stevetheangler

Monday 11th August at 0545 I was on my way on a planned trip to a new stretch of the Lower Severn down towards Worcester…

I’d purchased an annual permit for the stretch on the recommendation of a buddy that it was an excellent bream water – and also held pike and zander which would come in handy for later in the year – and barbel of up to 18lb were also existent which are the main target of said buddy.

Traffic was quite light on the M5 J2 from Oldbury where I join and the journey down went with only one incident – just around J5 and J6 I noticed I had an ‘Engine Malfunction’ warning on the dash but I didn’t notice any problem and just continued with my trip…

[Later at home I Googled the message – and it appears that these messages can have extremely minor causes from fuel cap not fitted correctly to having gone over a speed bump if the message is not flashing (ie warning that something was noted but maybe not ongoing BUT if flashing then is ongoing and NEEDS attention..]

… and arrived at the venue’s car park about 0700 to find another there on the car park. It turned out later he was zander fishing when my buddy saw him there at around 1000 and by then he’d had 2 pike.

So, I unloaded my gear from the car – including my baseball cap with net veil (great for keeping sun off back of neck!) which I seemed to lose whilst I was there :(

I was wearing a normal’ish baseball cap on the drive down and I remember taking the veiled cap off the passenger seat but then it disappeared into the ether … my buddy had a look on car park and down the banks I’d walked later but nothing to be seen…

[..and I say ‘wearing normal’ish cap’ as too all intents and purposes it appears so – but actually it has a built-in camera with WiFi. I had just purchased it a week ago and this was to be its initial ‘use in anger’, recording my fishing of the day. I have in previous times used cheapo GoPro clones fitted on to head bands and chest harnesses, police type clip-to-pocket cams, etc with no decent results. GoPros only have 1 hour of filming life and heavy fitted to a cap peak – and when on chest harness, same as pocket mounted cams, never point where wanted due to clothing flopping about etc.So the use of those was abandoned very quickly! This capcam though has a battery life of 5 hours and the cam is fitted on a small circuit board actually inside the cap itself with the camera viewing through a small hole (looks like normal ventilation hole in the material and so its not recognisable as a camera) in the front. Worked very well on an initial test…. WiFi means that recording of video and still pics can be controlled from my mobile phone and can be seen real time or recorded on there too. I reckon good value for <£25 direct from China via eBay :)]

So… loaded up I set off down the banks towards the pegs my buddy had suggested as best choice for the conditions…

However, then it all went wrong …. I found the banks too steep for me to get down even UNLOADED – no chance taking the tackle down there … and 110% I’d not get back either way! The banks did have steps cut out, etc but nothing to hang onto (eg bushes on edge of walk down) and with my feet, as I suffer diabetic in them, at times painful but also conversely numb at the same time I do not have the usual feeling from them. And, as proven to be true, it is said that ‘pilots fly by the seats of their pants’ … I walk/balance without the feeling in the requisite part of my body and sight is very important to orientate myself as in the dark I find I need to touch walls, etc to keep some sort of balance – its not all down to the ear channels you know!! LOL!

SO … only thing for me then was to abort the mission and head somewhere else … so I texted my buddy who had said he’s probably pop down later to see me, possibly fish a bit himself… [When fishing I turn off my mobile data so don’t have access to email and only turn it on for brief spells in the need to eg Google, etc] … to let him know I was leaving. However, the mobile number I had for him was an old one and he never received my texts – but seemingly someone had been re-allocated the number over the passing of the years as the texts didn’t bounce back – so someone somewhere received what to be them were very strange messages LOL!

So, I set off to my alternative venue but on the way, with the error message still showing on the dashboard I decided to head home – at home, as I’d not had a reply to my texts to buddy I e-mailed him which was when I discovered ‘old number’- now corrected – but by which time he’d been to the river, spoken to the chap who was there who told him that a ‘deaf bloke from Wolverhampton’ had been there LOL. And since buddy and I have been in contact… and new veiled hat ordered from eBay. And car booked in with ‘my man’ at my garage to get the car on the computer to sort the fault message stuff out later… and I never switched on capcam at all…

PLANS

Well, with temps as they are again I think I’ll put my fishing on the back burner until they drop back to more tolerable figures … plus we are arranging to get an asbestos shed in the back garden (been there since we moved into the newly built house in 1959 … when I first visited I asked my Dad why the builders had left there hut there! LOL). Expensive business – £1300 for the demolition and disposal of the 2.8 x 3.0 x 2.5m structure…

Pike fishing getting closer (October) so been on YouTube looking at pike rigs using circle hooks – so now I’ve hooks on order and on arrival I’ll be needing to make up new traces and had a thought about that…

Rather than make up standard 18”-24” traces that are a pain to store – rig bins and other alternatives I’ve used take up a lot of bag space and need separate traces making for different hook arrangements – so what I’ll be doing is making simple 18” wire traces with a swivel at one end to tie to main line and then a snap link or other clip to the other end. AND then also sets of 6” traces with requisite hooks terminated with a swivel to attach to the clip on the longer trace. Makes life easier in a few ways..

• Long traces without hooks easier to make into loops for transit and put several into one DVD type sleeve without great tangling likely to ensue – and no bulk as is flat…
  • Shorter hook lengths makes it easier to stick several setups of hook configurations into foam backing and place in a short box eg sandwich type… or even going back to the DVD theme placing them in DVD sleeves which are then stored in a DVD carry case?
• Shorter hook lengths allow greater versatility eg some can be used for multipurpose eg for static deadbait or for deadbait wobbling …
• Long traces allow quick change of terminal hook arrangements ie unclip one short trace and clip on another … or even just remove short trace from the long one altogether and clip on a plug/spinner/jelly/etc instead to lure fish.
• Also I feel that having the hinging effect of the link to swivel attachment may give more freedom of movement to the hooked end and more natural actions when the bait is investigated ie the flex and springiness of the long trace wire is negated. Often people when coarse fishing attach hook lengths by loop-to-loop hinges due for the same reasons?…
  • Normally loop-to-loop mainline to hooklength connections are made by use of two pre-tied loops in each part by passing the loop of the hooklength over the loop of mainline and upwards and then the hook itself is passed through the loop of the mainline and then the hooklength and mainline are pulled to interlock the loops as one unit..
  • But loop-to-loop hinges require only one loop at the end of the mainline to start and the hooklength with just a clean cut end… the end of the hookength being the passed through the mainline’s loop and then looped and tied to itself and so the connection then becomes like two links of a chain and free to move within each others loops… ie hinged.

Oh well … Rambling Rose time is ending and Steve has to return to mundane life on back on Earth LOL!

So until next time, I’ll just wish all who have been reading this missive good days ahead whether they be at the waterside or wherever life takes you … Enjoy!   :)