Tuesday 9 May 2017

Little Boy Fishing - Shirley Abicair

Certainly remember the very first Television to feature in my life,
a little cabinet mounted 9 inch screen job, which must have been round about the mid 50's.
Likely one of the first performers as well was 
Shirley Abicare (Mistress of the Zither) a little more raunchy than
Pete Townsend - The Who smashing his guitar and amp to pieces,
or Ozzy biting the head off a Bat?  
(you'll be spared the Zither on this link)
While the weather hasn't been what you might call conducive with catching Moths, with hail storms (as shown on a previous Post), wind doggedly hugging the eastern quarter along with a number of other threatening looking
WEATHER FRONTS
(but no rain)
the morning of 03/05/2017 did throw up a decent and varied bunch of additions to
The Year List
 LIME HAWK-MOTH
 SMALL SERAPHIM
 CHOCOLATE-TIP
which has already been seen this year without a decent image
 GREEN CARPET
 COMMON PUG
SCARCE PROMINENT
Also with a little effort over the past week we have also come across a few 
Migrant Birds
starting at Longham Lake where, despite their 'common' connection, the
following trio have been far from that!
 COMMON SANDPIPER
 COMMON SWIFT
 and
 COMMON TERN
Additionally and a little more recently, after a number of failed attempts
we eventually made contact with the juvenile
 BONAPARTE'S GULL
that has been frequenting the lakes sporadically but daily.
Having seen the Blashford (different) bird earlier in the year this
niffy little Gull, from the Americas, was an addition to the County Year List.
The image is 'borrowed' from Wiki but it is hoped to field our own
when and if we manage a 'shot' in the near future!
Turning our attentions elsewhere and realising just how many times this site has
been visited, particularly since 2005, times the number of anglers encountered during
that period, it suddenly dawn that we have never seen a Fish strike let alone be landed.
Talk about the proverbial No 68 Bus, one turns up followed by 3 or 4 others in quick succession,
there was a young man angling just up ahead who seemed to be in a tussle with something 'largeish'.
His struggle had also attracted his 4 or 5 mates doing similarly,
with all of us watching in awe as he pulled out a
Monster from the Deep.
There followed some great banter between his mates and myself, and while
it wouldn't be me to call this young man puny he was struggling to lift
his catch as it was
Taken to the Scales.
It was at this point that one of his 'rod alarms' alerted him to a second 'bite'
which he attended to while his friend put the Fish back in the keep net. 
This a 10lb
 TENCH
was a Minnow by comparison to the first which was identified as a
COMMON CARP of 28½ POUNDS
but that was by no means all as again the familiar sound of the line-tensioner cut in again.
It was a lesson in patience and skill just to watch him land these Fish

 this again a
COMMON CARP
 and just a baby at 21lb.
Having stood there for no more than 45 minutes and watched a total of
59½ 'POUNDS of FISH
pulled from the lake it was difficult to know quite who was the most gob-smacked!
It is of note that all of the Leviathans were returned to the water none the worse for wear.
We did also pay just a single visit to 
Blashford Lakes
just across the county border into
Hampshire
where we had one of our luckiest finds of the year when opening the
viewing flap in the hide to find a
 BLACK TERN
right before us!
In all of this Parley Court Farm was not left out as a few migrants did filter through.
 HOUSE MARTIN
 Only one pair of
 WHINCHAT
have passed through thus far
 along with what occasionally
 prove to be
 most obliging
CUCKOO
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