John Bailey's Casting Off West

[John Aston]

Me too - a carp would be so much better. So many about too- nobody would miss just one surely ?

 

[xenon]

Think I am right in saying that back in the dark ages (the seventies) John Binyon would freely write about using pound plus roach for livebaiting!?

 

[Steve Arnold]

Think I am right in saying that back in the dark ages (the seventies) John Binyon would freely write about using pound plus roach for livebaiting!?

For some predator anglers (back in my youth!) anything else was just called "bait"!

 

[John Bailey]

JB enjoying a bit of hard work​

Casting Off West. 28/05/2021

Well, I have to say that this weekend sort of cements my purpose for coming here... I hope.

This afternoon and tomorrow I’m joining my gang of mates to work on our two Wye stretches, one that we have had for many years, and one brand new. Both are exciting, but an unexplored bankside is especially attractive, of course. The river will still be up so swim recognition won’t be easy, and we might well find ourselves clearing places barbel haven’t been resident for years. I’ll admit I am useless at these affairs. I have a saw, and half know how to use it, but my expertise is wandering around, looking authoritative and offering advice and encouragement. Strikes me I haven’t changed in that regard since leaving teaching 30 years ago... clipboard man goes West...

Then, on Sunday, it is my initial assault on the suspected wild carp water a hundred yards from my new residence. It has been easy to delay this because of the weather, but the truth is that I am afraid I’ll find a motley crew of assorted six pound mirrors that have destroyed my dream of wild carp with a past stretching back centuries. This would be a mini-tragedy for my more dreamy self... back in the Eighties I well remember trips to this Marcher land area with types like Chris Yates and Pete Smith, looking for time-lost wildie waters. I suspect that this present quest is in part an attempt to relive those days, when we were young and the future was there to conquer. It’s not all whimsy though. To find and register an undiscovered wild carp lake would be a great thing to do and a fine way to start my new life in earnest. When that float goes down, as I am sure it will, given the lake has not been fished for eighty years or so, my heart truly will be up by my tonsils...

If I haven’t chopped off an arm or been pulled in by a fifty pound wildie, expect to hear from me in a couple of days. With wild carp news I pray...

Wild carp action back East... played, netted by Robbie Northman, and displayed with tender pride​

 

[John Bailey]

Casting Off West. 30/05/2021

Well, I promised a report on the Wye work party, but more especially the wild carp escapade.

First, the work party... actually did a bit of work. Despite cake, kettles and a drop of wine or two, some dozen swims were sorted out over the two days with no loss of life, though yours truly did manage a premiership footballer-type roll down the bank at one stage, and was only saved from a ducking (or drowning) by a tree root. At least I made it obvious why I’m more of a clipboard, work study sort of geezer. I didn’t even have to say anything, just launch myself into space!

Now to the wild side. Bank Holiday Sunday in the morning sun. Between 11am and 1pm I managed to lose THREE torpedoes, each one of which completely beat me up. A Hardy 13ft float rod, reel, 8lb line and float set-up, and I was humiliated, annihilated. The first fish took me by surprise, ran 30 yards West and got me into reeds. The second careered off North and did me amongst sunken roots. The third fish I bullied and kept near the surface and within range. It was all going swimmingly 'till I dropped my guard and rod tip both, and another snag was successfully located. The fourth fish though saw me hang on. I turned it from the North, South, East and West. I turned it from the island and the arrowheads. I screwed down the clutch to stop it reaching bottom sanctuary, and finally hustled it still furious into the net. It looked good to me, a five pound wildie all the way. Why?

The area... already has three definite generally accepted wildie waters within sensible distance.
The immediate location... the hamlet is built around the remains of a monastery and still features several old stewponds, mostly derelict apart from the main pool.
The pool itself... would seem to be several hundred years old, according to ancient maps.
Its history... the relatively new owners bought it overgrown and reputedly untouched for 80-plus years. There have no records of anyone fishing for generations, making recent stockings unlikely.
The fish... all fish hooked and seen in the sunlit water were long, lean, fully-scaled carp, with not a whiff of mirror carp to be scented.

Okay, not incontrovertible proof perhaps (is there such a thing, please?), but good enough for me. Just yesterday, I was confirmed (I think) as president of the Wild Carp Trust, so it has been the wildie weekend to cap all others!

