Hosepipe Ban?

Whisper it quietly, we need several months of rain if we are to have respectable flows this summer. It could happen, the past two days here have been wet with much of the steady rainfall getting down into the ground although springs are not flowing very high up the ditches and there is no chance of the river coming over the banks. The Ranunculus that sprung into life during the cold clear snap has steadied up a bit, but is still more luxuriant than some years in May. We have had some hatches of fly, mostly mid day stuff that both fish and Wagtails have made the most off. One of our regulars popped over for some Grayling fishing and despite much success in previous years struggled throughout the day. This winter it seems that the Grayling fishing has been either on or off, with no steady stuff in between. If the fish are feeding, then most are on the go, and some big bags can be had, but it doesn’t seem to take much to put them off, and when one head goes down they all go down. There are a few Pike about although it seems a bit earlier for them to be ganging up and heading for the sexy spring holes to spawn.

The fish in the hatchery are now in the main tank, a little earlier than normal as some were starting to show signs of Gas Bubble disease; bubbles of Nitrogen in the blood brought on by spring water that is not completely saturated with Oxygen. If we get it, we call it “The Bends” bashing the water about soon solves the problem, the lower stocking density in a larger tank also keeps the fish in tip top condition and a more natural environment.

I am still engaged in the interminable struggle with Crack willow. Kill rates are down this week following a saw malfunction. A little knick in my chainsaw trousers that would have put stitches in my thigh, left me looking skywards thanking the patron saint of safety textiles. The idea is that the chain pulls at the fibres in the thick safety trousers, until enough come out to jam the chain, no Steel, Kevlar or carbon fibre fittings, just fine fibres rushing the chain en masse to halt its progress, thankfully it works like a dream.

The Merlin returned this week, for the umpteenth consecutive year, we chased it up the road on the way to football practice before it swerved off at high speed through the hedge. Bittern are back in the valley although I have not seen or heard it yet, and the Harrier (Marsh or ring tail Hen?) still flops around the Common. This week we have had the Electricians in, bringing our fuse board up to the ultra safe state currently required. He came before Christmas to assess the likelihood of electrical death, unfortunately my wife was on a different path to the afterworld with a dose of Pig Flu and he had to work around her bed ridden form. This week we forgot he was coming and it was my daughter who was stuck in bed, home on a half day from college who was woken by an electrician in her room. A nice man, who hails from up near Inkpen, I asked him about the Red Kites that were released up there a decade ago, mentioning that we regularly saw one or two around here. One day this summer he counted twelve in the air over his house, a shooting man living in some fantastic shooting ground, he suggested that it wouldn’t be too long before some in the area took the matter in hand.

A similar view was expressed by a visitor from a neighbouring Wild Life Trust, a reasonably sensible bunch much removed from The “ Disneyfied Groovy Gang” of this parish. While drinking tea in our kitchen following a cold day Grayling Fishing, the soon to be retired WT man commented on what he had seen throughout the day, a couple of friends who live and work further down the river turned up to duff up some Ducks and fishing conversation kicked off. Cormorants were soon on the agenda, along with Otters, Canoeists and much else that chugs up and down the river valley. Frequently the discussion turned to a balance that must be struck, the man with Twelve Kites over his house suggested the same.

Species diversity has undoubtedly widened over the past decade and it is something of which we should be justifiably proud, but a balance must be maintained if all are to thrive. As Head honcho/ top predator we must face up to that responsibility and recognise what is required to maintain a balanced environment.
The derelict farm buildings up the road that provided shelter for a lonely Barn Owl for some years were recently converted, and an Owl box put up to provide the ghostly bird with an alternative abode. The Owl now prefers the Oaks and Ash alongside the road while the new tenants Cat spends his days in the Owl box,

Ahah!

