Oh brave new world...

...that has such creatures in it. A glorious Saturday spent on the banks of the upper Leam produced such a wealth of wonderful sightings that I scarcely know where to start.

Perhaps not, for a change, with the fish. Because as I set up in a wooded 'jungle' swim (a move I swiftly regretted as I launched my first float rig into a low overhanging branch), I became aware of buzzard calls. I looked up and around, and realised that not one but four birds were playing and courting in the trees around me, so close I could hear their wings beating over their mewing calls.

Not 10 minutes later I was watching a pair of ravens engaging in even more acrobatic courtship low over the nearby hill. And what was turning into a decent birding day went on to include a series of up-close-and-personal sightings including kingfisher, sparrowhawk, reed bunting and skylark.

Meanwhile I was struggling to recover from that float-in-tree incident. Although there had been a gentle flow on the river when I arrived, a gentle upstream breeze had sprung up and all but stopped the water. That, plus the fact that I was again being plagued by minnows, resolved me to abandon my initial stick-and-maggot attack in favour of a tried and tested combo - a nice juicy lobworm on a size 10 hook connected to the most sensitive quiver tip in the bag.

That final detail really came into its own when I cast into the third swim of the day. As has happened before in this swim, barely had I tightened the line when that super soft quiver tip just started to edge round - a quick tap followed by the slowest and smallest of bends. I struck, and it was immediately apparent that this was likely to be my best Leam fish to date - all I had to do now was get it on the bank.

Fortunately I think I'd previously made every mistake it is possible to make in this swim, so I was able to steer the fish first into the relative safety of the deeper water and then to draw it towards me without gifting it the chance to bury itself in the submerged reeds right in front of me (it had a pretty good go though).

After a very tense minute or so I had netted my prize, a pretty respectable perch. It was indeed my River Leam PB, as well as my perch PB, weighing in at 1lb 9oz.

And although I caught no further fish that day, the river did have one more fishy encounter in store for me. As I sat quietly in my final swim I noticed a sizeable shape slip past the end of my rod tip. For some reason my initial reaction was 'chub', and I moved my hand closer to the rod handle in anticipation. But this was no chub - it was an altogether more majestic spectacle. And, like the buzzards who had welcomed me to the river that morning, it was a killer.

It wasn't a big pike by most standards, but it certainly looked big in this tiny stream-like stretch of river. Its two menacing passes along the margin beneath my rod tip convinced me that any other fish in the swim would most likely have fled in terror, so I packed up and went happily on my way home.

A weekend on the river

With the 2010/11 fishing season fast running, out I braved the wind and rain on Saturday and the cold on Sunday in my ongoing attempt to coax at least one decent fish from the upper Leam ('decent' being a highly subjective word, with every angler having their own definition - in my case I think a qualifying fish on this stretch of the Leam would probably be a) 1lb roach; b) 1lb perch or c) 2lb chub).

With some serious rain threatened on Saturday afternoon, I decided to make the morning session quick and simple. A tiny drilled bullet nailed the bait, either bread flake or lob worm, to the deck. The 1.5oz quiver on my avon rod would be light enough to spot virtually every tap, and I'd aim to do three swims with no more than an hour in each (unless I was catching).

And it all started so well. Nothing doing on bread flake, but I'd hardly had time to tighten the line on the first worm of the day when the tip went round and I was into a scrappy little perch. Only 10oz as it turned out, but a lovely little fish and a welcome start to the day.

Sadly it was also the end of the day, as nothing I did thereafter seemed to go right. Nothing more from that swim, so on to the next - where I missed one massive rap on the rod tip, and then a modest chub managed to throw the hook just a few minutes later.

I was at the third swim when the proper rain arrived, and discretion proved the better part of valour. I fled.

Sunday was a completely different sort of day - clear bright light bounced off a dusting of snow and a wicked north wind swept down onto the Leam.

There had been quite some flow on the river on Saturday, so I turned up on Sunday armed with stick float and bread, ready to target the roach. Sadly the river had gone to sleep a little, but I did find a decent run to fish in my second choice of swim.

