Remember that television series Life on Earth, in which David Attenborough went through all the life forms from the primaeval sludge to brain surgeons?
What I found particularly interesting was how the marsupials, the really primitive mammals with pouches, have developed independently in remote places into counter- parts of higher mammals in other parts of the world.
There are marsupial equivalents of mice, rats, cats, bears, moles, anteaters, squirrels, deer even a marsupial wolf which seems to be no longer with us on account of conservation-minded Aussies using it for target practice.
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It is a little known fact a totally unknown fact, in fact - that there is an order of British marsupial living in the Lost Islands of Lankiland, between Blackpool and Wigan, which has developed completely independently of other British wildlife.
The Lost Islands have been isolated for thousands of years on account of being surrounded first of all by water, and then by a broad belt of agricultural land in which there is not a pub for miles.
The staple diet of these marsupials is fish, and they have therefore developed into different forms of primitive angler, with remarkable parallels to the anglers of the outside world. These bizarre creatures are to be scientifically classified as Manglers, short for Marsupial Anglers.
Most common is the Common Mangler, which possibly comes as no surprise. The male is medium-sized, nondescript to tatty in appearance, with a pair of short stubby legs for jamming in wellies.
Its prey is anything daft enough to fall for its clumsy fishing methods, and its pouch is stuffed with an assortment of maggots, lobs, bread, cheese and bits of sausage. It also carries a few spinners, which accounts for the pained look which occasionally crosses its face and its habit of suddenly leaping six feet in the air.
Anyway enough of the distractions, something different for this session, you see I'd fish some maggots in a big flat feeder and maggots and half a lobworm on the hook for added attraction. Not my usual approach but I'd seen Martin Bowler use this rig before to target barbel in the winter where the feeder is fixed either side with some big grippa stops and it's good to tinker I say, oh and I've successfully caught barbel on lobworms before.
Fellow blogger and YouTube content creator Eric you see had managed to hook but sadly lost, a couple of barbel trotting on this, the syndicate stretch which was encouraging signs despite losing the fish. He certainly has got a lot closer than I have to a barbus at the untrodden so maybe a maggot approach might we be worth a go as a change up from the much larger baits I use. He was actually fishing caster and hemp in the main, but maggots would have to do 😃.
Fish love maggots and when hardly anything bites when the water temp is 6 degrees or below, mixing it up is definitely worth a go to try and make a bigger fish slip up.
I would be fishing in to dusk and in to dark for an hour so the witching hour would hopefully also increase the probability of putting a decent bend in the rod. Ok a barbel might feed for an hour or have its fins up conserving energy but at least they also like a maggot or ten. Now the river was higher than I thought and banging through in most swims but there are thankfully a couple with more calmer water where I'd drown the maggots.
With a frost overnight the water temperature had now dropped below 6 degrees which was one of the excuses already lined up.
2 swims fished feeder filled with grubs and cast out every 15 minutes or so in to dusk and an hour and a half in to dark...
....no bites
....no nibbles, nada
Oh well, it was worthwhile going out to try and catch something, even though I probably knew the outcome before I started the session. On a more positive note, one of these Imperial Stouts was enjoyed like an fine wine later with a fire, 👌.
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