the newts.net

After 6 of 7 nice trout all falling to the same red buzzer at Toft Newton yesterday, I decided to get a few more tied up while I’ve got some time ready for Ladybower. I’m busy tying lots of my favourite never fail flies, small buzzers, nymphs etc. Hares ear and pearlys and the like. I tend to tie a couple of identical flies up, do really well with one, lend the other one to a mate and then lose mine or it gets chewed by a trout and I end up without one for me sen. So when we go to Ladybower I shall be armed with at least 4 of all my faves, and not be sharing any! ;0)

So todays efforts inclide:

The red buzzer that caught 6 of 7 fish yesterday. I fished it on the point so it was lower in the water but I’m not 100% sure whether the fish take this to be red buzzer or a blood worm. I think it’s the former but the main thing is it works!

The ubiquitous black buzzer. This took the only fish that didn’t fall to the red buzzer yesterday. Just like the ‘little black dress’ is a must in any woman’s wardrobe, the ‘little black buzzer’ is an absolute must for any fly fisherman’s fly box.

The green buzzer I had on for a few hours yesterday but it failed to catch. Much depends on the venue and water type as to the colour of the buzzers that hatch there. I must say though that I watched a green buzzer hatch right infront of me yesterday and my fishless green buzzer was absolutely the perfect match?!?

Although this claret version looks pretty similar to the red buzzer, I’ve had days when they’ll snap it up and not give a red one a second look. They can be very discearning trout! Always pays to stock up on all colours. No point in having 20 beautifully tied black buzzers when red’s on the menu!

And finally from this tying session a couple of yellows. Not one I use very often but I have had fish on it, as has Gaz recently at Thorpe Vale, and I did see some very yellow buzzers coming off the water at Toft yesterday.

And the collection as a whole. About an hours work. Available at the very reasonable price of £1 each. Quality and lovingly hand tied. Bargain!

As a change from Thorpe Vale and to get some boat practice in ready for the Ladybower trip, Me and Gaz had a trip down to Toft Newton today. The weather was cool and overcast and the breeze was variable in both direction and warmth. While it was nice when the sun broke through for a few minutes it steadily turned colder and colder until by 6pm when we packed up it was damn nippy. (Apologies to all oriental readers).

Things started off promising (for Gaz at least) when we began our first drift across the lake from the pipe on the right hand side of the lake when Gaz was quickly into a fish. Unfortunatlely it was as quickly off as it was on! My first fish came at the end of that first drift by which time we were just 30 yards off the left or winward bank. A nice fish of around 1 3/4lb. We anchored the boat here and I continued to fish a green buzzer on the dropper and a red buzzer on the point. Gaz had a red buzzer on the dropper and a gold head hares ear on the point, and while he had a few pulls he struggled to hook another fish. We spent a couple of hours there by which time I was up to 5 fish. All of a similar size around 2lb, not massive but lovely fat fish.

We moved back near the pipe where Gaz switched from his intermediate line to a floater like me, and while I kept my red buzzer on the point as it had caught all 5 fish, we both experimented with other similar small buzzers and nymphs to no avail. After 1/2 an hour at anchor we began a new drift from the pipe towards the pumping station as the wind had swung round. Soon into this drift I had my 6th again on the red buzzer and once we neared the second buoy we tied up to it to have our last hour there. Both of us had takes, and I had several cracking runs but I only produced one more fish, this time to the black buzzer on my dropper, before the weather turned chilly and we packed up.

It’s always great to get out in the boat, the engine and fish finder had a long awaited airing in preparation for Ladybower, it’s just a shame the weather wasn’t a little warmer as I think we’d have had 3 more hours fishing and plenty more fish. Mustn’t complain though, we’ve been lucky so far weatherwise.

And so the final score:

newts 7 : Gaz 0

What a glorious day. The weather was gorgeous and the scenery equally so. There were loads of stalls and marquees covering the 3 main branches of fishing - Sea, Coarse and Fly fishing (Game). There were bargains a plenty too, and although I didn’t really need anything I got a few bits and bobs, mainly a cool garden swing and a fishing record book for baby Ben. And if you remember my mission statement from my previous post, consider it mission thoroughly accomplished!

