Fishing The River Usk Pt3

Catch a snag or catch a fish? Well there's a surprise its another snag!

As we were leaving our first nights camp at Pen Pont we chatted with the Lady of the House, who kindly wished us well with our fishing as we waived our goodbyes.

SBW: We'll follow you on Facebook
LotH: I'm sure you've better things to do
TLK: Trust me, he doesn't

The fishing opportunities in the Brecon's are absolutely the stuff of fly fishing calendars, you can fish  tumbling frothing gravel beds, weirs - both natural and man made, and the pokey streams and tributaries that feed the Usk and the Wye.

If you've only ever fished reservoirs and stocked ponds, this will be a revelation to you, stalking without deer or rifle, stalking truly wild fish, in their truly wild habitat. I took a an 8ft 5/6 weight, which was OK for the more open sections but next time I go I'll be using a 4 weight no longer than 6ft and if I can afford it something smaller too.

Word to the wise - studs, felt soles or better yet Studded Felt soles are a must. Or then again you could just sack the whole 'fishing' bit off and just go for an invigorating impromptu swim like I did.

The Wye and Usk foundation have made a really great job of making these waters accessible. They publish a 'Passport' to the area with fairly detailed maps of the beats, and a Roving Voucher Scheme where you can pay-as-you-go by dropping tokens into boxes at the start of each beat.

The Wye & Usk Foundation is a charity concerned with restoring the habitat, water quality and fisheries of the rivers Wye and Usk.

The Foundation is more than just a lobbying organisation: through a series of partnership projects, we are raising significant sums of money to remedy problems such as habitat degradation, poor water quality and diffuse pollution, barriers to fish migration and over-exploitation of our fisheries.

In 2000 we became a registered charity with the following objectives:

To conserve, protect, rehabilitate and improve the salmon and other indigenous species of animal and plant life of the rivers Wye and Usk, their tributaries, streams and watercourses and the banks, riparian lands and catchments of the river.

To advance the education of the public in the conservation of rivers, river corridors and their animal and plant life and the need for conservation, protection, rehabilitation and improvement of such environments.

More about our trip to come
SBW

Fishing The River Usk Pt2

After packing and re packing my kit we finally left London for the first part of the trip, we were to stop off in Cardiff (the capital of Wales) to spend the night with old friends. Cardiff is an amazing city that's still in the grips of a massive regeneration program where the bay has been reinvented as a leisure destination, sadly that means the usual chain restaurants, but the setting is nice.

Somehow on the way home from the pizza and beers I acquired a Sombrero.

The next morning we set off proper, driving up into the hills of Brecon. The countryside offered it's usual delights, roadkill, people who thought leaving the car's hand (aka parking) brake on would be prudent, people who thought if they got there quick enough they'd be up for a prize, and farmers who just like to shower the road with shit because they can.

For our first night we camped in the garden of  Pen Pont  a very nice country house that has evolved over the last 350 odd years with each generation adding wings, annexes, and remodelling to suit their needs. You can stay in the house which looks lovely, we were on a more restricted budget so it was camping for us. For those of you with an interest in traditional architecture you can find a very good history of the house and the family HERE

How's that for Bushcraft?

By the time we'd got there, set up the camp and sorted out our gear we'd long missed the morning rise by about six hours. So we started with the time-tested tactic of enthusiastically thrashing the surface of the water. Within moments we'd both seen fish jump, near-ish to our flies, buoyed by these early 'near-wins' enthusiasm turned to over exuberance as it so often does. Sigh.

Unable to find the other old approach shoe that I'd earmarked as a temporary 'wading boots' I'd chosen a pair of Neoprene stalking wellies as my footwear, if I'd set out to provide The Lighthouse Keeper with a high comedy moment as I slipped from rock to rock before plunging into the depths they would have been the perfect choice. Not my intention, but he seemed well-pleased with the outcome.

