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Category Archives: General fishing

Chub bag – end of season.

16 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by The tuesday swim in General fishing, Tackle

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

allcocks, bag., bait, chub, fishing, handle, london, millican, rolling, roving, worm

nick the messenger bag millican

On Wednesday my bag referred to  as my ‘chub’ bag was finally laid to rest for a few months. It offers everything that I like about my angling, it’s lightweight, compact,  keeps me mobile and it can only fit the bare essentials, my angling  is lean, my approach is simple. On my last trip  of the season I took to the River Wandle (for the very first time) with friends Garrett and Tony. The technique was thus;- rolling a worm down some fast runs with aid of two swan shot and a no 1 next to the hook to keep the bait down. The result? Well Garrett sums up the trip perfectly in his own words here.

 

A London mullet.

17 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by The tuesday swim in General, General fishing, The Lea Valley

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Tags

angling, fishing, lea, mullet, photography, river

Don’t worry fashionistas of Hackney Wick and Dalston, the eighties mullet has yet to return, (for now) you may stick to your acid tones and cool electro beats but only the brave will dress the mullet once more.

My mullet were lurking in the tidal stretch of the Lea by the sanctuary of two discarded water tanks not found on a whim  but more likely a regular journey, summer after summer, sifting through the silt for a easy feed? Notably hard to catch, these stubborn thick lipped variety were positively zip lipped when it came to my free offerings. Do I have the patience to try and fool one of these or shall I stick to the carp? I’m unsure but to witness these mullet as I have done now for the last few days has been a privilege.

Summer solstice

21 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by The tuesday swim in Carp, General fishing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

angler, angling, canadian, canoe, carp, chris, fallon's, lea, yates

I’m compelled to write a few words on the solstice, a date I regard highly, the longest day and also my daughters birthday. Fallon’s Angler 10 is at the printers and will be dropped through the subscribers letter boxes within the week. This issue we headed towards Wales and shot two films, we rediscovered Cregennan  Lakes after a forty year absence, and met a special lady who has spent a lifetime on the Usk.

Also in issue 10 Chris Yates celebrate his glorious 16th and some new contributors play their part in the Fallon’s story from Wales and beyond.

For now there is a pleasant lull, I’m not racing around the country, I’m fishing locally for river carp, but being nomads they seem to have disappeared, perhaps seeking deep cooler pools while we sit out the hottest heatwave since 1977; I’m happy to sit it out with them…

My canoe is also ready for launch, this may help in seeking new swims that only before I could view from afar, over grown banks and fallen trees obstructing my passage, but first I will have to see if the canoe is stable enough to land a ‘river lurker.’

 

Barbed wire & no stingers – small river chubbing part II.

19 Sunday Feb 2017

Posted by The tuesday swim in General fishing

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anglers, Association, avon, birmingham, chub, fishing, Hardy, mease, richard, river, walker

It goes like this…got woken up; “daddy can I go and see nana?” “yes, go on then” I mumble. I go downstairs, boil kettle, find cup, clatter, spoon, rattle coffee packet, pour…flick through newspaper, celebrities, celebrities, celebrities, war, fear, sport; put paper down, slurp. Find car keys, phone, charger lead, bait, rod and bag. Car door clunks, press ‘engine on’, radio 4 starts up, Saturday morning live, more people banter on, “I’m this, I did that,” more views, more pop culture. Satnav kicks in, “turn left”, “go straight ahead”, light flashes, diesel low, refuel, more bleeps, find wallet, enter kiosk, banging house FM, choose shite sandwich, more bleeps, pay, go. Satnav pillow talk kicks in again, M42, turn off, road narrows, see church in distance, my bearings found, satnav off, radio off, window down, turn corner, river flows, coloured but fining down, pull up, switch off engine, open door, step out, calm, peace, just me, no one, stillness, an antidote…perhaps this is why I go fishing?

Last summer I went small river chubing on the River Mease and wrote about it here, it was hot, the stingers were high but the chub were obliging. Six months on, and spring still a few weeks away I have returned, I wanted to see the river in it winter dress, and hopefully seek out a greedy winter chub.

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The trees were  magnificent, bare open branches silhouetted on a battleship sky, on the horizon – a hint of blue, the water is coloured but not chocolate, days before the river had flooded the fields but now the river was once again contained. After trotting a float for a while I set up my 10′ avon with a quiver and walked the river dropping a swimfeeder  into some deep holes. I am still unfamiliar with the river Mease but eventually after an hour a chub came to the net.