For inside Ben’s fishing record book, not only did I get world champion coarse angler Ian Heaps’ signature, but also Who Wants To Be A Millionaire presenter and avid game fisherman Chris Tarrant, TV’s fishing mega star John Wilson, TV’s A Passion for Angling star Bob James, four times World Champion Bob Nudd and leading Carp expert Chris Ball.

You can guess where our first port of call was though! And whence we were refuelled we took a wander along the picturesque river derwent to watch some of the casting demonstrations.

A thoroughly enjoyable day out, and not just about fish. On the way round we met this gorgeous chick! as well as Mr. Hawk.

Let me introduce to you the Super Soaker XP270:

Now check this little gem out…

Super Soaker —> [4.56MB .wmv file]

Don’t try this at home?? Who are they kidding! Well, at least not until you’ve got your hands on the XP310:

So next day off it’s down to Argos via Halfords ;0))

So cute a London based modelling agency want to sign him up!…

“We have carried out an initial appraisal based on the photographs we saw on your website and have pleasure in advising you that we would like you to bring Ben for an assessment with us. Childsplay are very selective with who we invite to an assessment, on average we will only select thirty percent from all of the enquiries that we receive on a daily basis to meet us.”

The only drawback is they said that the vast majority of the work will be in London :0( And a lot of it is very short notice. Some as short as 12-24 hours. I don’t really fancy trekking to London and back to be sat in a studio for hours on end for the sake of a few hundred quid. Especially seeing as though I have to do all the travelling and Ben gets all the dosh! It wouldn’t be so bad if there were a decent agency a bit more local, or they could get you work locally but London and back every weekend I don’t think so.

Still, I’m a rich man. This smile makes me a millionaire every day!…

A couple of downloads involving cars. The first one is how not to marshall a formula 1 race. This guy clearly forgets his green cross code, and doesn’t get another chance to brush up on it.

F1 Marshall —> [995KB .wmv file]

And this one starts off all serenley but involves a great car JUMP!

Car Jump —> [829KB .wmv file]

The latest highly addictive little golf game out at the moment, PANDAF GOLF, is bound to kill off some valuable employer time. It’s golf with a difference… No golf clubs! Read the instructions first, it helps. When you’re done have a go at building your own level in the edit mode. Sweeet!

Again saw us down at Thorpe Vale near Binbrook. Again a lovely evening as we arrived at the lake at 4pm. Possibly not quite as sunny and a little colder than our last few visits but still nice all the same. Just Me and Gaz this time and we suffered a slow start. No fish in the first hour. I’d had a couple of casts and wasn’t happy with my leader so I cast out and put the rod down while I assembled a new one. Usual story, massive take, line goes screeming off but the fish didn’t hook itself and because I didn’t have the rod in my hand I missed it. That was the only action in the first hour.

Things did pick up though, and with a few fish rising Gaz stuck a daddy long legs on, fished it on the surface, and got the first fish of the day.

Gaz into the 1st fish of the evening.

It was a lovely long fish that would have weighed around 3lb, but it was a female that had just spawned and as such had a skinny, empty belly.

Gaz’s 1st fish.

Things picked up rapidly and the newts wasn’t far behind with his first either.

newts trying to dodge the lilly pads.

It was quicly 2 each and then things slowed down for an hour. Not wishing to waste any of the precious evening while the fishing was slow I had my 30 minute commune with nature when I spotted this gorgeous big Alder fly.

Alder fly.

It was only later on when I swopped my black buzzer for a home tied red buzzer that the fish took off again. I landed one close to 3lb, similar to Gaz’s but with more of a belly, and then several after that all falling to the red buzzer.