Now shivering slightly in the dying light I wasn't going to let a soaking dampen my spirits or dull my enthusiasm so I paused to tie on a new fly and watch TLK casting, I was just admiring the fluid motion of his back cast when I was stung on the back of the head, as my hand instinctively rose to the afflicted area, a sudden searing pain was accompanied by the amusing sight of TLK suddenly stumbling forward into water deeper than the height of his 'waist waders'. The forward motion of his cast had been suddenly interrupted by the line snagging and then snapping causing him to lose his balance. By this time my hand had reached the back of my head, where I found his fly neatly embedded, its broken tippet hanging down my back.

With the score for the afternoon at:
Soakings 1.5
Fly strikes on other anglers: 1 [direct hit]
Fish hooked 1
Fish brought to the net 0

We called it a day, heading for the relative safety of the campfire.

More Soon
SBW

Eden Binoculars Review

'I don't know how many guides I've met who dressed in rags, lived on wallpaper paste and government cheese but who owned a pair of $2000 binoculars" David Petzal

There is a much held view that expensive glass, for your hands or atop a rifle, is a waste of money. That 'OK' and 'quite good' are all you need. I wasn't convinced. I used to do a spot of stalking with a chap who had a couple of pairs of mid-range binos, his pair were rubbish and the 'client' or 'sport's' pair even worse. Then last summer in the Kingdom of Fife, my pal Andy had fifteen year old Swarovski's that were a revelation to me, binos as they are on TV! You can see right into the trees! 

I've looked and looked; on eBay - they'll set you back the thick end of £500 and a new pair is £1,600+. The Zeiss and Leica alternatives aren't much cheaper. Zeiss now do an entry level range from £650, very nice, but they just dont have the bomb-proof feel that Andy's had after fifteen years of very rough treatment, guiding and keepering in all weathers. 

"Clients are too fussed about their rifles, you've got to see the animal first, with these I've guided clients to animals they couldn't even see through their Tasco scope on their custom rifle" Andy Richardson

I went to the camera store and took a look through the £150 glass. Pointless. Once you've seen through glass brightly it'd be like setting fire to the cash without the fun or Youtube hits. So there I was sitting at home, with piles of junk recovered from lofts and basements across london, hopefully cataloguing it all in preparation for a big sell-off to finance the glass, when and email came through from a chap in the knife business. 'Would I like to take a look at the glass he's now selling?'

He tells me 'Eden have teamed up with a manufacturer to bring out glass to a bird watcher's standard's of colour reproduction at a web sales only price point. '  

My first thought was, 'give them a once over and then sell them to add to the money for proper glass'. He seemed confident in the product 'write anything you like about them, or dont write about them, your choice'. 

That was three months ago. 

I've used them in every condition I can, across valleys, through hedgerows, in English woodland, in the dark recesses of the Welsh tree farms, and scanning the sides of tower blocks. Then I've been into every binocular stockist who would let me do comparison tests [and been chucked out of one that wouldn't], while I'm not saying they are exactly as good as the top-flight Austrian glass, they are very very close. I'd have them over the entry level Zeiss's which are more than twice the price. I've given them to photographers and cameramen to test: they talked gobbledygook about colour saturation and edge definition - I didn't really understand - but they seemed delighted.  If you are, as I was, about to suck-it-down and buy some posh glass, have a look at these first. You wont be the only person shocked to see how far Chinese glass has come on in recent years. 

Big Shout to the chaps at Eden where you can find the Glass and some excellent kitchen knives too.

Now, does anyone want to buy a pair of unused Campagnolo brakes from the 80's? A collection of comix? For you madam a fire surround? Sir! Perhaps a ......

More soon

SBW

PS For more thoughts about glass from a blogger who actually spends time afield Hodgeman knows

Poo: By Any Other Name

I found this one, where 'someone' had burped it up while sitting on a hay bale scanning the field for the next victim. Which animal left it behind? Answers in the comments section please.