 

[John Bailey]

Casting Off West. 31/05/2021

Bank Holiday Monday, and Enoka and I did what most people seemed to be doing, going into Hereford to shop. I happened to pick up a book entitled Good Things To Do Before You Die, or something like that. A quick flick through revealed not only nice things to do, but also the nicest of ways to do them. And this brings me to D and J, two of my long-suffering, dearest fishing pals. What a pair! Fun. Ultra-bright. Generous, in spirit as well as wallet, which is the big thing. Top of life’s game in every way. They’ve been fishing with me for, what, ten years? Perhaps more, and I never remember a dull trip in all that time either. The pair are generally stratospherically successful, even if teeth-grindingly demanding as they just have to do things their own bloody way, whatever. They’d have it put more fairly as the “right” way. Bit like that book I began with in Waterstones...

I’ve written about this before, that there are basic, better, and best ways of trying to catch fish. D and J want to do it best, better at a push, but never basic, and if I dare suggest that, they simply fold arms, put down rods, and refuse to engage with the enemy. What AM I talking about? A good example would be my so-called roach career between, say, 1970 and 1992. During that time I caught around 800 two-pound-plus roach, and I‘d hazard a guess that 650 were caught basic (on legered bread after dark, with a bobbin as indicator), and perhaps 100 were caught best (trotting a quill on a crisp, February morning as the sun rose). In fact I began to think, privately, that a “two” on a float was worth a 2.08 on a bobbin.

Other examples? A barbel taken on a feeder boshed out to fish for itself, or a barbel taken on an Avon float at 50 yards? (An “8” on the float worth an “11” on the feeder?). A rainbow trout hooked on a dragged back lure, or a wild brown on a floating BWO pattern? (An eight ounce brown betters the four pound stockie in my book.) I don't happen to think these divisions are elitist or snobby, and I don’t think I’m up myself mentioning them. It’s whether we accept them and embrace them that is my question.

For what it’s worth, I fish nice if I can, nasty if it means I catch, but D and J would no way take that as an option. If “nice” won’t catch it, then there is a good dinner to anticipate, and a future trip to look forward to. But get this. Despite their nose in the air attitude, they mostly do well, even very, very well. Last week, as the pictures show, they caught droves of tench to nine pounds, every single one on float... and isn’t a float “nine” worth a feeder “eleven” any June day?

It’s summer for goodness sake. If we can’t fish the D and J way now, we never can. Chub on surface poppers. First light barbel stalked in the shallows. Roach caught Tenkara-style with just a hook and piece of corn on the line. Rudd on a nymph, or even a dry. Perch on freelined worm. Crucians on a matchstick float – God help you if you fish a bolt rig for these chubby chaps. 'Why not drop a bomb on them, and scoop out the bodies?', D and J would say. Thing is, I’m ever more tending to agree with them.

 

[LPP]

"If “nice” won’t catch it, then there is a good dinner to anticipate, and a future trip to look forward to."

I raise a glass to the whole piece, but especially doing it "nice".

 

[Molehill]

I think the "nice" is a mindset that some anglers mature into, once you have done the catching and bagging (or whatever), then how you do it becomes more important than the end result.
Mature Angling ?.

 

[John Bailey]

Casting Off West. 3/06/2021

Yesterday, I walked a fresh stretch of Wye, one completely new to me. My guide was 'R', seventy nine, bothered by his hips but still tough enough to keeper a three-mile stretch of water immaculately. How did men ever get to be this indefatigable? Where are such characters now? I don’t for a moment think 'R' ever studied river management in a classroom for even a millisecond, but he keeps the river looking superb to my eye. Apparently, from what he said, Natural England don’t always agree, but make not a jot of headway against a man like 'R'. A case of flimsy force meeting immovable object. 'Thank God for that', I’d be the first to say. (Interestingly, despite ample evidence of their devastation, it took 'R' FOUR YEARS to secure a cormorant licence. There’s more to this story that beggars belief, but perhaps I’ll save that for another day.)

More bad news. Another mouth-watering stretch of river that looks as though it is devoid of ranunculus. There were plenty of mayflies in the air, even clinging to 'R’s sweat-soaked cheek, but of this weed, so iconic on the Wye, not a sign. Too early in the year, after a cold spring? I’d love to think so, but I would have been happier if I had at least seen even roots of the stuff.