Another thouroughly enjoyable evening and at 8:45pm when we packed up the final scores where:

newts 8 : Gaz 3

In preparation for the Ladybower Cup fishing trip, Me, Bov and Gaz are off down to the Chatsworth Angling Fair on Sunday 23rd May. A massive collection of stalls and exhibitions held in the beautiful grounds of Chatsworth House. Now in it’s 25th continuous year, Chatsworth is believed to be the biggest outdoor fair devoted purely to angling in the world. Sweet, gizmo’s a plenty :0)

Bov needs a couple of new lines and we all want to stock up on fluorocarbon. Should be a great day out if the weather’s nice and I see old Ian Heaps is there! I’d love to meet up with him and get an autograph. My old man was always on about Ian Heaps when I was a kid. It usually took the form of me tapping him for a loan to buy some more fishing gear and him coming back with “Who do you think you are… Ian Bloody Heaps.”, or “MORE?? You’ve already got more gear than Ian Heaps.” You get the idea. I’d love to get a book of his signed to my old man, that would bring a wry smile to his face I’m sure. So that’s my mission - Ian Heaps’ signature.

UPDATE. 

Open Mic Night.

And so last night we all piled down to the Tap & Spile to see Oli play acoustic solo. Shaun offered his services on the bass and vocal harmony so it became a duo. With a number of performers it was limited to just 2 songs each, so Oli & Shaun performed BE follwed by BEN. And fantastic it was. Jamie was there filming the night so we should have a dvd of the performances available for download soon. Watch this space!

Oli and Shaun.

Mine and Oli’s Uncle Steve has been itching to get back onto the live performance stage with his ‘finger picking good’ blues numbers, so after a little persuasion he agreed to play tonight as well. His first stage performance in quite a few years, although he has recently recorded a cd of his favourite work, and what an acomplished return it was. Apparently feeling a little nervous so he told us, it didn’t show with a fine performance of 2 of his reworked blues numbers. To be honest, I think Steve’s a bit too good for open mic nights, and we look forward to hearing him soon playing a dedicated blues night. There may be a gig coming up in Market Rasen soon. As soon as it’s finalised I’ll post the details on the newts.

Steve ‘old slow hand’ Newton.

I thought I recognised this next character! When he was announced it clicked. It’s me old Science teacher from Hereford School, Roge the dodge Beardie. One of the more amiable and witty teachers if I remember correctly. Of course I could be wrong! Students of Franklin College are welcome to leave their comments and correct me on this one! Mr. Beard as I know him played a couple of Irish numbers. I didn’t know he was a guitarist, and he warbled a mean tune too. Respect!

Roger Beard.

These guys were different. Broadsword - a Celtic Folk duo. The guy on the Mandolin, Phil, was a next door neighbour of Oli’s. He’s finger fast and apparently bangs a banjo too so I may have to tap him for a pointer or two!

Broadsword.

Back in Grimsby, it was nice to see our international ballerina cousin Alex who is home while Bov rips her london house out and her new dance season starts in August.

Alex Newton.

And finally, also home from his London pad, sporting his resistor colour code chart shirt, is cousin George. Joining us to cheer his Dad on. Pictured here recovering from the shock of getting change from a twenny after buying a round of drinks - he’s used to 50 squid rounds in London you see!

George Newton.

All sorts of stuff really. I even found a site that is linking to one of my movies hosted on the newts.net! I don’t know whether to be flattered or a bit pissed off that they are scamming my bandwidth! Still, now I know about it I can monitor downloads of that particular file and if it gets excessive I just re-name it and kill their link to it.

Anyway, back to tonights efforts. I’ll save you six hours of surfing by bringing you these six little gems. I’ve kinda seperated them into 2 groups: CLOSE and UNLUCKY.
It wasn’t a deliberate plan, I just stumbled across across a couple of files that involved close shaves and the others slide nicely under the heading of unlucky.

CLOSE…

So The first one involves a couple of fishermen on a lake in America. They are sat in a boat in the middle of the lake when a boat plane decides to land right behind them. It’s quite obviously staged but it’s well done and made me laugh.

