Good evening.

The title tonight is a play on words of one of my all time favourite tv series; River Cottage! Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (my hero) was the man who left the city life and headed to Dorset to live at River cottage. Escape to River Cottage, Return to River Cottage and River Cottage Forever were the three titled series and Hugh lived the rural self-sufficient lifestyle and treated us to recipes and tips on how to live, eat and survive in the countryside. I have to say I loved it and maybe now some of you are going “Ah…..thats why he left the UK and is fishing for five years.”  I cook, I survive on the bank adequately and I love the countryside and the outdoor lifestyle. I nearly went on a sea fishing trip with Hugh himself on one of their organised chartered trips at Bridport arranged through the River Cottage HQ, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to bad weather. If only he knew I don’t mind the odd drop of rain; maybe we could have still gone. Afterwards he shows you how to skillfully prepare the catch and then you all have a go at cooking it. If you have never seen an episode click on the link below for a free clip of part one of Escape to River cottage, which you can watch on your pc. This may be a blog about carp fishing but everyday you also learn something new about me too!

WATCH ESCAPE TO RIVER COTTAGE: PART ONE

The weather certainly has turned. Although last night was fairly mild, this morning was rather cold. The rods that were put out as more of a token gesture were wound in this morning as the incessant beeping was doing my head in! There is a small inlet to my right and the water is quite shallow compared to the main body of the river. There is much debris in this shallower stretch and every time a boat comes through, the collection of debris swirls round like a washing machine and takes out your lines. Welcome back to river fishing Jake! These things can not put you off though as at the back of your mind there is the lure of the big carp that swim in these stretches. A 25kg common has been caught from here on a few occasions and this fish is one I would dearly love to see in the bottom of my landing net. I have time and that is what I have come for!

Cheers Ross!!

Flash is now sporting his winter coat! Ross Honey of the WCC had the coats made for the dogs and they are actually very warm. Unfortunately Charley’s one was broken when we inspected them at the WCC, as the printers had melted the zip. Fortunately I managed to buy a new one so she does not feel left out and after a quick alteration tomorrow she will also be wearing a snazzy black winter coat!

A bottle marker!

Lots of lovely boilies!

The real work began today and I put out two bottle markers to mark my patch. I am fishing well away from the boat channel and in the margins in front of me. I have four rods placed along the line between the two markers. I put out some pellet, corn, boilies and tiger nuts along this line and I will now wait for it to draw in the fish. I have already topped this up once today with a couple of kilos of the two boilies I am using and I will keep doing this till the fish arrive. There are plenty of large chub and bream in the river and they will make light work of your bait. There are plenty of carp in this river too, but as it is a big wide river, it may take a couple of days for the word to spread that there is a large free food source to be had!

Please...carry on!

The one thing I love about fishing is meeting new people. A pike angler wandered into my swim and asked if I minded if he fished on my right. “Not a problem,” said I. He then proceeded to talk on his mobile phone for the two or three hours he was there and happily drank the cups of coffee I made him. Bless him! Did he catch a pike? No!

Rods up high!!

To try and stop the debris catching my lines I am placing the rods on single banksticks and have them up very high. The butts are just resting on the ground, and this technically means there is less line in the water. I have used backleads here before which worked, but that was in the other swim further upstream. The debris problem means that is not really possible on this stretch as it comes in very close to the edges.

My Sunsei 65W panel from SelectSolar

My heater is on in the bivvy and it means there is less damp in the air. The sun in the daytime is still quite warm and I am taking advantage of this and using both my solar panels to recharge my leisure battery in my bivvy. I use this to charge my laptop. I do have my new generator but I will try and survive for as long as I can before I have to use it.

Fingers crossed that a carp will come at some point during the night. Come back tomorrow to see how I am getting on.

Cheers

Jake and the cosy dogs!

Tags: bivvy, boilies, carp, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, jake langley-hobbs, River Cottage, solar, WCC

This entry was posted on October 22, 2009 at 9:42 pm and is filed under River Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.