Better news. We walked for three hours on a summer Bank Holiday week, and only saw three canoes splash past. 'R' told me these were the only ones he’d seen too, so perhaps there could be some relief for the Wye from this particular onslaught. I’d like to say I saw barbel and chub on the shallows, fresh from spawning or about to do so, but I hardly spotted anything whatsoever. Very early June, and I’d expect to watch shad and perhaps even sea lampreys digging their nests, but it was a quiet river that eased its way to the sea.

This is undeniably gorgeous water. The beat is studded with the barbel runs I love most. Long glides over gravel, five to six feet deep, often beneath a bower of overhanging trees. Not just barbel, of course. Perfect water to wade with a wet fly fished down and across, and how about grayling come the autumn? I know this is not the Wye of the Fifties (and 'R' was pretty contemptuous of WUF’s attempts to put it right), but I still ache for the Sixteenth to come round, and to get a line in once more. After all is said and done, a day’s actual fishing is worth a week of mere walking. Just being there, quiet, holding the rod hours on end, gives you the space and time to merge with the water, and to see the subtleties you miss on a walk past.

So, less than two weeks of this interminable closed season to go. Everyone I speak to is sick of lockdown, is yearning to fish running water. 'Barbel Obsession' is common to us all. What did Patrick Chalmers write all those years ago? “But best of all, I love the barbels because they roll like big brown and white cats upon the golden shallows and sing in the moonlight with the joie de vivre of June. And because, so, they are all Thames to me and wild rose time and the streams running down from the weir.”

If the Wye comes close to that vision of paradise, how lucky will we be?

The Upper Wye​

 

[John Bailey]

Casting Off West. 5/06/2021. Ranunculus Researches

As I have said, the move West has been an adventure in river walking like I first enjoyed back in Norfolk once my driving test had been passed. Oh, the joy of that freedom to roam, to see what is round that eternal next bend, and the rivers here have not disappointed... the Arrow, the Monnow, the Teme, the Lugg, and all the others seem ever more desirable, so luscious that fishing hardly matters. But enough of that nonsense you say, and I’ll get to the point now... where has all our ranunculus gone?

Not that long ago, the Wye must have seemed like ranunculus heaven, at least as prolific as the chalkstreams and of course, bigger and that more dramatic. To see the Wye in full ranunculus season was to guess what heaven must/should be like, but that’s not the case now.

I’ve spent the afternoon emailing mates all around the country, asking them about the state of this most iconic of water weeds in their own rivers. If, as I suspect, beds are in decline, I have asked them to what extent, and if they have any real clues as to why? Of course, none of this is likely to be acceptable to the EA science that will request several years of monitoring before even a hint at a solution can be considered. But at least anglers, men and women who are actually out there, might welcome a say in this.

If you are not on my list of emails, I’d of course welcome any input you might have on this. I don’t know everyone everywhere, and it would be great to fill in the many gaps. I’m not out to score a point with this. If you find that your rivers have never been more ranunculus-rich, then tell me and I’ll rejoice. This request is simply because I travel the country constantly, and increasingly, the receding ranunculus seems to be a feature. I don’t want this wonder weed to die on our watch, as it were, nor do I want it to disappear unremarked.

It’s interesting that the EA itself seemed interested in this question between 2001-2004, or thereabouts, but then their own researches seemed to grow cold... or perhaps I have missed something here... which is quite likely. If I have, tell me please. I’m adding some pictures of ranunculus to this piece... just in case you have forgotten what it looks like!!

 

[Mark Wintle]

I walked half a mile of the Dorset Piddle last weekend, a stretch I've been familiar with for over 50 years, and I don't remember seeing ANY ranunculus, yet it was so prolific 50 years ago the stretches above this were cut twice a year. There is still weed in the river in places but mainly the sorts of weed associated with slower rivers.

John Levell's Avon Diary has a shot of the Avon this week with the ranunculus in full flower.

There is some ranunculus in parts of the Dorset Stour; Hampreston used to have plwenty but I haven't had time to take a look recently.