And I found minnows. Lots of minnows. In fact I doubt I've ever caught as consistently as I did in that two hour session. Dozens of the little blighters went for everything I sent their way. So why did I stay? Ah, well the river goddess was evidently having a laugh at my expense, sending me just enough non-minnows to keep me there in hope if not expectation. One tiny dace, one tiny chublet and 4oz one roach (hurrah, my target fish for the day). Surely if the small ones are here, I thought, then the big ones will be too. Well, perhaps they were. But once again, I sure as hell didn't find them :-)

How it all began...

Hmmm, this was the 'review of 2011 / how I started fishing again' post which I was drafting in December. I've completed and posted it now because a) this is my personal as well as public diary and these details fill a rather large number of gaps in the narrative and b) I hate wasting any work that I've already done. So...


The combination of a busy schedule at work, an allotment that needs putting 'to bed' for the winter, and the various demands of the festive season mean that I am unlikely to be wetting a line again until after Christmas :-(

But at least this unwelcome interruption to normal service gives me a little time to reflect on 12 months of fairly hectic fishing - 12 months in which I came back to the sport having spent many, many years away, and, for the most part, fished like it :-)

It all started as a wheeze for my 40th birthday present. Why don't I get my brother and dad, accomplished anglers both, to take myself and close friend on a fishing trip which would reacquaint me with a long-lost passion and introduce my fly-fishing chum to the joys of coarse fishing. My brother chose Bury Hills Fishery in Surrey, I was quickly into two early morning carp, and that was it - I was hooked (in fact all three of us scored that day, holding our fish top to bottom are brother Paul, Rich and my own good self).

I was on the internet as soon as I returned home, and the first local fishery I found quickly became a firm favourite - Bishops Bowl in Bishops Itchington. Despite still being a little unsure of what I was doing, my first morning on Walworth Lake in mid September saw my float dip with great regularity as my first ever tench (pictured below) was quickly joined by more, plus my first ever crucian and plenty of tenacious little carp.

Last winter's weather may have been the worse for more than 100 years but there was no one more enthusiastic than me at that point, so I persevered through it all, never once blanking, always learning something new and still landing the occasional decent fish (including a couple of 1lb plus roach and some pretty good crucians for example).

I was also reading voraciously - everything from the latest magazine articles to the classic books on how to coarse fishing from my childhood. The former could tell me what the hell the 'method' was, the latter still had plenty of relevance when it came to the timeless arts of float fishing, watercraft and more.

My first fish 'flying solo'
- beginner's luck?

I knew winter was properly over when the tench started feeding again at Bishops. The most memorable of the early spring trips that followed was again with my brother. Because he hadn't put any tench on the bank for a while he drove down for an evening session, and despite the fishing being a little slower than I'd expected, he used every bit of his vast fishing experience to bring some lovely fish to the net, giving me a real masterclass in margin fishing.

A margin masterclass from little bro...

 Once summer arrived I was keen to get into some slightly bigger fish, but not necessarily the 20lb plus carp in the two main Bishops' lakes. A bit more research suggested that Stockton Reservoir might be the answer. This British Waterways owned water was well stocked with carp about a decade ago, and now reports suggested that the average stamp of fish was 5 to 12 lbs - the perfect way for me to extend my education and put a more substantial bend in some of my fast growing collection of rods!

And so it proved, as on my third trip I managed to bank a double figure fish - a 10lb 5oz mirror carp taken on a method feeder, if memory serves.

A week after that I ambushed an even bigger common carp with a float fished lump of luncheon meat in the margins - 11lbs 4oz of very angry fish that will stay long in my memory (it was like trying to coax a submarine up from the depths on not-overly-hefty tackle).

Yours truly with
11lb 4oz of margin-caught
common carp

And there you have it - a potted history of my 2010 / 2011 reintroduction to fishing, albeit posted about eight weeks after I wrote it. It was shortly after I landed that personal best carp that I switched to river fishing for the winter, the results of which I have already documented in previous posts. 
In another five weeks or so the river season draws to a close and I will be back on the lakes and reservoirs, and while I'll miss the Leam and the Avon, going over this old ground has at least reminded me that there's good fish to be had in the still waters round here. 
After a few weeks of scrapping for 'bits' on the rivers, it will at least be good to put a bend in the rod and a few decent lumps on the bank!

