Willersley Castle

From 2010-10-24

Making up for the lack of fishing in September, I managed to sneak away again for another fish in Derbyshire. Really enjoying the river fishing this year, and so it was time for a Grayling Hunt at Willersley Castle. Awoke to a frosty but bright morning, so a quick scrape of the car and off I went.

Arrived to a busy car park, and a few maggot danglers in the vicinity, however the weather was good, and I was hopeful of a good day. Had never fished this stretch before so the old fish radar was dragged out to locate some fish. It was obviously slow to get going as I had a few misses on a dry and not a lot else.

I walked the stretch, having the odd chat with people who were catching, and they were doing nothing different to me....always good to know you are doing the right thing, which obviously makes it all the fishes fault.

I returned to a very fishy looking bend and cast away with my duo setup with a pink shrimp on the point....and wham, first fish of the day.

From 2010-10-24

Then the next cast....

From 2010-10-24

things were looking up!!

Managed another 3 from this swim before it went off the boil....not a bad day now I actually proved I could catch. walking back down to the car I saw a swim which was very promising but required a bit of a wade....got there safe, and very quickly had another grayling of 1lb size. Then came a piece of angling genius....the cast was amazing, hitting the exact spot, the body was tensed and ready....the eyes ever watchful on the fly....and WHAM a really good brown getting close on 2lb....

OR you may have seen me check my mobile phone with the fly dangling in the water and the brown came and hammered it.....stupid fish.

From 2010-10-24

From 2010-10-24

Other swims were full with others fishing so I jumped in the car and hit the Dove.... saw a few rising so stuck on a dry for a change, and managed 2 nice little grayling before the toes were blue and I was bored of being cold.

From 2010-10-24

Lechlade

Well Rich had to use his already paid for ticket at some point, so I thought I would try and educate him on the ways of lechlade.

He was obviously over excited about the fishing as he arrived over an hour early.....although some may say he just had no idea it was as close as it was.....

Anyway we tackled up 2 rods, one for the stream and the other for the mighty trout.

I put Richard right on the first swim skirting the weed, where we could see a fish moving "always a fish here" said I.....and within about 15 minutes richard had a screaming reel, and was all the way to his backing.

I had had a few plucks and follows but was not finding much connecting. We carried on for a little while on the bank, then took to the boat, near the house, I had another 3/4 follows, but still could not land one. Then we moved to the next buoy down where richard had another.....this however put up about as much fight as a tesco's carrier bag. Useless.

We moved around a few buoys and eventually i connected with a fish, on one of my pink feather lures.....traditional they are not, but they do work!

Nothing much was happening again, so we tried the river.....if anyone would like lessons on how to spook spooky fish I think we can give you a masterclass.....was a bit of a wasted effort.

By this point you could see for us the fishing had gone ok, a number of people were leaving with their tail between their legs.....so we took over their swims....Richard took another, and I had more follows (notice the theme here)....we then proceeded to provide some advice to a complete novice, who was on his second ever trip....he had had some connect but had lost them. No idea why he was learning at Lechlade as its as tough as they come....but he was enjoying it and I hope he continues.

Then it came the time for Battle Perch 2010.......To which I gracefully lost......badly

Finally got rowed back to the boat launch....by the worlds slowest rower....god I thought I was bad...

 

Dove Tales: Part I

First time fishing since the Dam social.....my god that is a long time, however work got in the way of fishing which is never a good thing. 15 flights in 30 days....time for a break on the river bank I think.

I was lucky enough to go fishing with Roy on the L&D section of the Dove, I have fished other parts of the river with my DCAC membership but it is always nice to see some other parts.

The river is set in an amazingly beautiful gorge, which provides a superb back drop for the fishing, the trees and changing light make the river a real pleasure to be on.

We strolled up to a good pool on the beat and Roy left me wading into the cold water, while he went further upstream.....I had optimistically gone for a dry, but soon changed to a nymph.....still no fishes though....Roy returned with a mild grin however, one out of season brownie on the board for him. True to form Roy's aura on the river continues...

I moved down the pool a little to find fish rising, so the dry was back on....and I had a dinky out of season brown (or OSB....as there were a few)......

We continued down the river towards the car and had some success but nothing great. I cant remember how the catching continued but it was tough going, I hooked a grayling and nearly had him landed, but the slippery little bugger came off. And roy had a grayling or 2....I had another OSB.

We did another full run of the section we were on after lunch, I managed an OSB, and Roy got a lovely grayling right at the death which was the fish of the day (aside from the monster I spotted earlier). The fishing after lunch was hard going with little going on anywhere we went, in the end we were more productive packing up and going home.

Thanks go to roy for being a superb host, had a great day out, shame the fish were not completely on form, but there we go.

When elephants attack....

This was a bit, with electical wiring in only, that the elephants decided to play with.

It was chained to the wall but they pulled that off too.

The biggest tree in Rabi!!

Bugs and a hot wash

Bugs are everywhere....and this moth was in the loo.....still in my newly shortened boiler suit I looked the part....apparently they only have one setting on the washing machine....100 deg....by the second wash this thing was castrating me and was at a very fetching mid calf level.

Work & BBQ

Food has been excellent, well it has to be when there is nothing esle to do in the evenings. The BBQ on the sunday was superb and made up for the 12hr shift!
Fillet Steak, Duck, Chicken, Sausages.....and more.....mmmmmmmmmmmm

Prison Camp in The Jungle

First up was a flight into the middle of the jungle, Rabi, was the final destination. Got here, unpacked in my portakabin prison and then got on with work. Hey ho.