We have had several inches of rain, the river coloured up very quickly, indicating that much of what fell ran off; the springs could do with days of steady rain to get a good recharge, rather than heavy intense showers. The Brown Trout are a little more active and starting to regain some of the weight lost during spawning. Several were picked up by Grayling anglers this week and they looked to be in good condition. The Grayling however proved to be fairly elusive; four down from the wide-open spaces of Grafham had slow sport although they finished with fifteen fish on a bitterly cold day. Few fly are hatching and all fish caught have been taken sub surface, several Grayling of between pound and a half and two pounds have been decidedly chubby, not spawn but full bellies and in tip top condition.

We had a go at Duffing up Ducks. During the Christmas period a lot of food was going and as well as the usual Mallard and gadwall there were numbers of Wigeon and Teal. Conditions were perfect but very few Ducks came into the pond we fired twenty to thirty shots, we heard thirty odd on a pond a mile down stream and a handful of shots three miles upstream on the main river. Where they have all gone is anyone’s guess. The record-breaking temperatures of past months may have pushed some to warmer coastal climes, or there may not be the numbers flighting the river that there used to be, if any ducks are reading this, there is a chuffin great pile of Barley in the shallows of our pond waiting to be eaten, help yourself.

The interminable struggle with Crack Willow continues, with several more put to the sword. I also had a day killing Ivy (no relation) the waxy leaved parasite that strangles so many of the trees around here. A couple of senior Oaks that I did five years ago are now almost full to the crown, it may not kill a tree but it provides a bigger surface area in windy conditions, if any tree around here blows over in a wind, more often than not it is covered in ivy. Its advance is relentless and some parts of the wood are worse than others. In an alliance formed with Crack Willow, the world would be conquered and we would be governed by plant life…… and not for the first time.

As an entertaining interlude for the week, we played host to John Wilson, he of the television fishing programmes and much published fishing books. I grew up with Wilson’s articles in the angling press on trotting for Roach on Norfolk’s rivers, my son and his fishing mate have seen most of his fishing programmes, my mate saw him grumbling at the NEC when he’d had his best rod and reel pinched from the stand, his TV persona conveys a character who just enjoys his fishing. He spent all day trotting for Roach and Grayling, caught a few trout on the way, stayed for a cup of tea, and returned my sixteen year old son to the bashful days of primary school.
A few fishing pundits who turn up here no longer enjoy their fishing; it’s become a means to an end with an underlying jaded air. Wilson appears to be still in love with all things rod and reel. Him and his mate turned up at dawn and left at dusk, having caught Roach and Grayling to a pound and a half.

He knows his fishing and seems to genuinely enjoy it…top trotter and a decent bloke.

Muntjac make good pie

Muntjac make good pie

The weather warmed up this week, the birds sang a little louder, a few fly hatched off the river and the postman put his shorts back on. We have had several inches of rain and the river is starting to look a little fuller, although the spring ditches are not yet flowing very strong. Bizarrely the Ranunculus on the top shallows has flourished over the past month and despite being cut out in October is now waving in the faster current. A vitally important weed, we don’t yet fully understand the cycles of its growth, the only explanation that I can throw up is that the water has been crystal clear throughout the snowy period and the light intensity may have stimulated some growth despite the river being bloody freezing.
Much of the past few days has been spent engaged in the never ending struggle with Crack willow, it grows up, it falls over it takes root and grows up again, slowly creeping towards the river. Parts of some of the bends have become starved of light, inhibiting weed and marginal growth and it is these that I am tacking first, their removal has the added bonus of making some of the bends easier to fish!