Variety is the spice of life | Part 2

A late summer recce of the upper Leam which I carried out last August revealed a small river, no more than a stream in parts, with plenty of physical challenges to overcome (barbed wire, steep banks etc) and just a few fishable swims between the weed. Since I was still very much in commercial carp mode, I filed it under 'hmmm, maybe another time' and thought no more about it.

For whatever reason, by the time I returned to fish it on a bright, warm, breezy day three weeks ago, my attitude had transformed. A few more swims had opened up, the obstacles seemed smaller than before and all-in-all it looked absolutely perfect. I couldn't wait to get started.

Having identified about half a dozen likely looking swims I started at the farthest from the car - a deep pool on a 90 degree bend. With so little flow it was obvious that the lightest tip would be fine, so out went a couple of maggots with just a tiny drilled bullet holding it to the deck.

Perfect, except that the breeze had now turned into a gale. I was definitely getting taps, presumably from small stuff, but it was hard to spot with the rod tip bouncing all over the place. The next swim was even more exposed, so it was an hour or more before I found the shelter I needed to get a still rod and a good idea what was happening beneath the water.

The minnow - a long lost friend of mine

Feeding a steady trickle of maggots just upstream of a fallen tree soon got those taps coming back on the rod tip, but this time I was able to see and hit them - or at least I was when the fish were actually bigger than the maggots I was using as bait! I'd forgotten the joys of minnows, once such a staple of my childhood fishing. I was certainly reaquainted with them on this trip. In between a steady stream of the little blighters came a few tiny chublets, and then over went the rod tip and I was into the fish I'd come for - a chub of over a pound. Well, briefly I was into it anyway. I'd accomplished 90% of the mission - I'd found it, hooked it and sighted it - and then I lost it. The whole process was over in seconds, and I was gutted, particularly since that was my last bite of the afternoon.

Now just try telling me there aren't
chub in there...

I was back the following week. It was colder, just as sunny, but stiller. I only had two hours, but I figured that the deep pool offered a decent chance of some action. Again I caught some tiddlers, but in case you're expecting a happy ending I should hasten to the bit where I lost another decent chub in the reeds under my feet.

I'm starting to think that blogging about my fishing is bringing me bad luck. For my next post I might just review 2011, recalling a time when a) I wasn't blogging about fishing and b) I was actually catching some decent fish. Ahhh, happy days.

Variety is the spice | Part 1

One of the great joys of rivers, at least when set against the majority of commercial stillwater fisheries, is that no two swims are ever exactly the same.

Not, I should hasten to add, that I've got anything at all against commercials. In fact they've been largely responsible for my reintroduction to angling, and I fished little else for the whole of my first year back.

But having vowed to abandon those commercials during the winter in favour of learning more about river fishing, I'm now relishing the variety, the texture, the sheer unpredictability of flowing water.

Take the River Leam by way of an example. I've pretty much hammered the Welches Meadow and Leam Valley nature reserve stretches over the last few months, but genuinely feel like I'm only just starting to get a feel for one or two swims - an understanding of where the currents run, where the shelves and the deeper pools lie, where the snags and the weeds are and, of course, where the fish are most likely to be. It takes hours of bank time to get this feel for just a single swim (well it does for me) - and yet the neighbouring swim, which may be just yards away, is almost certainly completely different. And a few days of rain or a change in temperature of just a few degrees can mean that even the swims you know best feel completely alien again.

So even on the stretches of the Leam I know best there are dozens of unexplored (by me) swims, and if you move significantly up or down stream then the changes are even more dramatic, with the river undergoing almost total transformations of character.

Clearly one winter will be nowhere near enough to get to know even this one short and relatively minor river. So last weekend I realised that I faced a choice - continue exploring the stretches I had already been fishing, or make a start on tackling one of the other areas.

Whether it'll make me a better angler I don't know, but I chose the latter and headed to Offchurch in search of the upper Leam...