Your pal
SBW

Chad's Querencia

We know him as Blogger, Bird hunter, Dog bloke, and Ditch fisherman. But in another life Chad would be the enigmatic [read grumpy] proprietor of a second hand book shop: but not just any second hand book shop, this book shop would be within moments of fine, fine, Trout streams, some of which would be blessed with runs of Sea Trout and Salmon. Deer Stalking would be on the doorstep too, with long seasons for ghostly Roe, and a never ending season for Muntjac. Rabbits and Squirrels could be taken any morning, as the shopkeep turns helpful pest-controller on his morning constitutional. Did I mention the micro-brewery, but a few footsteps away?

Well Chad I've found it for you, Hay-on-Wye is the town for you.

More soon
Your pal
SBW

Road Trip Food: Road Kill

Thou shalt stop for a free meal
SBW

Escape Velocity

Exit postponed due to missing 'wading shoe'. Any ideas?
SBW

Fishing The River Usk Pt1

Unlikely as it may seem, especially to regular readers: myself and The Lighthouse Keeper are making our way westwards to fish the River Usk a Brown Trout stream that rises in the notorious Brecon Beacons. The Brecon's are an exceptionally handsome range of hills in Wales that have been the making or breaking of many a military career. I've been up there a few times over the years and the place is usually thick with squaddies being beasted along by their PT instructors. Who will, amongst other choice incentives, be offering age-old moto of the Brecon experience "if it aint raining it aint training!"

While the poor young recruits are suffering it, TLK and myself will be living out our Trout Bum fantasies; drinking whiskey-laden coffee for breakfast, eating fried things, and growing Abercrombie and Fitch style stubble.

A few mobile posts to follow and then a full report on our return, in the meantime more military cliches HERE
Your pal
SBW

Picture credit

Gear Freak, Kit Tart, Blogger

" I know nothing else that so restores the buoyant optimism of youth as overhauling ones kit "

Horace Kephart 1906


"Um-errr, I think I've got everything"
SBW 2012

More soon
SBW

Poo; A Photographic Study

As many of you are are also amateur naturalists this won't sound as strange to you as it perhaps would in less inquisitive circles.

Taking a walk on the marshes:

Elfa: What are you doing? You're taking pictures of Poo!
SBW: always! Poos I have known, loved, and photographed
Elfa: if I'd known you were interested I could have stopped flushing the toilet

More soon
Your pal
SBW

A Street SO Posh....

That Arugula AKA Rocket grows from the cracks in the paving! Who'd a thunk it?

More foraging and fishing to come, and of course that long awaited rabbit hunt

SBW

There's No Auction Like a Firearms Auction

If you're like me and already have too many hobbies, look away now. 

Apart from inane eBay searches, charity shops and locked unit auctions there aren't too many places that you've consistently got a shot at a bargin with.  A lot of the gun auction sites  basically have people selling off their pride and joy, so they're pretty clear on the upper value of their guns and rifles. That leaves the physical auction houses which are amazing troves of treasure, the Purdy, Rigby and Rolex end of things is a bit crowded but the 'Pikey' and 'Ephemera' end is where the magic happens anyway.

How many great stories are in this lot? Estimate is: $150 - $200

A build-yer-own Rigby kit AKA a 7mm Mauser with tidy wood work and a knackerd barrel, is estimated at  $100-$200 sounds a bit vague as an estimate to me, run $40 up the flag pole and see if anyone salutes it. Or thinking again what about "re-barrel it and start competing in Service Rifle!" Go on, you know you want to.

Pre-war Nazi Ammo? Est. at a measly $50-$80 the clips alone are worth that.
[He tells himself]

I was pretty taken with one of these for £200 the other day. If it opens at $30 (£19.36) in front of the wrong crowd it's not going to have too many takers. If I was in Florida I'd be all over it.