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Barbed wire, stingers, flies & heat – summer river chubbing

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by The tuesday swim in General fishing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

anglers, Association, birmingham, chub, float, mease, Netherseal, river, small, stick, stream

The first signs of a heatwave hit England on Sunday and I was in the West Midlands seeking to winkle out a chub from the river Mease, a tiny meandering river that can be fished on a Birmingham Anglers Association day ticket. The Mease flows past the village of Netherseal that sits in classic open english countryside just half an hours drive from Central Birmingham.
NethersealI fancied a break from my current search for large river Lea carp, the Lea sadly contains very few chub in it’s lower reaches and I felt that I needed to be re-introduced since my last chance meeting on the Kennet last winter. My approach of trotting with a heavy chubber float, keeping the bread flake low in the water took me on a good mile long walk along its meandering course, the water was low and I saw no sign of a chub despite my stealthy approach of keeping low, pushing back the stingers and opening up small gaps in the undergrowth to expose tiny swims. With no luck I started to turn back and fish the swims that I had previously baited with bread and maggots, finally I saw  a chub dart up and take a maggot, despite the sun getting hotter and brighter I knew there was a chance of a fish.

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fishing_bagThe BAA do a great job in providing access over the barbed wire fences that follow the meanders of the river Mease but once over the fence you are right up to your neck in stingers, luckily stinging nettles push over quite easily and with a little care you can form an opening by placing your net and fishing bag down to create relatively pain-free platform.  I was now fishing the stick float on a slow drop using a button shirt shot pattern, I continued to trickle in the maggots and soon started to observe the chub darting out unable to contain their hunger for an easy meal. On my second cast I was into a chub of around the 3/4 pound, then another and another, each one getting a little larger.

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Surrounded by stinging nettles and the temperatures increasing the whole experience was becoming quite intense, flies were becoming more persistent as they buzzed around my face, sweat dripped from my brow, there was no place to retreat unless I got back up the bank and over the barbed wire fence, this would have broken my cover and spooked the chub, so I stayed low and continued to fish. For the next hour I caught ten to fifteen chub, the largest no more than a pound and a half, but on a light line and stick float this was fun fishing that reminded me of my summer holidays as a lad fishing on the Sussex Ouse. Finally I dropped a chub amongst the stingers, I had no option but to bury my hand into a clump of nettles and quickly pick it up, the pain was bearable, I was after all fishing and very little could deter me, but as the heat rose further and the flies grew in numbers I finally called it a day.

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In search of a springer salmon

15 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by The tuesday swim in Fallon's Angler quarterly, General fishing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

angler, fallon's, fishing, salmon, springer, wye

Difficult conditions on the Wye at the start of the season but at least I got the video camera out and had some fun with Steve Roberts of Riverdays. A few weeks later one of Steve’s clients caught a lovely fresh springer of 18lbs which you can read about in issue 6 of Fallons Angler

Ode to Jonni Berlin.

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by The tuesday swim in General fishing

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berlin, fishing, jonni, lakes

If you move to Berlin in search of the great escape there are municipal parks dotted all around the outskirts, a breather space for a post war generation, within the parks lie some interesting lakes. Today Berlin is a town un-paralleled in its relaxed outlook on work, life and love, but with fishing it has a different approach. A Mecca for free thinkers, Berlin is still fresh and exciting, where many cities have now fallen to corporations and conservatism, Berlin is an oasis. Even the most staunch New Yorker’s who lived for decades in the finest city in the world have found their beloved town too stiff, the bold ones have left preferring pastrami on rye in Mitte rather than the East Village.

As the 20th Century closed a dear friend of mine Jonni had to make a choice, the outcome was a life in Berlin and although I personally lost a neighbour I gained a city, my visits over the next fifteen years were varied but always loaded like a machine gun with a shot of hedonism punctuated with calm cool and traditional Germanic hospitality. If anyone suited Berlin then Jonni did.

I knew Jonni from an early age, we went to the same secondary modern school, a school that held no real pride, the teachers chain smoked their way through to retirement, a good day would involve not getting smacked in the face, this was a prayer for both teacher and child. With low expectations we all left in different directions like a band of brothers shell-shocked but happy to be alive and free. After failed career moves and some higher education my band of brothers re-grouped in Shoreditch in around 1991, this time we were armed with cameras and paint brushes but most importantly a ton of optimism. The Shoreditch years were hedonistic and my fishing days were left behind in Sussex, in the corner of my studio rested three North Western carp rods with 55’s, no one ever passed comment.