Some early-year bird notes

One of the real joys of January is what feels like the almost overnight re-emergence of the birds.

It occurs to me pretty much every year that the birds seem to see the end of our Christmas celebrations as their cue for bursting into song - lifting our spirits and announcing the idea of spring many weeks before it will actually arive.

They bring me moments of joy throughout these dark weeks.

As I leave the house for work I am greeted most mornings by the rapping of great spotted woodpeckers looking for partners and territory.

I stopped last week to watch and listen to the blue tits, great tits, chaffinches, blackbirds and more from a narrow footbridge over the Henley-in-Arden stream. It was already a lovely lunchtime moment, but became so much more so when a tiny, mouse-like treecreeper flew to a tree trunk just yards from me and started to spiral upwards.

Fishing trips (of which another post shortly) are accompanied by the most amazing symphonies - today it was jackdaws, fieldfare, great tits and a superb song thrush.

And when you go out of your way to find the birds, as we did last weekend with a family trip to Brandon, they are there in numbers - there is not better time than a sunny January day for watching our brilliant wildfowl for example, from the exquisite teal to the whistling wigeon to the beautiful but faintly absurd shoveller.

If brevity is the soul of wit...

...then these note should be good (bit pressed for time I'm afraid).

On the birding front, I've just stepped out of my back door to be greeted by a low flying, loud 'cronking' raven circling my house. A wonderful start to my day :-)

Elsewhere, all is awaking - blue tits and wrens notably singing for the first time this week.

Fishing news is equally brief - I spent 90 mins on the Leam yesterday but couldn't find the roach or chub. I should have moved swims (chap down the river had 20 or more nice roach in the morning, so they were still feeding), but couldn't raise the enthusiasm. Fortunately a lovely 14oz perch saved the morning.

One last hurrah

Managed to sneak in a couple of hours on The Leam to finish 2011, and with some success.

With virtually no flow to speak of on my favourite bend, I ignored the (not very) shallows in front of me and instead targeted the deeper water downstream with a waggler rig.

This gave me a wider water and more lines to target, which was I think the key to putting together a longer run of bites than hitherto. Either that or it was the new secret ingredient - turmeric on the maggots!

Whatever the reason, I ended up with four nice fish on the bank (a chunky 6oz roach and three chub to 7oz), a few tiddlers, a handful of missed bites and two good fish lost in play - the second of which killed the swim and effectively ended a very enjoyable little session.

Thank goodness for the birds

A combination of seasonal fun, seasonal sniffles and seasonal weather has prevented any fishing since the first week of December. While this has been frustrating, my other great love - birdwatching - has continued to deliver plenty of pleasure.

The birds have come through the usual combination of planned trips and chance encounters. As we set off for our Xmas holiday with family in Essex we were 'flapped' on our way by a large flock of lapwing over fields near Napton.

Once in Essex we were accompanied everywhere we went by huge flocks of fieldfare and redwings, and a visit to Hatfield Forest was brightened by a fly-by kingfisher.

Finally, J and I actually managed a trip to Brandon Marsh today, our first in quite some time. Despite the cold and the constant rain, we spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the hides studying the gulls, ducks and waders, with highlights including a pair of goldeneyes and some very well hidden snipe.

Bird of the season: Snipe, a wonderful little wading bird which manages on the one hand to be as distinctive and striking as you could wish, and on the other hand is as discreet and camoflagued as you could imagine possible.

A smile as wide as the fish was long

Although I'd decided last week to give the Leam a rest for a while, a last minute change of heart saw me back there again this morning.

Instead of the relative simplicity of a commercial stillwater, my heart told me it wanted at least one more crack at finding a 'proper' fish on my favourite stretch running through the nature reserve and into Newbold Comyn.

It was unseasonably warm (12.5 degrees), a fact that became uncomfortably apparent as I trekked a mile or more in full winter gear to reach the very end swim. A strong upstream wind had all but stopped or even reversed the surface flow along the entire stretch, and even here, where the river narrowed to just a few feet, there was no flow to be seen.

