Tuesday, 10 May 2016

Bascote (international fishing)


Freshly emerged Speckled Wood



Most of England had a glorious day on Sunday and that included our bit of Warwickshire.  Lying in bed in the morning we were aware of a lot of people walking past.  We were expecting it to be as quiet as our mooring had been at Tomlow with a handful of people walking past each day.  When I took Buddy for his pre-breakfast run I found out why it was busy – there was an international lure fishing match in progress.

Lithuanians with a Pole

We are used to fishing matches where the contestants sit at numbered pegs along the canal for hours on end.  This particular match involved two types of fish (zander and something else) which meant the contestants had to keep moving with ‘lures’.  It was self policing and if a fish of the right type was caught the angler had to measure it, record it and throw it back.  It was held over eight hours and there were four teams: England, Poland, Lithuania and Romania.  The 80 contestants had come from all over the country including London and Manchester.  The Polish team won based on the total length of fish caught.  I would like to make it clear that neither of us have any interest in fishing and would not want to participate in it.

We are moored near yet another abandoned railway line – a branch line off the old Rugby to Leamington line.  When the Warwickshire naturalist people found out we had moved, they asked if we would monitor this section whilst we are here.  This gives me an excuse to get out of jobs and go walking all day!

Looks ideal for Small Blue and early Skippers

We haven’t seen much of mote yet but the Speckled Wood at the top was very fresh and obliging.
  
Continuning our walk we crossed the River Leam on this old viaduct…

Viaduct over River leam - notice Buddy is too hot to run

…and Karen spotted our boat in the distance.  It’s not as if we haven’t got pictures of the boat but it felt a bit surreal seeing it when we were so high up.

It’s right in the middle of the picture


Zoomed in a bit it is more obvious



Karen thought she could see someone moving around by the boat but when she zoomed in further it turned out to be one of the fishermen.

Unaware he's being spied on

Bridges on canals are not usually renumbered; new bridges, like railway bridges and motorways, are added with a suffix, e.g. 32a etc.  On our Sunday afternoon walk we came across this bridge that had obviously been renumbered at some point though.

Bridge number 25 in 1867 but number 26 now
We rounded off a most pleasant weekend with our first barbecue of the year.


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