Times are indeed a-changin'...

For the second week running, I've got up on Sunday and thought "I can't be arsed fishing a match today".  Dunno whether it's due to fishing on Saturdays, but summat's wrong somewhere.

I bimbled about for most of the morning and after dinner decided to go for a chuck on the sluice.  It was a bit bright but I decided to spend a couple of hours making up some rigs.  When I got there, I was on my own apart from Terry who'd had a couple fo decent slabs and some skimmers off peg 11.  I went up to 16 and got down to tying hooklengths, shotting-up, etc.  After a few rigs were wound-up & labelled, I set forth to catch a few fish.

It was a slow start, but with the Charity Shield on 5Live, I wasn't really that fussed - I suppose it's being off work that's done it.  Instead of targetting the larger bream and tench which, frankly has become a bit of a pointless exercise for the last few weeks, I went after the roach.  I didn't have too long to wait as I was soon into them.  Did I mention I was in a 'can't be arsed' mood?  Oh yes - well it extended to just using one rig on one line - mainly with one bait - the humble maggot.  I dropped in a couple of small cups of feed and sat over it with a maggot pinned on.  The roach duly obliged (unlike Chelsea) so I half got what I wanted out of the day.  In with them were a couple of hybrids and the new landing net got christened with a few  larger roach too.  I had the obligatory 'chase-in' from a pike, but fortunately there weren't any casualties to report.  In fact, from an incident stance, it was a pretty uneventful day really.  

The only minor blot on the landscape was the occurrence of one of the things we sluicers go there to avoid - bikes.  I spent most of Saturday's match avoiding the buggers on the cut, so the last thing I expected to see on the sluice were cyclists asking me to move my pole!!!  Fair play - Terry uses his to get there, but walks along the bank to his peg - these two should take note, no cycling on the bank - its not much to ask is it??

The wind (which was gusting a little when I arrived) dropped as afternoon became evening and the overcast clouds moved away, leaving a very pleasant end to the day.  I mucked about trying to to take a landscape picture with the sunset in it, but proper mucked it up, thanks to not reading the instructions for my new phone.  Just prior to that, the Red Arrows came scudding across the sky, apparently on their way across country from a display at Rhyl - jettisoning surplus smoke dye as they crossed the fields behind Banks.  For a while there were static clouds of blue, white and red hanging above the spuds and barley - you see some rum sights out there...

The feral geese are getting bolder with each passing visit lately.  Tonight they were sat behind me on the top bank - content to forage among the grass around my trolley.  Their numbers have fallen since last week, down to two families of five now, with the pink-footed specimen looking like it had been in the wars - large feathers hanging off the port wing and the starboard undercarriage looking a little battle-weary too.  Notable among the other feathered visitors was a Kingfisher - only fleetingly, as well as the Kestrel doing it's rounds.  Patrolling along the back of the sedges on the far bank, I spotted the wing of a Sparrowhawk, although I didn't get a good enough view to see if it was hunting.  Something had definitely been hunting on my side, as there was a bonny mess of feathers on one of the platforms.  These weren't from a preening session and I suspect Mr. S Hawk had been dining on Wood Pigeon for one of his main meals over the weekend...

Adder's running a flyer at Moss Lane on Tuesday, so I'll see how it goes with the returnees before I decide whether I'll be attendance - there's the Monday night flyer on the sluice before that too...