As the buyers at the gun auction are squabbling over the high-end stuff a lot of 'working guns' fall through the cracks, but wether you're in the market for a dinner-getter or an heirloom, searching for 'hunt'-ing ephemera is lots of fun and will occasionally throw up real bargain-of-a-lifetime finds like this stunning signed photo....

Look everyone, its the boring one out The Avengers and him off the coffee ads. Yours for £4!

What did I bid on? Not telling.

More soon

SBW

Review: Spyderco Sharpmaker 204MF Ultra Fine

If you're the kind of person who has one of those annoying 'wheel sharpeners' for your knives best to stop reading now, as either you don't care about edge durability or you dont yet know what it'll mean to you. I'll concede that 'wheel sharpeners' can achieve a sharp [ish] edge, but never a durable edge.

 I know its frustrating to start with, but by working your way through a set of stones you get an edge that is far more robust and with enough patience far far sharper too. It took me ages to be able to get even half decent results on a set of stones. While I was practicing I used and reviewed the Spyderco Sharp Maker, which with - a very small amount of practice/following the instructions, will give you excellent results. The Sharp Maker is absolutely the perfect sharpening system for Spyderco's blade geometry; works surprisingly well on axes, and is very safe and handy for broadheads: it took me a while to get good results from thicker convex blades like the F1, but its excellent and intuitive for any flat-ish grind.


What you get is a box that does double duty as a stand/handle for the hones, setting them at 40 and 30 [giving you grinds of 20 and 15] degrees for blade sharpening, 12 degrees for scissors and flat for an improvised bench stone. Comes with course brown and fine white hones which make short work of carbon steel and are hard enough for stainless' including the 'super steels' like VG10 ect.

I've always wanted a pair of the Ultra Fine hones but they used to be crazy money so I never took the plunge. They've come down in price a bit lately so I ordered some from the chaps at Eden Webshops and two days later they were on the door mat.

Puta Madre!

Hallelujah

Yes sir I can boogie

They're good, really good, they take you to a whole new realm of sharpness, and considering the sharpness you get from the fine hones, that's really something. To illustrate the point my TK6 has a cutting edge in Super Gold Powder Steel hardened to 62, the fine stones made very short work of restoring the factory edge.

If you've already got a Sharp Maker, get a set, these you will love. If you haven't yet got a Sharp maker you've only yourself to blame.

More Soon

SBW

Conversations In Gun Shops Pt1

Been a while, no? Work, money, girls, yah di yah di yah.Getting back into it, more posts to come. Soon.

This one took place a while back, I was dropping an air rifle off for servicing at a well known north london specialist where I found the proprietor standing behind the counter with a look of world weariness barley concealed behind a veneer of shopkeeperly bonhomie.

On the 'punter' side of the counter was blading man in his late forties, wearing those nasty multi coloured beach trousers, a red wife-beater, and three wrist watches. Yep three wrist watches - the internationally recognised symbol of a nutter.

No sooner had I popped my weapon on the counter [really your minds!] when we were somehow conjoined in conversation. Well I say 'conversation' he was ranting and I was nodding in disbelief. The proprietor allowed himself a sigh of relief.

Edited Highlights:

I'm a mercenary.
I've just got back from Egypt.
I was the winner of a gun fight in a police station on the Iraqi border.
I was shot with 7.62x39 rounds here and here [points to cigarette burns on his arm]
The Bedouin saved me by giving me 13 pints of their own blood.
I'm on my way to Hollywood
I'm an armourer for the movies
You can read all about it in my forthcoming book.

By now I'm backing towards the door, 3watches' eyes are getting wilder as he warms to his subject

3watches: 'You can tell them you've met The Bear'
SBW: 'Rest assured, I will'

More soon
SBW

Ka-Bar - The Knife Of The Marine Corps

KA-BAR Knives from Common Machine Prod. on Vimeo.