We had another bumble around on a shoot day. Still no Geese, but plenty of Widgeon and more and more Snipe, Otis sprang over twenty from a puddle no more than six feet square on the top water meadow. The top drive was the best it has been all year, with plenty of Partridge and Pheasant coming out in ones and twos, it was raining for much of the morning and I thought it would be blank. The Iron Age defence ditch that has proved to be our best drive for some years has been ruined by the work carried out in the name of English Heritage. Cold, bare and bleak, where it was once full of bottom, bushes and shelter, it offers little to the wildlife of the Parish other than the Badgers who dig away at it with gay abandon. We put up a fox close to the house, and blazed away at quite a few pigeon. A few Muntjac scurried through, these funny little deer have now gone to the top of my favourite Venison list. We have had haunches and saddles cooked in a variety of ways these past few months and we have not been let down yet. Braised slowly the meat tastes like steak and kidney, a haunch roasted with rosemary, like strong lamb. It won’t be long before Nigella or Marco are singing its praises, because there are plenty of them skipping about the Home Counties.
The Bittern are back, I have not seen one yet but there have been several reports of their sighting. So far we have seen fewer Cormorants than last year although the Otters have taken their place as “destroyer in chief” of the local fish population. I have now got radios on each of the stew ponds. Radio 2 is keeping them away at the moment with Richard Madeley’s two-week stint standing in for Chris Evans on the Breakfast show proving to be particularly effective. Further down the river some video monitoring is taking place to provide evidence of what the cheeky little critters are up to. It may help in demonstrating the problem to a public who see all things cuddly as something that must be protected, although it is interesting to note that the fine fleece and sandals brigade have little to say on the matter. “Let those who have commercial interests in fishing shout about the problem lest it harm our image in the media” seems to be their take on Otters, although what these cute creatures will eat when stocking is restricted or no longer permissible is a no brainer.

It's Triplets!!

Christmas came and went, the temperature dipped to minus thirteen and ice formed in the margins of the river. The local put and take big fish water was frozen over for two weeks or more and snow lay on the ground until the day after Boxing Day when the temperature rose and turned the parish to mush and slush, and caused a brief flurry of flies to hatch around midday. A few of the Brown Trout in the river are looking a little lean and could do with starting to think about feeding again. The Brown Trout eggs in the hatching trough are now hatching, a little later than last year, but they seem to be a reasonably decent batch.
Father Christmas brought me a new float rod for Christmas after my old one was broken in a mysterious footballing incident in the garden. My first foray with a stick float, trotting a piece of pinched bread, produced one of last year’s stockies that was particularly lanky, a three quarter pound Grayling and half a dozen immaculate Roach to just under a pound. The river is low and clear, a bit more colour and water would now doubt produce a bigger bag.

More and more Wigeon have moved into the valley over the past few weeks, along with quite a few Teal, and a very funny duck that must be some kind of Hybrid, the Snipe are still about, but unusually the Geese have not moved onto the top water meadow. There seem to be plenty of Pheasants about, although our remaining two shooting days may prove otherwise.

The cold weather has ensured that all the flora and fauna are aware that it is Christmas time, Snow drops have only just started to show above ground, and the daffodil bulbs that my dopey spaniel dug up in the garden, seem to have a long way to go before they will be bursting into bloom. Most things seem to be in their winter dormancy apart from the Moles, that somehow manage to throw up fresh hills of earth through six inches of frozen ground.

On New Year’s Eve, our two children are now of an age where they would prefer to go off to roister and raise hell elsewhere than spend an evening in with parents and friends, this left the two of us on the evening of the thirty first. Fine wine, fireworks, food and conversation were done by ten thirty so we went to bed, rising early on the first day of 2011 to take the dogs down onto the Common.
There was a fox with a rabbit in its mouth, Roe deer and Muntjac scuttling away, a cacophony of quacks signalled the departure of several varieties of Duck and we almost trod on three short eared Owls, who were decidedly reluctant to leave the area and flew their floppy flight around our heads before settling in a nearby ash tree.
Chuck it all together in an Old Chinese proverb and they would no doubt prove to be incredibly significant events that would culminate in my wife or I bearing triplets with small ears some time in September, alternatively it could just be that we were the first down on to the Common that morning and nothing had yet been disturbed, If sickness and stomach cramps strike I will let you know.

Even more snow

It snowed again, six inches deep around here, other parts of the country had considerably more. It hung around for ten days or more, our second shoot was conducted in falling snow and a few days ago the dawn temperature was minus thirteen degrees. Ice has formed on the margins of the slower parts of the river and millstream and the fish have switched right off as their metabolism slows with the low water temperature.

