Trota! Rod? Line? Nah!

Our friend who is yet to get his TLA (three letter acronym) lets call him jon, has just sent me this picture from his place in Italy. Apparently he was standing by his trout stream (you think that's jammy - he has Boar and Deer too!) wondering weather or not to take up fishing (I know! Some people!) when he saw this one had invited itself to lunch by marooning itself in a shallow pool.
So he picked it up and took it home, as yer would!
Thanks for reading
SBW

Adventure!!!

Nuff sed!
SBW

Surf's Up! Or Should That Be Surfs Down?

Once again not a lot happening here in the suburbs, so I've taken to dreaming of a trip to Namibia. Where amongst other attractions you can cardboard box surf down the biggest sand dune on earth. Aparently the walk up is 'only' 50 minutes, and after an invigourating glass of Champagne the trip down lasts a full 5 minutes.

Did I mention you can catch Bronze Whaler sharks from the shore?
Now that HAGC has pointed out that surplace of chum I'd be a fool not to (well at least think about it)!
(wistful sigh) Such is suburban life....
Thanks for reading
SBW

I Want One - A Not So Occasional Series Pt3

I saw this on The Gear Junkie. What a great idea! Available soon from Black Crater Gear

Thanks for reading
SBW

Can Trout Laugh?

"When the beginner can cast his fly into his hat, eight times out of ten, at forty feet, he is a fly fisher; and so far as casting is concerned, a good one."
James A. Henshall, MD, 1881

In the spirit of 'what gets measured, gets done' I thought James Henshall's criteria could be tracked. I mulliganed the first two casts, but as you can see from the landing sites of one through ten, I'm still falling some way short of the hat. When you deduct the length of the rod (eight feet) it's even worse! I keep telling myself the Chalksteams are only ten to fifteen feet wide and that the fresh Trout aren't the only reason I'm doing this......

"Unless one can enjoy himself fishing with the fly, even when his efforts are unrewarded, he loses much real pleasure. More than half the intense enjoyment of fly-fishing is derived from the beautiful surroundings, the satisfaction felt from being in the open air, the new lease of life secured thereby, and the many, many pleasant recollections of all one has seen, heard and done."
Charles F. Orvis, 1886

SO TRUE.

But then he would say that wouldn't he? He's got an agenda to push, and fishing gear to sell!!

I'm lovin' spending time outside, but the Trout are perfectly safe.

Any pointers gratefully received!

SBW

Fishing In A Barrel

Am I psychic? Or are the public just extremely predicable?

One day a week I spend at home with The littlest Bushwacker; generally we drop Bushwacker Jnr. off at school and make our way home via the bakery, or weather permitting we take a walk in the park. As my fly cast is still in its embryonic stage I'm trying to get as much practise in as possible so I take my fly rod with me and practise on one of the ponds. Half an hour once a week isn't much but its better than no practise at all.

I use a short leader tied to to a feather from that pheasant. I don't need a hook, I don't use a hook. I knew this was going to happen, and this morning it did.

While I was happily thrashing at the surface of the water a black Labrador bounded up scaring TLB into hiding behind my legs. Ever one for instilling confidence (tempered by realism) into the kids I said 'you're all right honey, that's a friendly dog'. Then looking around the pond to its approaching owner I added 'It's the owner I'm frightened of'.

I was going to describe the woman as having a face like a Bulldog sucking on a Wasp, a face only a mother could love. When my own mother used to see faces like that she'd tell me and BoB 'stop pulling that face, the wind'll change and you'll be stuck like that'. The wind is obviously changeable on Blackheath.

I could feel her rage before she pulled up alongside me, her eyes ablaze with indignation as she shouted "this is not a fishing pond" to which I replied "I'm not fishing" I let a pause hang in the air while she gulped like a feeding Carp before adding, "this is casting practice". Spying her chance to feel justified she waded in a little deeper "you're leaving hooks in there, there's Ducks in there, and you're leaving hooks in there!" she went to turn away in a huff, no doubt intending to report me to the park maintenance guys, further round the pond, who were busy using a small John Deer thingy to drive the six or seven feet between individual pieces of rubbish.