It seemed perverse in the circumstances to set up a stick float, so I selected a small insert waggler, set it up with a size 22 on a 1lb 10oz bottom (my lightest ever rig I think), and set it to drift just an inch or so off the bottom of a slight downstream depression.

A steady trickle of maggots soon attracted the roach bites, but nothing of any size was coming out. And then, bang, I suddenly found myself wishing for a slightly less delicate rig as something put a not-inconsiderable bend in my light match rod. Having steered it out of the nearest reed bed with a combination of power and prayer, I then became acutely aware of just how narrow this stretch of river was - to get this fish into my landing net I was going to have to draw it through a gap in the reeds no more than four foot wide.

I already suspected this was a chub rather than the stellar roach I'd initially hoped for, and it pretty much confirmed this suspicion by going straight for those reeds as I drew it into the channel. It was clearly not a giant by chub standards, but it was the best fish I'd managed to hook and hang on to over many weeks on this stretch of river and I was desperate to bring it home. One last burst of prayer was deemed necessary as I teased it from this second reedy refuge and it was in!

I swear to you that no one has ever been happier to see a 13oz chub. You should have seen my grin. It is by a margin the best river fish I've had since I returned to fishing last year (because 95% or more of that time has been spent on lakes). It is also, perhaps a little bizarrely, a PB - for some reason I just don't recall catching any chub at all as a child angler.

OK, the fact that it wasn't quite a pound was initially disappointing (it was quite a long lean creature). But since it had put up a good fight on light tackle, scared the life out of me with two mad plunges into the reeds, and nearly straightened my delicate little size 22 hook, perhaps that was just as well.

If true specimen sized fish really mattered to me then I'm sure I'd have given up on the Leam before I'd even started. But that's just not me. I'm more than happy simply to be on my favourite river, watching the birds and increasing the quality of fish I catch ounce by ounce, week by week. Mind you, I'll be even more happy if the fish that finally breaks the pound mark for me is a roach! Now that really would be worth a grin.

Gloomy news on threatened freshwater species

This story caught my eye on the BBC website this morning: EU sounds alarm for threatened freshwater species.

Not great news - 37% of all freshwater fish species are on the EU's threatened species list (not to mention 44% of molluscs, 23% of amphibians, 19% of reptiles, 15% of mammals and dragonflies and 13% of birds).

I was saying to the wife only last night: "If more people were anglers the rivers would be in a damn sight better condition than they are today. Nobody loves the water more than an angler."

Let's hope we can spread the love.

An early winter wonder

An early winter wonder indeed, and probably not what you are expecting... a low-flying swallow dashing past my car on the Longbridge roundabout near Warwick.

On the occasion of the first frost of winter I couldn't help but think he's cutting it a bit fine. I know some swallows have been found overwintering on the south coast in recent years, or slightly more commonly the south of Spain (as opposed to South Africa where the majority go), but I hope that this fella gets somewhere warm before his food and energy run out completely.

Slightly more in keeping with the season was the delightfully rosy male bullfinch that was flitting around my garden this morning. Time to get the feeders out.

Addendum: apart from that swallow, the frost has clearly triggered 'winter mode' in the bird world - my lunchtime walk just gave me the closest possible view of a redpoll, my first of the year.

Great white bird in sky

As work has got busier and busier through the autumn, so lunches have got briefer and briefer. Truncated perhaps, but not totally unrewarding...

Today's lunchtime stroll was little more than a quick turn round the block, but as I walked through a little housing estate on the edge of Henley-in-Arden, I looked up and rapidly went through the birdwatcher's silent mantra of identification: "it's a long way off, but that looks a bit different... pointy wings, perhaps a big gull... if it just flies this way... OK, long legs, possibly a heron at a weird angle... no, still got pointy wings... surely not a... it is, it's all white, it's an egret!"

So there you go, my first lunchtime egret (I presume little egret, it didn't come close enough to confirm if it wasn't (although it did look suspiciously large...)) since July 2006 when I found one at Wooten Wawen. Last seen heading towards Claverdon, so keep an eye out on waterways near you.

After that it was down to the little river for a satisfying crunch through some fallen leaves. No siskin in the alders yet, but I did see some little chublets racing for cover in the deeper leaf-filled glides. No sign of the big boys this time - hopefully I might find a few on the Leam this weekend...