Most of the Pheasants stayed down in the warmer meadow eschewing the draughty block of Maize on top of the hill, A few Partridge pitched off the top, but most of what was around lay in the valley bottom. A few Woodcock and Snipe got up, some funny ducks that looked like Widgeon got up in the distance and several Muntjac ran to and fro as we bumbled our way through the wood. We shot a few and missed a few, which was understandable in the conditions, and were glad to get back indoors following a bitterly cold morning. Otis did OK, picked up a couple of tricky pricked birds and quartered and flushed his way through most of the morning. Now he has worked out what his nose is for it would be great to get him out on some Ducks in the Dark, but there are still very few duck coming onto the pond let alone flying up and down the valley. With the woodburner on the go twenty four hours a day, we are getting through logs at an alarming rate, the senior ash tree that did for the bridge six weeks ago has now nearly all gone, along with another that came down near the millstream.

The Brown Trout eggs are now all eyed up and will soon be hatching, this years batch have been particularly good, especially when compared to last year’s batch when I used a couple of duff cockfish. In the river there are no fish on the gravels any more, most have retired to the deeper water to get over the rigours of spawning. The low water temperature may mean that they are slow to regain condition. The Grayling are in superb condition, the water remains relatively clear for the time of year and they are by far and away the most active of the fish in the river bar the Pike who sit motionless until hunger takes hold and a hundred mile an hour ambush secures them a meal. With a bit of colour in the water we could have some good pike fishing in the early months of next year.

Snow and stuff

Freezing temperatures didn’t deter a couple of Grayling fishermen last week who struggled on their first day in low clear water and biting wind but caught fish on the second when the Grayling decided to join in. There are a few big fish around at the moment, and on the odd occasion this week they have fed on the surface mid afternoon to the odd Olive that has broke cover.
Snow midweek covered everything up and made the place look neat and tidy, night time temperatures fell to around minus six, which is positively tropical compared to the minus twenty in Scotland. The snow also revealed that the Otters are back and filling their boots in the stew ponds, the electric fence became buried in the overnight snow and the Otters were quick to take the opportunity of an easy meal, they are becoming increasingly bold in their activities and are not the creature of twenty years ago that would shy away from the slightest hint of human activity. On one of our fishing trips to France we saw several soporific and decidedly rotund Otters that seemed to have taken up residence on a coarse fish farm. The owners had become exasperated at their ineffective efforts to keep the creatures out of the ponds, and were fast approaching the last resort of reaching for the recipe book.
The shallows are bright with the clean gravel of freshly cut redds, more than I have seen for some seasons, the Leviathan that inhabits the middle bends put in her annual appearance, close to double figures she has been around for at least the last four seasons. Rarely seen during the season, she crashed at a Fisherman’s fly during the hot weather of summer, and in January she swam into my legs while I was moving some tin, but most of the time she tucks herself away in the deeper water.
The Merlin hasn’t turned up yet, although a few funny things are cropping up around the place. A Marsh Harrier was flopping around when my wife and I took the dogs down to the Common last Sunday.
The sledging field behind our house, which also doubles as quite a senior Pheasant drive, was once again the centre of attention with the local youth flinging themselves downhill on plastic sheets, upturned roof boxes and the odd orthodox sledge. Many stuck to the same run for the first hour or two, before moving ten yards across the slope for some virgin snow, the first run down put up two hares who had sat tight within yards of the screaming and crashing for over an hour. During the days of open Coarsing I was constantly amazed at a Hare’s ability to conceal itself in an open patch of earth and avoid detection, as the beating line stepped over it in open country.