 

[Mark Wintle]

The Piddle did have ranunculus:

This picture dates to late May 2008:

 

[John Bailey]

Courtesy of Kate Bruckshaw, who sent me this picture of the Bollin. As she says, "...the prettiest stretch that I've explored so far... ...effectively a small country park in the middle of Wilmslow. Which might tell a story of course"

Casting Off West. 6/06/21. Ranunculus Researches

Following the initiation of my Ranunculus research, can I thank the dozen or so of you who have got back within a mere twenty four hours? There’s some eye-opening stuff coming in which I’ll save up, but let me emphasise we are talking Ranunculus Fluitans, that member of the family that thrives in deeper, quick flowing rivers. There are, of course, many other varieties that exist in differing water types, so we have to pinpoint what we are talking about!

I had also fretted that perhaps I had chosen the wrong “poster plant” for this particular piece of investigation. Just because a plant looks pretty, this does not necessarily mean that it is of central importance to a river’s well-being. However, a morning’s work with my books suggests that this weed is not only iconic, but is also pretty useful in so many ways. Interesting that I got not a lot from the internet, certainly nowhere near as much as I dug up from my book collection, many of the tomes going back 70 years and more. There’s obviously a generational dichotomy here: my 27 year old stepson recently accused me of being of “the newspaper generation”, whereas he was of the “internet generation". Without wanting to make myself look like a BOF (Boring Old Fart in Sixth form language when I was a teacher), I’m quite happy, smug even, about that. I know we have to keep all these musings strictly about fishing alone, but I am happier to hear what Frank Sawyer has to say about water crowfoot than what a modern day influencer might have picked up from somewhere, probably somewhere nowhere near the water itself.

That is what has delighted me about much of the feedback so far: it is based on experience, in one case a chap’s knowledge of a river beat over some forty years. I’ll listen to evidence like this 'till the cows come home. I’m encouraged to think that perhaps by focusing in on Ranunculus we might get an explanation of rivers’ problems in a way we can handle. What I mean is that by going macro on this, we might begin to see a clearer bigger picture? A problem is that by talking about "the problems with our rivers” we kind of get lost because there are so damned many to take into account. If we get close to establishing what’s happening to Ranunculus, we might get a clearer picture of problems as a whole?

But one thing for sure, nature can certainly bounce back. One of my most valued contacts is that celebrated Irish angler Richie Johnson. I remember sitting with him on the shores of Sheelin twenty years ago when the lough was a trout graveyard. This morning he sent me pictures of trout taken this very mayfly season. Sheelin browns are now prolific, fast growing, and completely gorgeous. I’ve never seen such fish, such proof that disaster need not be permanent.

 

[Mark Wintle]

What shocked me about weeds like this was that about 15 years ago I did a bit of bug sampling in the Stour ranunculus and it was alive with bugs; I was actually trying to find one or two jokers or similar in an attempt to catch a stone loach, and it was easy to find what I was looking for as well as loads of various small caddis grubs - the type with cases made from tiny pieces of weed - which is what you'd expect to find. Fast forward to a couple of years ago - same weedbeds - absolutely barren, zilch, nothing. The same seems to apply on the Piddle. As a lad 50 years ago that stretch was paved with those great golden caddis grubs in the stone cases which I sought out as bait (free bait was all I used!), now - nothing!

 

[flightliner]

What shocked me about weeds like this was that about 15 years ago I did a bit of bug sampling in the Stour ranunculus and it was alive with bugs; I was actually trying to find one or two jokers or similar in an attempt to catch a stone loach, and it was easy to find what I was looking for as well as loads of various small caddis grubs - the type with cases made from tiny pieces of weed - which is what you'd expect to find. Fast forward to a couple of years ago - same weedbeds - absolutely barren, zilch, nothing. The same seems to apply on the Piddle. As a lad 50 years ago that stretch was paved with those great golden caddis grubs in the stone cases which I sought out as bait (free bait was all I used!), now - nothing!

View attachment 15336
Courtesy of Kate Bruckshaw, who sent me this picture of the Bollin. As she says, "...the prettiest stretch that I've explored so far... ...effectively a small country park in the middle of Wilmslow. Which might tell a story of course"

Casting Off West. 6/06/21. Ranunculus Researches

Following the initiation of my Ranunculus research, can I thank the dozen or so of you who have got back within a mere twenty four hours? There’s some eye-opening stuff coming in which I’ll save up, but let me emphasise we are talking Ranunculus Fluitans, that member of the family that thrives in deeper, quick flowing rivers. There are, of course, many other varieties that exist in differing water types, so we have to pinpoint what we are talking about!