Restraint, Respect, Control - whoever has the slowest heartbeat wins....

"Madam, maybe you'd like to take a look at this" by this time I'd hauled in the line and was presenting her with the end of the leader, "And if there's a hook on it you can report me, and if there isn't a hook you can apologise".

She muttered "I apologise"

Her withdrawal was made all the less dignified by my laughter.

I know, I know, no points for fishing in a barrel, but you've got to make your own entertainment. Such is suburban life.

Thanks for reading
SBW


photo credit (some very good pix)

Namibia!

WoW!!

Further in the spirit of living vicariously through others, this is the first in a series of photographs taken by a friend of mine. He gets out a lot more than I do!
Thanks for Looking
SBW

This Weeked I'll Be Reading

Maybe you've noticed in recent months I've developed an interest in the gentle art of fly fishing. Why? Well opinion varies; Skippy has it 'you're so lazy no wonder you've chosen fishing as your sport, if you can call it that'
Thanks Skip.
Jonah (who taught me to fish) "you've got everything! When are you going to do some actual fishing?
Well Jonah I might say the same about your 'adventures' in carpentry.
Regretfully I must concede, our chubby coastal dwelling friend has a point - I don't really manage to get to the water that often. But I do enjoy reading about/living vicariously through, those who do.

I found This Is Fly a few days after my trip with Jeremiah. As we'd sat outside the pub we both noted the way the fishing media have failed to keep up with the times, where was the magazine aimed at us?
Fishing magazines are pretty dull, written by and aimed at an older crowd. Which is strange when you think about it, as the canal sides, river banks, beaches and piers where I meet people fishing are enjoyed by all ages. Teenage louts, and grumpy granddads are well represented, as are paunched hipsters in the full flush of middle youth (like myself and Johna) with young children in tow.

If even golf can be 'reinvented' - w'appen?

Where there's an obsession, there's a niche, and where there's a niche, there's an audience, and where there's an audience, there's the potential for ad revenue... ....and at the end of the line there'll be a bunch of obsessives with long suffering wives, dreaming of someone else paying for them to pursue their obsession, and a laptop. Starting a magazine.

There are loads of 'online only' magazines most of them not worth the paper they're printed on. But every so often something happens which defies the natural order of things, confounds inevitability, and surprises.
This Is Fly is just such a magazine. A fishing magazine that starts with 'mixtape': what we were listening to as we put this edition together. It looks like the graphic designer was previously working on a skating magazine, and reads like it was written by guys who'd be good value around the camp fire. The editorial style is brave enough to say "you wistfully dream of 'A River Runs Through It' if you like, this is our time, this our thing and this is how we do it".

So this weekend, if you like fly fishing, or have ever been puzzled by the rules of understatement and reverse snobbery that the English live by, be sure to read 'A Duffers Guide To The Chalkstreams' by Rufus Cartwright in issue 9!

Thanks for reading
Your pal the bushwacker

Jus' Like That!

After my recent outburst on the comments section of Andy's Blog, and this weeks exaltation of the biscuit there are two reason to show you the picture at the top of this post.

One: Tra-la! They really are as easy as I said, and if you get down to the shops later today you've still got the chance to be a hero tomorrow morning.

Two: Andy's point about the farm shop being the best place to buy your eggs from is so true. Look how flat the yolk is on that egg. It's perfectly cooked, but being from a supermarket, it's not really fresh and so instead of being a perfect hemisphere the yolk has sagged.

Such is suburban life
SBW

PS Here's how I poach eggs

Breakfast - It's All Good This Weekend

This one you gotta try!!

American readers will already know this, so this post is really for those of us not residing in the USA. America leads the world at breakfasting, really, and here's for why...

