Latest Stories

The rest is silent...

Before moving on to the main business of this entry - that lovely looking common further down the page - indulge me for a moment and turn your attention to the first photograph. Not to the lake shimmering in the April sunlight (though that is a fine sight) nor to the rod (a 12ft Conoflex as it happens, swapped for a Psion Series 5 with the angling writer and photographer Henry Gilbey) nor the reel (out of sight, but a solid TFG Gear centrepin, stocked with Maxima 6lb line) but to the rod rest. 

Read more
Comments

These curious times

Despite the startling lack of activity on these pages in recent months...nay, years...I've actually been fishing more often since the pandemic struck than I have in the last 10 years. It's a funny business, writing about fishing...

Read more
Comments

Carp

Carp photos? What do you take me for?


I don’t often spend much time fishing for carp and when I catch one it’s usually because it’s snaffled a bait meant for a tench or a roach, a rudd or a crucian. That’s not to say I’m unhappy when one comes along...
Read more
Comments

Sauce for the goose

I don’t know what they’re feeding the geese at Flintstones but it’s going through them like a dose of the proverbials and means it’s almost impossible to walk two steps in a straight line without encountering something that squirted from a goose’s arse...

Read more
Comments

The Transformer

I once heard the English fascination with caravans described thus: it's because we love things that fold away. Simple as that. Not because we yearn for the freedom of the open road or because of some deep-seated need to take our houses with us, but simply because...

Read more
Comments

The Rocket Carp

My wife asked my this morning how fast carp swim. Seriously. I love that woman. I'd been talking about the wild carp (or near as dammit wild carp - lean, little torpedoes that look more like barbel than carp) in a local lake that I hadn't fished for years. I'd forgotten what they were like...

Read more
Comments

I'm a giver, me...

It's nights like these that I feel extremely fortunate to be living here and now. There's enough wrong with England in the 21st century - this spiteful government for starters - that it's easy to forget places like this still exist, pretty much on your doorstep...

Read more
Comments

Back on the horse...

I nearly bottled it. Driving back from Bucks through sheets of rain (and only a poncho in the boot because the brolly's still under Marion's bed) I just thought I'd leave it. I'd get soaked, the banks would be beyond treacherous - and recalling my last visit, well...

Read more
Comments

Here we go again

t's about this time of the year that I gently re-introduce myself to fishing after the winter break. There's some fun poking about rustiness, occasionally something more esoteric where I worry over losing the fishing gene that's supplied me with so much fun and contentment over the years...

Read more
Comments

A Fine Idea

Apparently it was all my idea, which was why Ray expressed surprise at my surprise that he should telephone to ask what time we were meeting up to go fishing that evening.


This came as something of a shock. I tried to piece together the events of the previous evening. One old fart meeting two other old farts to play some guitar - check. Songs old and new, borrowed and original - check. Bottle of French cider - check. Bottle of cheap French red wine - check. Further bottle of imported cider - oh dear...although nothing's coming back to me (certainly not Ray's insistence on my insistence that we go fishing this evening) it's all starting to make a terrible sense.


And, since it was my idea, I'll claim the credit for it. A lovely evening. No-one else at the water at all, some nice tench, a few small rudd and roach, the inveitable eel, an inquisitive field mouse who made so much noise in the rushes next to me that it sounded as though he was driving a car around in there, and this beautiful common carp. About 8lbs, he took a small piece of luncheon meat on a size 12 hook, first cast and proceeded to tear around the swim, tugging the old John Wilson left and then right (I'm enjoying giving this rod a run out this season, it's been a while); finally he came in, neatly lip hooked and went back in the swim next door after having his photo taken.


We saw a hot air balloon, several dozen bats, several million midges, and watched as the perch - which are growing to a decent size by all accounts - scattered fry all over one half of the lake for about an hour before the sun went down and set the sky on fire. Which as you can see, was a sight worth coming whether we caught any fish or not.
Comments

Show more posts


© 2020 Rob Beattie | Login | Contact Me