Grey wagtail and Water Mouse

When I was much younger, I spent many happy hours with a rod and line sitting by the banks of a river, wait to catch a fish. I was never very good, throwing ground bait in to attract fish always seemed like a waste of time to me. Why would a fish be attracted to my rusty hook with all this food laying around, I thought. Then my dad introduced me to night fishing, something that I have never really understood. If I can hardly see the float  in the middle of the night, how on earth would the poor fish stand a chance of seeing by bait in the end of the line. Maybe an underwater touch attached to the line just above my little worm would have helped. I now think the was just a ploy to keep me out of trouble with girls and the law. Probably one of the reasons I never got around to going to the all night dance clubs  like the Twisted Wheel and  Wigan Casino. A nightclub in Wigan, Greater Manchester, operating between the mid-1960s and 1981, it was later known as a primary venue for Northern soul music.  This is probably why I can't dance to save my life today, but still love the music. I did hit on a great idea for catching fish though, I would fill a shopping basket with ground bait and attach a rope to the basket handles. Then throw the basket with bait into the river and let it sink to the bottom and wait. I found that after about 10 minutes or so the basket would be full of fish. So I would pull on the rope to close the basket handles and quickly pull it up. This turned out to be a real winner and thought this is the future of fishing. I could see fishermen all over the country carrying  shopping baskets and ropes along with other fishing tackle.  Sadly this idea didn't go down well at local club competitions and I was banned.

After all these years I find myself back on the river bank, not to catch  fish, but to capture wildlife. Also I now find myself playing with Lego again with my grandkids. All my life's a circle ;-)

Chasing the Sun, while on my jollies

Sorry its taken so long to get around to putting these images up, still have a lot more images to edit and will add them here when I get around to it.

My thanks go to David White for allowing me to use the image above

Thank you for your visits, enjoy.