It's not just a legend, there really are special breakfast beers brewed in Germany, a wonderful idea, shows real imagination, but no. It's not quite what I'm looking for.
A croissant, even a chocolate stuffed croissant or pan au chocolat, washed down with a bowl of hot chocolate is good. But not good enough.
The 'full English' while a fine thing in itself could do with a few additions. Those additions hail from the US. The American take on the pancake, all risen and fluffy is a wonderful thing too, and may well become the subject of a future blog, but this post and this weekends breakfasts are dedicated to the majesty of the Biscuit.

By biscuit I don't mean the English word for cookies, I mean the half way house between bread and scones that ANYONE can make in TEN MINUETS. Transforming themselves at a stroke from kitchen lummox to culinary hero in less time than it took me to write this post. TRUE.

I've eaten biscuit with American family's and in dinners loads of times but it never occurred to me just how easy they are to make.Until I read A Proper Breakfast by GWH (the Great White Hunter). His recipe cannot over state just how easy they are to make!

Shortening isn't that easy to come by in the UK so I use vegetable suet which all the big supermarkets sell. You'll find it in the baking section it looks like this


The only things I would add are;
Don't make them too thin. At first I was nervous of making them too doughy and rolled them a little thinner than the recommended three quarters of an inch, as soon a I started to roll them out a little thicker I got a perfect biscuits.
A sponge tin (round and not very deep) is perfect for making one large biscuit which you can serve slices of.

This weekend you're a hero, even if it's only until the end of the meal!
Thanks for reading
SBW

PS This summer while camping out, at the music festivals or later in the year at deer camp, this recipe makes a good alternative to banock -you can mix and bag the dry ingredients and take them with you. While the others are lamenting the state of the squished, soggy loaf they brought with them, you can bake your biscuit in a Dutch oven over the fire. How bushwacker will you look then!

I've Got A Sample For You!

The other day my office neighbour, she has the space next door to us, popped her head 'round the door saying 'I've got a sample for you' as she handed me this bottle.
You should have seen the look on the interns face!

Of course it's Elderflower cordial, and so delicious even the kids liked it!

The elder flowers in our garden have all gone now, roll on the elderberries!
Any elderberry recipe ideas gratefully received!

Thanks for reading
SBW

Two New Blogs - Well New To Me

Hiya

The feedback from my OBS interview has exposed me to a couple of blogs that are well worth a mention.

First Rabid Outdoorsman's The Maine Outdoorsman
"Greetings fellow outdoor fanatics and welcome to the Maine Outdoorsman Blog. I started this blog as a way to share some of my favorite hunting, fishing and outdoor experiences with the general public. My goal for this endeavor, is to work to improve my writing skills so positive comments and suggestions are much appreciated. With that said please sit back, make yourselves comfortable and join me in conversing about a few of my favorite outdoor memories."

And Fish Hunter's Hunting Knive
"When you are in a position to indulge in it, hunting is one of the activities that can provide both a great deal of physical activity and bragging rights, not to mention an impressive amount meat and a truly epic trophy at the end."

Both struck a chord with me, hope you'll enjoy them too

Thanks for reading - leave a comment or two
SBW

Road Kill Rules

A little while ago the three ring circus that is the clan de la bushwacker were driving through the leafy lanes of Kent. As we entered a village I implored Mrs SBW to pull over. Bushwacker Jnr. and yours truly ran back down the road and recovered this delicious hen pheasant that had recently meet its demise at a passing vehicle's wheel and had not been there long.

How do I know it was safe to eat?

Well I'm no Tom Brown Jnr. but there were a couple of tracks that even I could follow:
1. It was about 11am and reasonably sunny - her blood was fresh and no flies had gathered.
2.It was about 11am and she was still there, if she'd died during the previous evening a fox would have had her during the first available cover of darkness.
3.Hung game has a strong smell and is still completely safe to eat. This one had hardly any smell.

