stevetheangler

But before I start … some good news received …

On Monday 21st I had a hospital appointment with my consultant for the annual review of my 2019 cancer operation … and having been free of the ‘Big C’ now for 5+ (actually just 2 months short of 6) years I have been declared ‘cured’! No more colonoscopies (BLISS!!!) The actual colonoscopy procedure I never had a problem with – never accepted any of the offered sedatives and, in fact, only used the gas’n’air once briefly and that mainly because ‘it was there’ rather than any real need plus they’d gone to the trouble of setting it up and so I didn’t want them to feel they’d wasted their time and efforts by not using it :D. Where the problems really lay for me was down to the after effects as it took a fair few weeks for my system to settle down afterwards …. AND it now also seems that my hernia repair MAY be on the cards soon after waiting since 2020 when my ‘volleyball’ started to appear after the operation to reverse my ileostomy … I actually signed the consent form for the op last August and the consultant had had blood samples taken from me after our meeting and I was told I should be hearing ‘shortly’ about an appointment for a pre-op. I was also told it is a ‘big’ operation and will be painful (pass the morphine and ketamine!) albeit not a ‘deep’ one. Looking forward to wear trousers that fit (my left side waist is currently 2XL’ish but my right hand side is 4XL+) so belts don’t hack it and braces have to do the job … almost looks like I’m wearing those clown’s hooped waist trousers at times. The other thing though, post-op, will be no driving for 6 weeks, no heavy lifting, etc so basically no fishing for that time and possibly beyond… :(

So back to the fishing… so prepare for  the usual tale of setbacks…

0615 I left home heading back to the BAAs stretch of the River Severn at Blackstone and with some confidence within as the temps had dropped a few degrees and there been a bit of rain following my last visit. The drive over there went well, roads quiet, etc..

And then I came to the entrance gate down to the fishing …. I dialled in the code, tried to open the padlock … nothing happened … then several retries ensued with me checking the code on the back of my membership in case of putting in an erroneous digit, checked that I was lining up the code in the right position on the padlock – they use those padlocks that require the digits to be entered on the top line of the displayed window rather than the more intuitive centre line but I’m used to this from previous usages so wasn’t the problem. Anyway, I must have spent 10-15 minutes trying to get it to open by wriggling the dials in case of a sticky one, rotating every dial a full rotation to try to clear anything that may be causing the problem, shaking and tapping padlock on gate post … but all to no avail and I had to leave for elsewhere. UPDATE: before I left the site I posted on the club’s forum regarding the problem I had … and a reply appeared at 1300 that the local bailiff had visited to check – and found that all was functional! Ho hum….

So, as I said, I left and decided to call in on another stretch of the Severn, again BAA water, at Ladyham. Padlock on the gate this time opened without a murmur and as sweet as a nut! :)

I think I’d been here 2 or 3 times previously without a single nudge but, as said, with the lower temps and a bit of rain I held out some hope… it did look very promising …

So on arrival I parked up on the top of the bank at the start/downstream end of the stretch and wandered upstream a few pegs and spotted a nice looking hole – and also being the only one there at the time was great too.

Previous visits I’d fished at the upstream end and around the centre so was this new ground to me….

Access down was not too bad with steps cut into the bank to make the job easier and it seemed there was a nice flat area to locate myself and gear…

However, ‘seemed’ was not the reality as after rod rests were placed and bait bag and landing net were positioned for easy access there wasn’t room for my chair and I had to make do with folding up my towel to use as a cushion placed on a lower ‘step’ with my rucksack on the step above serving as a backrest. That was fine for an hour or so but then stiffness and aches started to set in this old body of mine :(

I set up to leger fish with a 40g square section feeder – using an 11’ Fladen Collateral feeder rod coupled with 8lb main line, a 6” hooklength of 8lb braid with size 10 hook and with a tail of about 36” twixt leger stop and hook.

The feeder filled with the usual mash up of cereal crumb-particles-dead maggots, and hook was baited variously with worm, cheese and meat. I did try ‘plastic’ cheese (ie the slices used on burgers, etc) after having seen a YouTube video, but without success as it flew off on the cast! Perhaps too warm for it although I did try dipping in the water pre-cast for a few seconds to harden it a little…. oh well perhaps some other time … well I hope so as I bought 6 packs (83p/pack – 15 slices, 255g from Aldi – far cheaper than other places which were packs were more in the £1+ bracket and that for 10 slice/250g packs) … don’t think it was the source of the slices, seemed no different in feel to any of the others.

Results – very little! Had the occasional single 1/2” movement of the tip but few and far between but not one positive indication at all.

1200 – with an aching bum and back and little action I called it a day and headed home.

OTHER

My river fishing chair I’d found suffered from a bit of a nuisance…. on the sloping banks of the Severn the front legs were too short even at full extension with the back legs unextended and so I was tending to slide forwards bit by bit and so I looked on the ‘net to see if generic replacements were available – and they were! It seemed possible to get 31cm ones against the 22cm of the current ones (so would lift the front of the chair up 3+”) and would at least improve, if not completely resolve, the situation… Anyway, said legs arrived a couple of days ago – and don’t fit! Tubing diameter is too big … but not the seller’s fault as measurement as advertised is exactly what I received … fault lies with me. I measured the original leg tubes with a ruler as 20mm as per the items sold/received… however when they failed to fit I measured both with a micrometer – received were 20mm as should be, but the original ones area around 17.8mm. Not to worry though as possibly they will fit my bigger chair and as they have bigger diameter mud feet possibly be an improvement. In the meantime, carry on as usual whilst I wrestle with the thought of getting some rightly sized tubing cut to the right length and fit the original feet to the bottom… UPDATE: I, soon after writing this, did a Google search for replacement of fishing chair legs – and one of the answers that popped up was one posted in 2020 on ‘Barbel Fishing World’ – and actually had been posted by my best buddy!! He also had found that chair legs can be the ‘wrong’ size for the job in hand … and his solution was removal of the mud feet from the original legs and fitting them to aluminium tubing of the correct diameter and of desired length to create new legs … and it worked well and at same time he also upgraded the leg strength by using tubing of increased wall thickness to the originals… so that seems a goer when I get the necessary bits and pieces for mine :)

PLANS

Monday 28th July – thinking of the Worcs Stour – not been there for a while and since last visit (other than a quick recce I did a few weeks ago) there has been a fish pass installed at the weir and big stretches of Giant Hogweed that impeded access to parts of the bank have been removed… so worthy of a visit I think although any fish won’t be mega huge, a 4lb bream I had a while back is exceptional and it would be very happily received to take my bait again! :)