracted from conkers can be used to treat strains and bruises. There’s hearsay that if you place conkers around your house it will keep spiders away, but there’s no scientific proof that this is the case. (They didn't work for us !!)

The Victorians wrote recipes for making conker flour. The seeds were shelled, ground and then leached to remove bitter flavours. It’s not a common practise these days and if consumed in excessive quantities conkers are mildly poisonous.

The Arrow was within the banks but as expected it was the colour of chocolate and in most swims boiling and swirling. I had my chub with bread and worm as bait and I'd prime some spots before leapfrogging likely looking chub swims to try and catch one of the lovely chub that reside here.

Sam had his float rod with maggots and he was straight on to the fish from the off. There was about 5 inches of visibility and fishing shallow and maggots he was certainly being entertained.

Not the biggest of maggot munchers and minnows outnumbered this stamp 5 to 1. Anyway swim after swim the bigger fish didn't seem to be showing sadly. The bait(s) were presently nicely because the quiver was indicating small fish attacking their potential stomach filler, but not even a chublet graced my rod.

2 hours in Sam was getting bored catching tiddlers and he wanted a tussle with a bigger fish so we took it in turns to man the quiver rod. 

But unfortunately nothing whatsoever and we fished 6 or 7 swims I'd imagine. We disturbed a cormorant in one of those swims which was upstream of the banker. The banker it was motoring through however I managed to present a bait ok but after 15 minutes we were wasting our time.

The banker the fish are right on to the bait straight away if they are there but on this occasion their lair wasn't occupied. So around 3 hours fished and not a huge amount to show for it.....

...unlike Sam who not only outfished Daddy but he also collected a huge amount of conkers when I finished off in the weir for another biteless swim. There is more rain on the way but I watching the Avon levels like a hawk. 

I bet the barbel are out feeding when they can, and with a specific fish to target I'm hoping the river will tell me where it could be hiding out. The problem is, I need to be able to get to the river don't I. Anyway fingers crossed that won't be long, as I've not caught a decent fish in a while. 

On to the next one !!