At the butchers shop/game dealer you can buy a nice plucked pheasant (looking a lot like the one pictured bellow) that was shot on a shoot near by, it then sat around in a field for a few hours before being taken to the chilled game larder where it resided until at least the next day, when it continued its journey to the butcher/game dealer, where it sat in the chiller until it was plucked. Only then did it make it onto the shelf of the shop. We're talking £5.50 or eleven bucks from the butcher nearest my house, cheaper if you live out of town and up to a tenner if you live somewhere really swanky.

Mine had probably been clipped by a passing car that morning, took ten minuets to pluck (it would be less with practice) cost me nothing, and I got a really cool bag of feathers to use later.Bushwacker jnr. and I tucked in after Mrs SBW came over all squeamish and pushed hers to the side of her plate.Sucker!

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker.

SBW Interviewed Again

The Outdoor Bloggers Summit have interviewed me!

Why did you start blogging and why do you keep blogging?
What is your "vision" for your blog - how do you see it developing?
Do you have more than one blog? Do you have another website?

1) Why did you start blogging and why do you keep blogging?

I've had a growing interest in wild food and hunting for it over the last few years, I'd seized the opportunity to hunt a whitetail 18 months before i started the blog but had done nothing since. I started blogging as a way of tracking my motivations, activity levels, and most importantly as a way of goading myself into getting on with it, as opposed to just talking about it.
As a wily old sales director once told me  "What gets measured gets done".

What keeps me writing the blog has been two things; its given me massively increased confidence with my writing (my grasp of grammar and spelling may be poor but at last I've found a 'voice'). The feedback I've received from my friends and complete strangers has been amazing.What I hadn't expected was the number of people who have dropped by to read it. I was over the moon to have six readers and gob-smacked when six became six thousand! Being an attention seeker by nature i, of course, feel compelled to keep writing the blog for my audience.

2) What is your "vision" for your blog - how do you see it developing?

That depends from day to day. Sometimes i see Brad Pitt playing SBW in the movie (we look so alike its uncanny!!) and sometimes I'd just be happy to shoot my compound bow at a target instead of watching it gather dust in my shed! I'm still a long way from my ultimate aim, but the journey has so far proved to be most entertaining, i've met some really cool people online and in person; James from Sporting Shooter magazine and Jeremiah from Jeremiahquinn.com have been kind enough to give me some lessons. It had never occurred to me that I'd hunt rabbits with Ferrets, or learn to FlyFish within the confines of the city! As for the future further adventures beckon and I'll be updating the blog with my preparations and the trials and tribulations as i go. 

3) Do you have more than one blog? Do you have another website? If so,
what are the URL's of the additional blogs/websites.

With a group of friends I have been making and collecting everything needed for a suburban smithy. The forge has been welded up and I've been collecting scrap brass to smelt and steel to work.http://suburbansmithy.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading and be sure to have a look at the other OBS blogs, some of them are really good!
SBW

Wild Camping - The Responce

This Government appreciates the potential benefits of wild camping in England and its attractiveness to campers who already have the opportunity to camp in the wild in Scotland.

The Land Reform Act in Scotland allows for wild camping, but the land issues and the legislation in England are somewhat different. The introduction of wild camping in England would be a controversial issue, which would require both significant consultation and legislative change.

On open access land wild camping is prohibited under Schedule 2 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which lists all restricted activities. Therefore, new Regulations would be required to exclude wild camping as a restricted activity. Any change to the current rules on wild camping in National Parks and Ministry of Defence land would require new primary legislation.

The Government has no plans to allocate the necessary resources to consider proposals for such legislation at present, and is concentrating on following up the successful introduction of 750,000 hectares of open access land with new legislation on access to the coast in the Marine Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.

So that's two petitions and twice the government has decided to do nothing!