I had also fretted that perhaps I had chosen the wrong “poster plant” for this particular piece of investigation. Just because a plant looks pretty, this does not necessarily mean that it is of central importance to a river’s well-being. However, a morning’s work with my books suggests that this weed is not only iconic, but is also pretty useful in so many ways. Interesting that I got not a lot from the internet, certainly nowhere near as much as I dug up from my book collection, many of the tomes going back 70 years and more. There’s obviously a generational dichotomy here: my 27 year old stepson recently accused me of being of “the newspaper generation”, whereas he was of the “internet generation". Without wanting to make myself look like a BOF (Boring Old Fart in Sixth form language when I was a teacher), I’m quite happy, smug even, about that. I know we have to keep all these musings strictly about fishing alone, but I am happier to hear what Frank Sawyer has to say about water crowfoot than what a modern day influencer might have picked up from somewhere, probably somewhere nowhere near the water itself.

That is what has delighted me about much of the feedback so far: it is based on experience, in one case a chap’s knowledge of a river beat over some forty years. I’ll listen to evidence like this 'till the cows come home. I’m encouraged to think that perhaps by focusing in on Ranunculus we might get an explanation of rivers’ problems in a way we can handle. What I mean is that by going macro on this, we might begin to see a clearer bigger picture? A problem is that by talking about "the problems with our rivers” we kind of get lost because there are so damned many to take into account. If we get close to establishing what’s happening to Ranunculus, we might get a clearer picture of problems as a whole?

But one thing for sure, nature can certainly bounce back. One of my most valued contacts is that celebrated Irish angler Richie Johnson. I remember sitting with him on the shores of Sheelin twenty years ago when the lough was a trout graveyard. This morning he sent me pictures of trout taken this very mayfly season. Sheelin browns are now prolific, fast growing, and completely gorgeous. I’ve never seen such fish, such proof that disaster need not be permanent.

Here's another one for your records.
The river Idle in Nottinghamshire this morning.

 

[Mark Wintle]

50 years ago the Piddle was one of the purest rivers in England and coincidently we used to cross the Bollin when travelling on courses at a venue near Knutsford when staying in Altrincham in the mid 80s. Every time we went past the Bollin it was different colour as it was severely polluted.

 

[John Bailey]

Zander heaven!​

Casting Off West. 8/06/2021. Zander Alert!

I’m floored here, and could do with real help. Today, I am off to the Severn on a zander recce – can’t say why but some will be in the know. Now, I have never caught a UK zander, and never really targeted them, apart from a couple of brief Relief Channel sorties back around 1975. However, I have just been asked whether zander should be killed, rather than returned, by a friend doing research for me. Now, I don’t know where he got this from, and you can guess my response, but I’d like to clear the subject up, with anyone’s help out there.

I’m sadly old enough to remember the controversies of the 1970s, when the unlamented AWA waged war on the zander of the Fenland drains. The recently introduced species was accused of decimating silver fish stocks, but even back then many commentators suspected the same old story: let’s pick on an easy scapegoat, rather than looking for the real culprit. The fact that new drainage regimes were resulting in trawlermen out in The Wash hauling in nets full of displaced, flushed-out bream was conveniently overlooked. I might not have got the facts 100% after all these years, but you get the gist, and this might be the source of my friend’s information.

Of course, I won’t be banging any zander on the head myself, but it would be good for all of us to know what we are SUPPOSED to do!

 

[john step]

Even if one wanted to bang them on the head it would be futile. They are here now and thats that.
I remember the zander stories you mention about silver fish decimation and was probably convinced back then. However nature adapts and everything seems to jog along quite well together nowadays.
There are lots in the Trent and lots of silvers too.
I dont think the average angler encounters them much as they seem to appear in the dark whereas pike will snatch an anglers roach in the daytime.

Re the water weed thing. I know its a different weed but maybe the cause of lack of weed has a common cause.
I used to fish the lower Thames as a kid on coach outings. Early 60s. There were continuous banks of cabbages all along where the fish would be.
It seems the growth of boats has stirred the silt up and smothered them out of existence.
A local river in Lincolnshire has the opposite happened to it. Boating has ceased and the cabbages have become so thick you could almost walk on the water!