Elephant Detterents and Work

Well since you have elephants, you have to have a way of keeping them off your vegetables....

So you have some string, with tin cans on them, apparently they cannot stand the noise.  Also keeps birds off in England, but here it is a larger pest problem.

So here you are...

....working for an oil company, with a terminal in the middle of a national park.....and what do you find? Jungle elephants.....I have been allowed a car and you find these little elephants wandering around on the side of the road. First time I have seen them in the wild so as you can imagine I was rather exited.

Apparently gorillas are a common site too.....

Gamba

After a night in Libreville it was time for a short hop to Gamba. This is one of the main terminals for the oil in Gabon.

Most of the infrastructure is built, owned and operated by Shell, this includes the roads. The government happily takes the money but very little of it actually goes into helping the locals.....

Airport is a shed on the side of the runway, and baggage collection is off the carts by hand....yourself.....nothing close to a 5 star treatment.

Still its warm, the people are great, and Africa just keeps on suprising you.

Why didn't the colonial powers teach these people how to brew beer?

So I am now in Gabon, ex french colony, on the west side of Africa. Been a hectic few weeks of travel but it has beed fun all the same.

One issue however is the distinct lack of any brewing skill when it comes to beer. Now I expecteded it to be some form of fizzy pop....however did they brew it in a muddy river. It is worse than Peruvian beer and that is saying something.

The french can brew some beer so why on earth could they not pass this bloody knowledge on? Its a disgrace.

TBH I am more disgusted that the Brits could do no better in Nigeria!!

Strawberry Cheesecake????

Whoever thought this was a good sandwich??

No this is not a Pastrami AND strawberry creamcheese sandwich, it is just a Pastrami one......and a Strawberry one.Dutch airlines have some fucked up food tastes!!

Nigeria Part 3

More evidence of the rain here in Port Harcourt, there was about 3 inches of standing water on the runway, and the plane was delayed for hours. The worst element however was the flight from port harcourt to Lagos, a VERY bumpy one, with the seatbelt lights never actually going off.

Arrived in Lagos, to find even more rain, the airport terminal had a moat, and a ramp on the road near the airport had 2 ft of water to drive through.

Still I made the flight home after a local Star beer......which is pretty average.....

Nigeria Part 1

Work takes me to odd places, and Nigeria was up there with the best. Airports utter chaos, roads in a complete mess, organisation minimal, except when it comes to filling in forms, this is a national sport.

When working with the oil companies you need an escort all the time, so AK47s were there to be seen everywhere. You bascially shuttle from work to accomodation....and repeat.

African food is not something I think is that great, and the canteen proved that time and time again, the green cake on the right proved this. Drier than Ghandi's flipflop!

Nigeria Part 2

The accomodation is shown here...in the rain....not a bad bungalow, and was reasonably comfortable....kept the mossies at bay anyway.

Did I mention rain? Well it rained for 3 days solid while there, rain so hard you were soacked in 10 seconds, unbelievable. Only rain that has compared to that is Singapore.

CFF Social: The Dam

Well it was my first chance to fish in Wales so was looking forward to trying a few different places.

Left work at lunchtime and started my battle with the idiots on the A roads into deepest darkest Wales.  Ignoring the need for immunisation I shot over the border eventually getting to the campsite around 5pm.  No one was around so geared up and walked down to the river.

The peace of the river was only disturbed by hearing Tony.....something socials seem to be famed for  :wink:  :wink: He and alan had not had much luck on the upper section of the beat, however Alan had just caught his first salmon so was beaming.

I crawled around the bushes.....narrowly missing the deep abyss...although there were a few near misses as the nipples nearly got wet.  I only managed to get a few fish to come up but missed them all.

The following morning got up and went back to the river and fished some of the lower sections, managed a nice brown from the middle of the pool which was a great start to the day.  Wasnt massive but the blank on the river had been avoided.

After brekkie it was time to tackle the dam, I never have great success on the reservoirs so was hoping for something above average.....Rog, Bill and I went off to an arm of the lake on the east side to try our luck.  Water was very very low, however Rog had one first cast and I had one on 5 mins later.  This one decided not to want to be landed, as did his mate who also departed the hook early.

After the downpour...there was a great rise, but I missed the chance to hook one.  It then went very very quiet so we decided to de-camp and make it over to the popular side where everyone else was.

They were having mixed luck with Luke always seemingly into a fish.  The rest of us struggled on, and in the end I managed to land a fish, which was kept for the barbie.

Luke on his hot spot.....rooted.

Bill getting miserable

My Line with no fish attached

The Dam trophy winner!  For his generosity for letting Luke poach all his decent flies.

We then set about having a few beers, even more meat, and a few more beers.

Sunday, I needed to go and see if I could hook a monster from the deep, right fly, right cast, wrong fisherman....missed my chance and killed the pool :evil:

So on the way home I fished near Rayader in the river, the water was quite coloured, but I still managed one from a very fishy pool which was nearly 8 inches in length.  Which I was quite pleased with.

Fishy Pool

River

Superb ploughmans at Monkspath on the way home!....Cider for later  :wink:  :wink:

All in all great weekend and company, big thanks to Bill for organising.