I was going to write you a long post moaning about the state of the nation and the lackwits who are governing us, but to be fair Aktoman has raised all the necessary points without sounding like an old fart so I'll just point you in his direction.
And for those of you resident in the UK, or carrying a UK passport, urge you to get involved in stage two of the campaign for us to be able to take a nap in the big out doors that our forefathers made such sacrifice for, before some bright spark in the cabinet office invents a way to put a meter between us and the fresh air.

Hurrumpf!!

Bushwacker

Knots And Brolly

BoB was in town over the weekend and was appalled to hear how bad a job I've been making of learning to knot my own purse nets for Ferreting. Ever the gentleman he limited his disappointment to a weary sigh, and offered to set me on the road. As James had first said "just one knot, tied lots of times". With BoB's patient guidance I'm finally getting the hang of it. I would have a picture to show you by know if it weren't for a curious incident that took place. The Garden umbrella BoB is pointing at in the picture came tumbling over the garden fence and missed braining me by about six inches. Much to BoB's amusement. By the time we'd finished laughing about that the oven was beeping and it was time for me to make the gravy and get dinner on the table. Such is suburban life.

Your pal
The Bushwacker.

The Elusive Obvious Pt1

There's a fortune at stake, there are countless review sites and everyone has an opinion (or two). What to wear outdoors?

As regular readers will know I'm quite a fan of The Gun Nut. My family and friends sneer when I recommend this blog, but whether you’re interested in firearms or not, David E Petzal has a voice that leaps of the page and an understanding of his audience that anyone could learn from. A bit more worldly than many of his fans, (as judged by reading the comments section) he never acknowledges his expertise, choosing instead to portray himself as weary traveller, incidentally dispensing knowledge while dismayed at the way the worlds going.

On the Gun Nut Blog this week David E Petzal talks about the clothes needed take a hike and THEN to sit still for long periods of time during a hunt.

In the comments section I saw this pearl of wisdom

"The quickest way to figure out how to deal with all that is to go to the nearest construction site nearest to the area you want to hunt and see what the guys who are out in it all day long trying to do their job wear. It's not that different from the needs for hunting. They work, they sweat. They can't quit and run home every time they step in a puddle, get sweaty or it rains a little." - Jack Ryan

If you've got any tips for clothes that protect you from the worst of it without costing the earth - post a comment and let us know
Cheers
SBW

Wood That I Could

I cant remember where I saw this, but I liked it and thought you might too.

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year.
Chestnut's only good, they say
If for long it's laid away.
But Ash wood new or Ash wood old
Is fit for a queen with a crown of gold.

Birch and Fir logs burn too fast,
Blaze up bright and do not last.
It is by the Irish said.
That Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread
Elm wood burns like churchyard mold;
Even the very flames are cold.
But Ash wood green or Ash wood brown,
Is fit for a queen with a golden crown.

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke.
Applewood will scent your room
With an incense-like perfume.
Oak and Maple, if dry and old,
Keep away the winter cold.
But Ash wood wet and Ash wood dry,
A king shall warm his slippers by.
- Anonymous

Go on! Light one, you know you want to!!
SBW

Ashleys Site - Natural Bushcraft

Imagine if you wanted to find (nearly) all of the cool things that appear on the bushcraft websites and forums but you didn’t have the time or inclination to wade through the arguments and pomposity. Good News. A fella called Ashley has painstakingly collected together most of the best bits! Natural Bushcraft has the videos, the tutorials and a fantastic bushcraft quotes section. Life just got easier!
Well worth a visit, he really puts a lot of effort in, every time I visit I've seen something else interesting.

Thanks for reading
SBW

BASS Petition

Way back in the early days of my blog I posted about Dr Mike Ladle and his site, I added a link to a petition to increase the minimum size of landed sea bass. Well time has passed and in its wisdom the government has decided to do ........wait for it...nothing. I used to know a very dry and funny Russian chap who introduced me to the expression
"We wanted it to be different, but it happened just the same"
Ho Hum
Your pal
The Bushwacker

Photo credit