Further up the Leam

In the last couple of weeks I have managed to find time for a trio of trips to the various swims I found during my walk along the Newbold Comyn stretch of the Leam.

Starting my first session on the weediest, narrowest and hardest to reach of them all, it was nice just to see a stick float trotting through at the decent lick after weeks of watching a stationery waggler just a mile downstream.

A regular tickle of maggots soon had the bites coming reasonably frequently, mainly small roach at first, but then a couple of tiny chublet. After a couple of hours of this I moved down to swim two, a wider stretch but again with a bit of pace on the bend. 

Here the frequency dropped, but the quality improved - a slightly larger chub, a better roach and, finally, as I trotted a whole lobworm through to finish the session, a scrappy little perch.

The next session was just a snatched 90 minutes with only a loaf of bread at hand to tackle the same swim. Feeding mashed bread and trotting punch resulted in nothing, but switching to flake on the bomb brought a strong, unmissable bite on the tip. I missed it and went home. 

This morning's session was longer and was another mixed bag, with a few modest fish punctuated by some rank bad angling (the highlight being the 15 minutes I spent rigging up a sliding float, only to lose the lot in the tree opposite first cast out). The final tally was five small roach, a couple of small perch and this 'giant' - a 6oz perch which was the fish of the day.

Fish aside, it was the most beautiful morning on the Leam, the autumnal reds and yellows resplendent in the autumn sunlight, and the occasional flash of brilliant colour as kingfishers and bullfinches darted by. 

I may not have caught much, but couldn't have been happier. 

Where's all the water gone?

Inspired by yesterday's 'triumph' on the Leam, I decided to walk the Leamington Angling stretches of the river upstream from Welches Meadow.

Starting at the Newbold Comyn car park I followed it up through the nature reserve, discovering a few things as follows:

1. It's still slow, low and deep, but there are a handful of places where it narrows, bends or shallows up a bit and actually finds a bit of flow - most of these look fishable and quite inviting.
2. Even if the fishing turns out to be poor, it's worth it at this time of year for the scenery and the wildlife - this one hour walk turned up kingfishers, bullfinches, green and great spotted woodpecker and a pair of noisy nuthatch.
3.  We're seriously in need of some water - the picture shows the sight that greeted me from the hide at the far end of the reserve. In case it's not obvious, that's supposed to be a shallow pool of water, a 'scrape', with an island in the middle.

Further upstream and into the Offchurch Bury estate, the river takes on a different character - narrower, shallower and faster. It screams 'chub' at every bend - although the ones I saw were of course holding station in a private / no-fishing stretch of course. Still, if they're here and they're downstream at the Princes Drive weir, then they'll be elsewhere along the river.

And the answer is...

... a single bronze maggot on a size 20 and ultra fine hook length. Pretty much what the answer always was really.

Sorry, I've run ahead of myself a bit there. That answer relates of course to the question that's been driving me mad for the best part of a month - how the hell do I catch anything in the Leam?

Well, I was half way through my third attempt at Welches Meadow when it dawned on me. In fact Inspiration came from an unlikely source - a large branch that I'd snagged and dragged out. It was alive with tiny worms / larvae, which kind of made me realise (durr) that my array of bread, corn, soft pellets and pastes might not be the normal menu on this under fished and 100% natural waterway. Too much of my fishing since I started again last year has been spent on commercials - hence the heavy lines, biggish hooks and man made baits.

So, with the inspiration that naturals might be the way forward here, I fined everything down, dug out the maggots I had leftover from Wednesday on the Avon and lo! we had fish.

I swear no one in the history of fishing has ever been more pleased to see a 3oz roach. It was beautiful, as was the 5oz roach that followed it, a similarly sized perch and the stream of tiny chublet that rallied to the cause. Not much to show for three long mornings on the Leam perhaps, but the 'duck' was broken. The bigger fish are surely now there for the taking.

'My' River Leam

The River Leam has been part of my life for 20 years or so. I've lived near it (hard not to in Leamington of course), I've walked its length from Leamington to Offchurch on many many occasions, I've birdwatched around it, and all in all I've grown rather fond of it.