In the haze of Shoreditch (I can’t recall when) Jonni requested that we should do a fishing trip over night, from Shoreditch we transferred to a freshly dug pool somewhere in Essex or Kent where we continued our London ways. I don’t think our angling skills were that honed and with no real focus we caught nothing but  I did remember waking up in the morning only to find that we were surrounded by anglers who still kept a distance from our  chaos of beers cans, wine bottles, a scattering of rods, sleeping bags and roach ends… We only ever fished on that one occasion.

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Soon after I would be visiting Jonni in his new city, we would often walk the parks, have lunch and look around at the lakes that ripple around the outskirts of Brutalism. It was always winter when I visited and the Russian Easterlies made the lakes stark, forbidding, no one fished, the only sign of  life was the occasional lunatic who descended into the slate grey water to take a bone shaking swim.

As I mentioned at the begining, to fish these lakes posed some problems, an exam, the language and the cost. The Berlin rematch has never been organised.  Jonni, I think its time you took that exam, I miss you and we need to fish.

Happy New Year Jonni, Mia and to one and all.

Capturing Sweets for Fallon’s Angler.

08 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by The tuesday swim in Fallon's Angler quarterly, General, General fishing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

3, angler, fallon's, issue, jean, of, Sweets, usk, williams

The Tuesday Swim has been a little quiet for a while and for good reason, I have taken on the role as picture editor for the newly formed publication Fallon’s Angler. For those who haven’t come across this quarterly may I point you in the direction of the website www.fallonsangler.net.

My task along with the editor, Garret is to bring to the reader, original, interesting, and thoughtful writing and photography, a tall order? Well,  certainly a challenge but as ‘Fangler’ grows in momentum more opportunities are coming our way to discover new and old writers who have an interesting tale or perspective to share. I have just heard that we may have an old angling legend to grace the pages of issue 4.

My assignment for issue 3 was to visit Jean Williams in Usk and her wonderful traditional tackle shop that is filled with atmosphere and local knowledge. My photo essay and interview in Sweets I hope captures this atmosphere, I think it does.

Sweets_TTSIf you are in the Usk area and curious about Sweets or our publication, Jean has a few copies under the counter which maybe thumbed or even purchased for the princely sum of a pair of pints!

Disconnected water.

09 Saturday May 2015

Posted by The tuesday swim in General fishing

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british, england, fishing, isles, isolated, scotland, wales, waters

I’ve had no time to fish recently but I have visited some interesting places that have a sense of disconnection. Disconnection from what you may ask? Phones, computers, roads, builders, politicians, the list could go on but I shall stop. Fishing is in fact my way of disconnecting from all of that and reconnecting with a natural, uncontrolled, un-sensored way of being, its why so many anglers fish. So with this in mind I have set myself a task to find a remote and disconnected water to fish, an un-managed and neglected place, the getting there will be paramount to the experience of disconnecting. I have a few ideas, from the west coast of Scotland, maybe high up in the Brecon Beacons, a remote bit of coastline or possibly a lowly fen in Cambridgeshire. Rucksack is ready with camera and tackle for my first trip which will most likely take place as the season starts in June, unless of course a trout beckons?

The search is on…

Diconnected

Pints, pies and flies.

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by The tuesday swim in General fishing, Tackle

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bruno, clerkenwell, fly, green, guy, kings, lessons, london, pub, super, three, tying, vincent

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Huddled around three Anglepoise lamps five students gathered under the guidance from Bruno Vincent AKA Super Fly Guy. The Three Kings pub is our meeting place, tucked away on Clerkenwell Green,  pleasantly quiet, the perfect setting for some focused concentration. In a room above the main bar we sat around a dinning table and discovered some of the techniques from master fly tyer Bruno, while supping a few pints and chomping through scotch eggs and pork pies. Considering three of us were complete beginners the results were quite astonishing, buzzers, cascades and broadswords patterns…

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If you want to see Bruno’s freestyle and traditional work or ask about these evenings please drop Super Fly Guy an email bruno@superflyguy.biz.

http://superflyguy.biz

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