Apropos of not a lot, I saw this on BB this morning and thought one or two of you might like it too. The Ka-Bar is certainly and iconic design, not totally convinced by the claims of 'finest craftsmanship' myself but with a few hours and a few sheets of sandpaper they can be made pretty user friendly. I've had one in the past and would have another one. More Soon SBW

Bargain VG10 Kitchen Knife Review

Many of you have written in to jeer at the amount of money I drop on gear, no offence is ever taken because my off-line friends mock me even more savagely, but in my self image I see myself as something of a bargain hunter so for this post I'm reviewing something that's such great value for money that it actually challenges Mora of Sweden's crown as 'best bang-for-buck outfit on the planet', effusive praise I know, but deserved!

When my pal at Edenweshops told me he had a range of kitchen knives I must admit I was a little underwhelmed, everyone and his uncle are selling kitchen knives and most of them are terrible, then he said 'They're in VG10' now as regular readers will know that made me sit up and pay attention, VG10 is one of the super steels that hold an edge long after the competition has been rendered blunter than the cold-word from a plumber. Then he showed me the price list! In the parlance of todays young people OMG! WTF!!

Up until a year ago VG10 was always at a fairly hefty price premium - prices starting at $100/£100 a blade and rising very steeply from there. With kitchen knives inexplicably costing even more than survival knives and stalking knives, more like $150/£150 and very quickly reaching double that and beyond

Because Eden are a relatively new name in knife sales, and this is their first foray into manufacturing, they've priced the knives at the level known as 'no-brainer'. Yep finally you can have a whole set of chef's knives for what one of the better known brands would set you back for just one knife.

Edge Holding? VG10 steel takes care of that.

Blade geometry? Cuts like a lazer, really like an effing lazer.

Fit and finish? 95% of what you'd get for several times the price, and nothing that you couldn't smooth out with a few sheets of wet-and-dry in and hour or so.

Kitchen Brag factor? Way way cooler than Global Knives for a fraction of the price

I've got one of the posher Damast series knives in the 'Santoku' blade shape, the perfect all-rounder for kitchen duties, and with its oil-on-water damascus pattern blade very very sexy, but if you're just after function rather than entering the 'kitchen tools arms race' with the other foodies, you can forgo the damascus option and just have plain VG10 blades for even less money! Personally I'm saving up to take advantage of the Whole-Set-For-30%-Off offer they're running at the moment.

Good Stuff, from nice guys, at silly cheap prices.

Very soon McShug and your pal SBW will be field testing some of Eden's own label binoculars against one of the better known names in American glass

More soon

SBW

Chef's knife, 20cm
£ 43,90

Bread knife, 20cm
£ 39,90

Carving knife, 20cm
£ 39,90

Santoku knife, 18cm
£ 43,90

Utility knife, 13cm
£ 24,90

Paring knife, 9cm
£ 19,90

Woodcock Recipe

At the end of the season we had one of our all too infrequent 'Bloggers Armed Ramble' where The Bambi Basher, Mc Shug and your pal SBW took a walk in the woods, giving the dogs one last romp and taking potshots a Tree Rabbits and Woodies. As we were about to call it a day, with nothing in the bag, McShug produced this beauty from his game pocket saying" You said you'd always wanted to scoff one - its had a week, pongz a bit" and I became the proud [if slightly smelly] owner of a Woodcock.

The Woodcock had been hanging for week when I got it, I hung it it until that well known barometer of ripeness - more than one flat mate asking about the smell - announced it was freeze-it or eat-it time. In old Blighty legend has it that a Woodcock should be nailed by the beak to a post in an out-building and only cooked up when the body falls from the head. Sadly that's about two weeks longer than the flat mates patience, so mine was ripe but not maggoty. I saved the head for an art project, but when roasted the birds skull should be split in half and using the beak has a handle the roasted brains should be sipped from the halved skull.

The Woodcock is an almost mythic gamebird, after a solitary migration in early November they over-winter in woodlands, living in a scooped nest on the ground and feeding mostly on earth worms, until the frost hardens the ground when as needs must they eat seeds and berries. In a very harsh winter even visiting bird tables.