 

[John Bailey]

This is what I want!​

Casting Off West. 12/06/2021. Passion For Barbel

Thank you to those who have stuck with me through my COW days but now, with the Sixteenth bearing down on us, perhaps it is the right time to focus on the species that largely brought me West in the first place? That’s not wholly true, of course. Norfolk has nowhere near the grayling potential I have around me here, and I suspect I am going to find bigger roach and perch as the year progresses, along with river pike of course. But the Wye has always meant barbel to me, at least since around 1986/7 and I find the anticipation welling up in me once more.

But it is not the Wye that has exercised my thoughts this last couple of weeks but the Severn. I’ve made four trips in the past ten days, largely under the tutelage of Tim at Severn Expeditions. What a great, fun, positive guy he is, and how he has made all this such a fascinating experience for me. I have to say zander have been at the heart of the investigations, but how can you suss out the Severn without thinking barbel? And of course, Tim has been delighting in showing me pix of fish that look more like pigs than fish.

Tim looking downstream!​

Tim, though, is a kid, compared with me at least. Yesterday we walked along a blissful riverbank meadow, and I recounted my first trips to the Severn back in the Eighties when I was still teaching. I’d bring the Angling Club down to Holt Fleet annually where we’d camp and fish for barbel, still a rarity back in Norwich. (As they are again today.) Our hero then was the great, legendary Ron Lees, then a tackle dealer in Droitwich I remember. The boys would flock to the shop, stock up on fresh boiled hemp, and then it would be down to the river where Ron would join us after closing time. He taught us all to touch leger, but it was watching him in matches that really turned them on.

Of course, back then, it was about stick floats, cobweb gear, hemp and caster. Ron would feed ten minutes and then hook a barbel that he would play forty five minutes to the net. All the while he would talk, feed the swim and eat a stream of pork pies. Four hours and four barbel later he would probably have won the match, and we would retire to the pub there whilst the boys practised his technique in the river at the bottom of the car park. I’d take them out crisps and shandies, and they’d think there’s no better life than that of a barbel man.

The mighty Severn​

I told Tim all this and he nodded obligingly. Then it turned out that in truth he’d never even heard of Ron Lees. Blimey, I thought, what use is history when one Severn legend has no knowledge of a similar giant just a generation earlier? Is this down to the death of books? Do all the aspects of the internet age mean we live solely in the here and now?

Be that as it may, Tim did agree that 99% of modern Severn anglers fish hair-rigged boilies on the tip, and that the Lees way would most probably still work its magic today. Trouble is, I can’t remember exactly how Ron did it... though that should not be beyond my experience to recreate. I guess the secret is tackle balanced to the finest degree. Most of Ron’s fish were 5 or 6 pounds, as I remember, but today barbel double that size are likely so getting the gear exactly right becomes critical.

My suspicion is that Ron used bottoms of 1.7lb and size 18 hooks. Probably you would need to up that a little today? Say size 14s and 4lb bottoms, much like Andy Field used to conquer those Trent jobbies? That was fine on the Trent and should be on the Severn, the odd vast sunken log excepted, providing the reel and rod work in unison. You know I am going to bleat on about a pin, and to be fair I think many would agree on that. The rod though? 13ft or 14? The exact action?

I’m not 100% sure when I’ll actually get to the Severn to relive the Ron days and I might have to practise on the Wye? I’m not exactly sure either whether this fixation with gear is completely necessary, but of course it’s fun to speculate and a vital part of the whole build-up to the attempt. Anticipation and planning are so central to what we do, we all know. Anyway, 2021 for me is going to be one long homage to my old mate Mr Lees. I know he fished the feeder with aplomb, but it is in his float footsteps that this year that I am going to follow. The Sixteenth is so close we can smell damp, dawn meadow, and the tang of the river. Along with the aroma of steaming hemp of course. Oh, happy days!

 

[Mark Wintle]

Got a feeling Ron used 1.7lb Bayer straight through, probably with a fibreglass match rod. I'd have to dig through those late 70s Coarse Fisherman magazines to find what he said. Not much reference to the method in his autobiography, An Angler's Life for Me.

I'd love to fish the lower Severn on the float but I find it difficult to travel far these days.