The only thing I hadn't done with the river was fished it, something I resolved a couple of months ago to put right.

The first step was a couple of early morning sessions before work in August, trotting bread punch or maggot down a slow moving stretch up near the Grand Union Canal. These two sessions were very enjoyable indeed - the bread produced pristine hand-sized roach, and the maggot generally some scrappy little perch. But I suspected that autumn might be the the time to really tackle the Leam, so I put it to one side until October.

My view while lying on the
bank of the River Leam - a
completely inanimate tip rod.

A bit of rain, I thought. A bit of flow. Perfect for fishing the sections that I know best, down through Newbold Comyn and Welches Meadow. Hmmm.

So, early October has arrived, it's nice and warm and there's been no rain at all. The Leam through Welches Meadow, far from being in 'full flow' (it never exactly races by) is completely static. In fact, thanks to a slight westerly breeze, the float was actually running slowly upstream for most of the morning.

This was my second of two consecutive Sunday's on the river, similar in terms of weather and conditions, identical in terms of results - zip, zilch, nothing at all. A nice opportunity to practice with a slider float (not something I've used seriously before), a pleasant place to sit (or even lie down) and birdwatch (several kingfisher fly-bys, grey wagtails, and today my first fieldfares of the year), but just one twitchy un-hittable bite on the tip to show for nearly 10 hours fishing.

There are plenty of reports of decent bream, roach, tench, eels and even carp in this stretch of river, plus the predators. And I will find them - eventually.

Harbingers of winter

I heard them as soon as I got out of the car in Henley-in-Arden this morning - the high seep, seep of redwings.

Sure enough, there they were: two of them struggling south / south-west against a blustery wind.

Always a joy to see, of course, but a sobering reminder that the best of the year is very definitely behind us now (Indian Summer not withstanding). I'm fishing a big exposed lake in Hertfordshire tomorrow morning (Stanborough), so time to dig the thermals out I think.

The unexpected lifer

In the dying hour of a glorious late September day I rushed to Napton Reservoir to see if I could finally set eyes on the long-staying black-necked grebe.

The good news is that I did, the finding made considerably easier for the fact that it was a) less than 10 yards from the shore, and b) enjoying the admiring attention of three birders from Nuneaton.

The grebe was beautiful despite its winter plumage, the red eyes being its most striking feature. Sadly a quick stroll around the water turned up nothing else remarkable, the best being half a dozen pochard, a few skylarks and yellowhammers here and there, and even a little flock of linnets which I don't see nearly often enough.

Napton Hill was all but silent, so I returned home to attend to the blog... only to discover that the black-necked grebe was my first lifer in more than than a year, something I had completely failed to realise. And what is more, it was one which I predicted back in 2006 might turn up at Napton - see here for My Secret Patch Wishlist.

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together, albeit somewhat belatedly and unintentionally!

The hallmarks of autumn

One by one the hallmarks of autumn have been falling into place.

The first sign of the season was very punctual indeed. On September 1st I drew open the curtains at the back of my house to catch sight of the season's first early morning mist.

As if alerted by this starting gun, little pockets of swallows and house martins started to gather here, there and everywhere - small fast-feeding families low over river, lake or meadow, preparing for the long journey ahead.

As I gathered the apple harvest in my garden just a few days later I was joined by a handful of juvenile chiffchaffs. These are a regular find in my garden at this time of year, but almost never at any other.

Elsewhere t'internet is full of news of exotic migrant waders and seabirds at hotspots like the nearby Draycote Reservoir (including several manx shearwaters, which I would greatly have liked to have seen). Even litle Napton Reservoir has played host to a black necked grebe for the last couple of weeks.

As the weather has slowly worsened, the temperature of the the water has also dropped notably. This makes the fishing unreliable at best, and without a warming sun it becomes almost impossible to spot the chub in the litte streams I stroll along most lunchtimes.

And of course the darkness, the only bit of winter I truly dislike, draws inexorably nearer - sunset is 7.15pm at the moment and retreating at a rate of knots.