McShug took this one with 'the wife's 20g semi', and over the years I've seen a few versions of the 'woodcock gun' all short-barrelled fast-to-the-shoulder shotguns, with Berretta even making a specialised set of rifled shot-dispersing barrels for their Ultralight [mmmmm want]. As bursting from the ground cover a Woodcock famously zig-zags though the woods at alarming speeds they are often many many outings and indeed cartridges to the bird. What has to be the most exclusive of shooting organisations is dedicated to this elusive bird. Since 1949 the Shooting Times Woodcock Club has welcomed members ONLY when they have pulled off a 'left and a right' without taking the gun from the shoulder, and done so in front of two witnesses.

With its well deserved reputation as the ultimate gamebird I wanted to savour the full experience, the bird seasoned with just salt, cooked whole and served 'old's cool' with its guts as the seasoning.



Perhaps a little over cooked - rescued from the oven after 12 minutes, still pink and bloody



The guts are very very strongly flavoured, a potent, forceful taste of the woods, they wont be to everyones taste, think of them as a woodland caviar.



Thigh and breast of woodcock, Black pudding [aka blood sausage aka Boudin noir], roast aubergine and browned halloumi, and for the dipping sause a reduction of pan juices with unsalted butter and woodcock guts.

Lots more to tell, just little time to tell it

SBW

Wooo hoooo!

Just bought 21 packs of asparagus for £3.15
SBW

The Bushwacker Had lost His Considering Hat

I'd been in morning for my lost hat, I'd hoped, I'd moped I'd even ordered another one. When Andy posted the good news on Facebook, 'Look what the dog dragged in!'

More soon
SBW

Book Review: The Lure Of The Falcon

If you like your humor understated and if you've ever found yourself enthralled by small creatures in wild places try this one on for size, its a boy-meets-nature memoir with a difference.

Boy meets nature, boy finds broken Kestrel, boy mends Kestrel, boy takes Kestrel with him to boarding school, boy takes Kestrel with him to WWII. Boy and Kestrel are captured by the Germans, boy and Kestrel escape from POW camp, boy and Kestrel are captured again, boy and Kestrel......

We were thrust at bayonet point into a room on the second floor and lined up infront of a large table littered with papers, telephones,typewriters and other official impedimenta. Behind the table, wearing civilian clothes peering at us through rimless glasses, sat the flesh and blood embodiment of the villainous Gestapo chief that I had seen in scores of films. With pasty face and soulless eyes he was about as alluring as a bird eating spider. As soon as he saw us there before him, bearded filthy and rheumy -eyed with weariness he started barking questions in the approved hollywood manner.
Suddenly his tirade which had sounded like a succession of bursts from a bad-tempered machine gun ceased in mid-volley and I saw our  inquisitors cobra eyes fixed on me  - where a slight but obvious bulge appeared in my ancient jacket just above the waistline. He threw back his chair and, moving with surprising speed, hurled himself round the table and grabbed me. One podgy white hand dived inside my jacket, in search no doubt of the pocket radio he suspected to be concealed in my bosom. there was a slight upheaval, followed by a yelp of pain. He recoiled and withdrew his hand which was dripping with good Aryan blood.

 Cressida had struck her blow for freedom. Now surely Nemesis would strike me down. Feeling if I felt anything, that i really had nothing to lose except life itself I put my hand to my jacket. Cressida scrambled aboard and I withdrew her into the daylight.  There we stood Cressida and i exposed to the full fury of this powerful representative of the third reich.  I glanced at Cressida , her hackles raised, her wings hanging as she mantled, her eyes glowing like red coals. the expected revolver shot never came. I looked at the Gestapo officer who had retreated a few steps,  his pallid face was if anything whiter than ever. I glanced at the armed escort, the henchmen behind the table all were speechless but when I looked longer I saw that they were inarticulate with ill-suppressed laughter.

Well worth a read

more soon
SBW