Today I began the tedious job of  removing picture off my old pc and uploading them on the Mac. It's amazing that after a couple of years of not using windows how awkward it all seemed.
 Some of the first pictures I uploaded were some angling ones, a few years back I used to shoot the occasional feature for my brothers weekly Angling Times column. These sunrise silhouette shots were taken Tench fishing at Linear lakes in Oxfordshire. The portrait shot was also used as a full page in the book "Catching the impossible" , a book all about the angling tv series filmed by top wildlife cameraman Hugh Miles.

 I've been quiet on the blogging front for the past few weeks, so having recovered from the flu I thought I'd write an up date account of what I've been up to.
 On the fishing front I've still been catching a few Barbel, nothing big but often enough to keep my interest going. Best fish recently went 9-14.

 When fishing on my own, unless the fish is really big I tend to just take shots of the fish on the unhooking mat or in the net. As you can see from the above photo's the barbel I've been catching recently have been in lovely condition.
 With the river's being so low and clear I thought I'd discuss the tactics use to catch these fish. The present conditions are some of the hardest conditions to catch in. The fish have been pressured all summer and with the clarity of the water the fish will be tucked away under snags or deep in the weed beds.
 I use a minimum of bait at this time, just a small solid PVA bag with of mixed small pellet no bigger than 6mm a couple of crushed boilies and at least 50%of the bag being made up of PVA friendly crushed hemp. My rig is also placed in the bag, the hook bait being a small boilie chop on a strong 14 or 16 hook. The idea being that I want a high attract bait with little feed.
 Another tip that I finds works is not to cast, either lower your bag into the swim or if fishing too far out use a pole and pole cup to place your bait, I've found that the splash made by casting onto spooky fish can really kill your chances at this time of the year.
 The next post will be an update of the annual deer rut and a few pic's I've been taking.

Had a couple of hours fishing again this morning, fished four swims and only had one chub for my efforts. I think the main problem at the moment is that we need the river to have a good flush through with some fresh water.
Anyway I took a couple more detail shots of the chub, one of the wrist of the tail the other of the anal fin.

This afternoon I took the dog for a walk over the fields and noticed a lot of Field Parasol mushrooms, these are edible but most of the ones I found were a little bit old.

 Nipped out for a couple of hours fishing this morning trying for the barbel again, the only activity came in the way of a nice chub just under the 5 pound mark. Usually I'd just slip a fish like this back but just recently I've started to take my 105mm macro lens with me to try to capture details of the fish. It's still very much work in progress but heres a couple of shots from today.

 As anglers maybe it's time to show the beauty and detail of fish rather than the traditional grip and grin shots, maybe that way conservationists my take UK freshwater fish into consideration.

 Today I finally managed to catch a barbel from a new stretch of river that I'm targeting in Bedfordshire. I had Known of the fishery for a few years but it was a mate catching two different 16 pound plus fish that got me interested, it also helped that it was only 10 minutes from home.
 It's been a few years since I've done any serious barbel fishing, fishing on the Gt Ouse really lost it's appeal, watching the barbel population being decimated by the indiscriminate release of otters was heart breaking. How the EA can say that rivers are the healthiest they've been is beyond me. How can that be when  American Signal crayfish eat the fish spawn and fry, any fish that get past this stage are then targeted by cormorants, water is abstracted and effluent introduced by  places like Milton Keynes and then to top it all the EA introduces an apex predator onto an eel population that is now critically endangered, it's population having crashed by 95% in recent years. No impact study was made and the result is now an EU indicator species, the barbel is now being targeted by the otter, it's not the otter's fault they have to eat something but will only eat the gills and liver of big fish leaving the rest to rot. This is not a rant from a fanatical angler but from someone that is passionate about wildlife, I hope my photographs prove that, but it does infuriate me that man keeps on mucking up the natural world so much.
 Any way back to the fishing, this morning I found a small patch of gravel in amongst the streamer weed. Using a solid PVA bag to place my hook bait and free offerings in I gently lowered it in under my rod tip, within 15 minutes the rod arched over and I was into a big fish after a brief tussle it was in the net all 13lb 15oz of it, a great way to start. Later on in the morning I managed to add a smaller fish about 6lb.

 The above shot is of the smaller barbel caught  today. It was too dark to get a decent shot of the bigger one and as always the fishes welfare takes priority over a picture.