Close shave fishermen —> [1.5MB .wmv file]

The next one I’m not sure about. It’s 2 surfers riding a massive wave, when one of them does a jump and just misses a helicopter just above the water filming them. I think it’s genuine but the helicopter looks a bit like a toy. Judge for yourself.

Close shave surfers —> [485KB .wmv file]

And the 3rd one under close isn’t so much a close shave as a close match. It’s a radio controlled jet concorde. It looks, sounds and flies just like the real thing. It even has a twin fighter jet escort. Also radio controlled. Lovely take off and landing, but not as amazing as old Alan Szabo and his helicopter.

Radio controlled concorde —> [4.3MB .wmv file]

UNLUCKY…

The first of the unluckies is a dude with more money than sense. He goes out and buys himself a helicopter and you can guess the rest. Possibly this should come under the heading of LUCKY [he's not dead!]

Helicopter crash —> [1.9MB .wmv file]

The next one involves a bunch of lads who get their shiny sports car stuck in snow. Along comes their mate with a truck to pull them out. You gotta feel for the kid really, but it is pretty funny.

Bumper tow in snow —> [13.5MB .wmv file]

And the final one is just really sad. He must have had a really bad day splitting up from his girlfriend. This one is not for the squeemish.

Last goodbye —> [503KB .wmv file]

Congratulations to Jase “&amp Jo who tied the knot recently in Edinburgh. There’s some great photo’s on the photographers online ordering site, but here’s a few of my faves…

Wow, how on earth did Jase ‘the eyebrow’ Hames land such a stunner??

Our Oli looking mighty suave as Jase’s best man.

Fantastic photo. Very classy.

But possibly my favourite of all…

Naughty Schoolboy Jase!

After several 5am’s my latest comission is finished…

This is my Uncle Steve’s site newton-art.com. It’s a collection of Steve’s abstract paintings, drawings, etchings. There’s also some of Steve’s published papers and books, and a CV as long as your arm! Check it out… He needs the hits! ;0)

FREAKY!

I hope his Mam made him do the TRUFFLE SHUFFLE before he ate that cake!

Months that is!

And hello, what’s this I see…

And not only do we have the addition of a couple of carrot crunchers / toast munchers, It looks as though Ben’s got the ‘newts’ musical streak running through him!…

He’s also gone from getting up on all fours to being a very adept crawler in a matter of days, and today he pulled himself up in to the standing position for the very first time. Rapid progress! More pics soon.

Saw me and Bov down at Thorpe Vale again. Another cracking day weatherwise as the shorts and t-shirts got an airing. We passed Ken on his way home as we arrived and he said it was busy on the big lake and a bit hard going. He said him and Rob had 7 between them, but there was one guy down there who’d had 20 odd. Not that slow going then!

Me and Bov arrived on the lake and there was plenty of room for us. We shared a big peg on the right hand bank to start with and I was soon into fish. Although we were fishing identical flies it was 4:0 to the newts before we moved to the far end of the lake so our [Bov's] casting could benefit from a back wind. Once we moved I was straight into fish again on the old pearly pheasant tail on the dropper and hares ear black buzzer on the point.

I was getting take after take and landed a beautiful fish close to 3lb. Soon after came one another nice fish slightly smaller. We knocked these two on the head for our two to keep. Good choice again as they were the best two of the day. I was upto 8 when..

Bov snicks his first!

I had another fish to take me to 9 then took a time out to yarn to Bov for an hour. The fish started to rise about 7pmish. It was nothing prolific and not as frantic as the recent day me & Gaz were here, but it was certainly better than our last visit. Bov had a few lovely takes but couldn’t quite hook another one. I went back to my peg to chalk up double figures, sucessfully, then at about 7:30ish we called it a day.

Another very enjoyable evenings fishing. Just 4 hours produced…

newts 10 : Bov 1

‘Crocodile Bov’… [That's not a knife... THIS IS A KNIFE!]

And those two lovely fish weighed in at 5lb the pair.