On a bitterly cold day, we had our first shoot. The Field magazine with photographer and assistant turned up to take some pictures for their February front cover. A photogenic beating line containing the usual suspects worked the camera and put up a considerable amount of birds, although Duck were conspicuous by the their absence during the opening skirmishes down the spring ditches of the water meadow. Pheasants flew well, although the drive with the new and improved Iron age defence ditch sans trees and cover, proved a little tricky. We also saw quite a few Muntjac, two or three Woodcock and some nice Partridge. Otis performed surprisingly well, with one tricky pick up of a pricked Partridge on the other side of the river, he did however run out of beans towards the end of the day and must learn to pace himself, In Len’s words I’d give him Sevuuurrnn!

Got a bit of a bashing on the letters page of Trout and Salmon magazine this month. I questioned an entertaining article about fishing the River Rother at Petersfield that claimed the fish caught were genuine wild Brown Trout. I wrote to the magazine asking how the fishery conservation expert who advised the author could be so sure that they were wild fish, particularly as I had stocked the stretch below with mixed sex Brown Trout for several years. Fishery Conservation expert replied in emotive terms invoking the spirit of grand children with a “concrete” case that included the use of the words “probably” and “we can assume” I have replied in person and do not wish to enter into a messy exchange of letters in the angling press.

Unfortunately we probably can’t assume, because the argument over stocking has become muddied by the extremes of view held by the wild fish brigade and the corporate and commercial boys, a sensible solution lies somewhere in between.

Duff cocks, and a third interesting lump in my undercrackers

Duff cocks, and a third interesting lump in my undercrackers.

We have had some very wet weather with flooding in other parts of the country, around here, it has been fairly steady with minimum run off and most of it getting into the ground, to back up this theory, the river is not carrying much colour although we do have enough water to get the Mill stream running again. The Brown Trout are spawning hard, including one enormous hen on the middle bends, and there are many redds cut in the clean gravel. Herons are making a nuisance of themselves along with a brace of Little Egret who seem to be inseparable. The eggs in the hatchery are a week old now and look to be ok, I have picked very few dead eggs out this year, unlike last year’s batch when I think I must have used a duff cockfish during fertilisation.
We have had few Grayling Fishermen along this year, despite there being a good stock in the river. Now that the weed has been cut out several of the shoals of Roach have joined together to form one super shoal and will provide good sport to a single maggot presented under a trotted stick float. There are also a couple of Chub, or Chublets of around a pound plus the Perch on the bottom bends.
With the heavy rain the Pheasants have opted to spend much of the day in the wood, visiting the strips of Maize between the showers, which has meant I have been getting through a bit more corn. This year we are paying £160 a tonne for wheat, which is the highest, we have ever had to pay. As is the way of the enigmatic Wild Duck some days they are with us some days they are not, some nights the Barley on the pond is all eaten up, some nights there is a lot left over. I suspect that they are being fed very hard higher up the valley and shot at regularly, moving out to other ponds when their favourite feeding spot with its mountain of Barley has become to risky only to return when the memory of flying lead/bismuth has passed.
The Ash Tree that demolished the bridge has now partly been cut up; the replacement bridge will be over engineered in the grand manner of the Victorians, with big plates of metal and lots or rivets, or possibly a less elaborate wooden one sited away from any big trees. The Amber tree still clings on to its burgundy leaves, as do the Oaks.

Away from the river, a third interesting lump in my underpants proved to be a hernia, that is to be dealt with in the new year, along with a second hernia that I was unaware off, and somehow I managed to finish runner up in Hampshire FA’s Groundsman of the year 2010 competition, and I didn’t know we were even entered.

“This Groundsman demonstrated considerable innovation in his refusal to use parallel or perpendicular lines, each line painted maintained its own unique identity and direction; occasionally straight, often curved his current work breaks new ground in football pitch design, his penalty spots in particular, are a triumph!”

An FA spokesman said

The final inspection by FA pitch gurus and mandarins occurred two days after the village firework display. Seven hundred people jumping up and down on the turf was explained as pushing the barriers of organic rolling, and the burnt patch in the corner where the bonfire had been as, efforts to change soil structure in a boggy patch through the medium of fire.
Luckily they had visited in the summer, incognito with muffled oars, when we had some grass.