the newts.net

Day 1. Friday…

We arrived at Ladybower early this year so we managed to get an evenings bank fishing in on Friday as a warm up to the boat competition on Saturday and Sunday. Any fish caught were not going to count towards the main competition scores but we all had a little side bet just to make it interesting. The usual bet on these occasions is FIRST, BIGGEST, MOST. So we all had £2 each on each bet. None of us had ever fished from the bank there before so it was new to us all. We started on the bank near the old fishery office [Between H & G on the HERE!

Since there is nothing new on this webshite, I thought I’d blog about my title defense of the Ladybower cup. All are looking foward to the big event which takes place this weekend. A warm up on friday night fishing the rise will help us all and give us a taste of what’s to come. And from the bank the newts has no advantage of his secret weapon the eagle 3000 super fish finder. So all is fair in the warm up session. The newts only disadvantage over the two day competion will be the jock himself “Willy” (with a guld heeeeed) mind you I have got Zorro in my boat so I suppose all is fair. The weekend will be enjoyed by all that take part and I am sure newts will blog about the result (another win for the ornz i suspect). Sadly Mr. Wez will not be taking part as killing fish is evil but killing cows is not, and if he doesnt get his own way he will give the answer “Fuck that I’m going home if I dont get my own way” as witnessed at the weekend by Scott and myself over breakfast when he wouldn’t get in my low fuel consumption Freelander, wot a baby. Good luck to all taking part. The ornz (current Ladybower cup holder).

I’ve been thinking about getting a camcorder for a while now, but ‘just for the sake of it’ seemed scant reason for parting with a grand. With the advent of Baby Ben though there’s so much I want to catch on video before it’s too late so that prooved reason enough. And of course, inbetween baby filming I’m sure there’ll be a chance for some photoshop / after effect wizardry, and general mirth making type filming! The Ladybower trip may also benefit from a few moving pictures with sound as opposed to the usual sack full of stills I take.

I will miss my Nikon Cooppix 885 which has been a fabulous workhorse for me over the past couple of years. It takes fantastic quality photos and has loads of features and settings but I’m selling it to put towards the new canon which I hope will not only be a quality video cam but also double as a decent stills camera.

After much searching through reviews I was very close to buying the Canon MVX3i which looks and is reviewed as a quality camcorder, but I finally opted for the smaller MVX10i which I think will be very very close to it’s bigger brother video quality wise, but it’s diminutive size will make it more ‘useable’ in situations where I wouldn’t want to take a sizeable video cam but would take my stills cam.

The stills resolution on the Canon at 2.23 mega pixels is a step down from my coolpix’s 3.12 mega pixels, but as most of my pics get posted on the net, their quality is always trimmed down to save on file size and I usually found myself taking pictures on a lower resolution setting. The Canon’s 10x optical zoom does improve on the nikon’s rather miserly 3x optical and the Canon has 200x digital to boot, but we all know that digital zoom is pretty much useless as the picture quality suffers enormously.

So I look forward to post on Friday morning :0) And as I’m off on Saturday, there may be some test pics posted for your perusal!

What Camcorder review. [Adobe PDF file]

Digital Home review.

Camcorder Online review. [Adobe PDF file]

Gaz bags his second hole in 1! On the 5th at Grimsby Golf Club.

Apparently made all the sweeter by the fact that golfing guru and partner Bov has never achieved it.

But don’t worry Bov, Gaz beat me to catching 2 fish in one cast but we all know who the Trout Supremo is!

Jesus, talk about channel surfing! On channel 4 The England Cricket Team complete a series whitewash over the Kiwis winning 3-0, England’s first whitewash since 1978. At the same time over on ITV Michael Schumacher becomes the first driver to win the same Grand Prix seven times with victory at the Canadian GP. And on BBC 1 Switzerland were playing Croatia in Euro 2004.

As if that wasn’t enough, England Vs France on ITV at 7:45pm. Ahh or should that be AAARRRGGGGHHHHH!
What on earth went wrong there? England beating France 1-0 after 90 minutes with just 3 minutes of extra time to play and we lose 2-1?!? I knew it. As soon as Beckham missed that penalty I just knew it :0((
Still, there’s a fairy tale ending in the offing… England Vs France in the Euro 2004 final… England 3 - France 0
would be nice!

Me and Gaz set off for Toft Newton at 1:30pm and were fishing for 2:30pm. It was somewhat warmer than our last trip to Toft, but the wind was very gusty. We started off fishing near the pipe on the right hand side of the reservoir but the strong wind made conditions difficult, with the occasional wave crashing over the side of our anchored boat. A move to the left bank saw us in the lea of the wind and conditions a lot more tolerable. The first fish came from here and fell, as did so many last time we were here to the newts’s red buzzer.

I was fishing this red buzzer on the dropper unlike last time when I was using it as a point fly. The reason being mainly to see if the fish were going to take the fly wherever it was on the leader. And they did. Although I was using a very similar red buzzer but with a flourescent pink head on the dropper, the fish definitely preffered the original that fared so well last time. I’d had 2 when Gaz hooked what he thought was a big fish. Once the tiddler reached the surface we saw that he’d actually foul hooked it near the tail [which always makes a fish feel bigger than it actually is]. Still, it was in the net so unlike last time Gaz had chalked one up.

After a couple of hours and 3 more fish for the newts, we moved a little further down the reservoir so we were about 50 yards off the far bank. Takes came fairly quickly and we’d both lost fish before Gaz gets his Montana out and gives it a whirl.

Montana Nymph.

And result! A fantastic take with the fish [which in a fleeting glance looked half decent] leaping clear of the water. He said it felt decent, certainly better than all the others we’d seen today, and it was. Gaz, who’s biggest trout was yet to break the 3lb mark, estimated it at 2 & 3/4lb. Expert estimater newts was sure it was over 3lb and estimated 3lb3oz. Luckily, I’ve just bought a cracking little set of weigh scales so we could get the exact weight…

Congratulations to Gaz…

3lbs 2oz!

His new personal best rainbow trout and at last through the 3lb milestone. I had a couple more to a pearly pheasant tail on the dropper and Gaz missed the odd one but happy with his new record, and me happy with my usual lucky 7, we called it a day at 7:30pm.

Another very enjoyable practice trip before Ladybower, despite the gusting winds, and the final scores:

newts 7 : Gaz 2

A couple of new features have appeared in the menu bar on the right hand side of the newts.net. Most commented posts lists the top 5 posts with the most comments, and below that is Latest comments which lists snippets of the last 5 comments and their authors. When you leave a comment to any post your name and a teaser line will appear in this menu box. Go ahead, leave a comment and give it a try!

In other news, I’ve been a bit busy painting my new garden bench swing that I got from Chatsworth Angling Fair. It arrived flatpacked on Monday morning, was assembled by Monday tea, and has been receiving a coat of Sadolin every night since. The frame is finished and just one more coat on the underside of the bench and it will ready for transferring from the garage to the garden ready for a test swing! Pics to follow soon.

Tomorrow me and Gaz are off to Toft Newton for another days boat fishing. I’ve got a few new bits and bobs to try out, along with a new technique. Review, scores and possibly pics will be posted tomorrow night.

On 6 June 1944 some 6,000 allied vessels headed to the shores of occupied France in the biggest seaborne operation in history. Of three million men who fought in the subsequent 80-day battle for Normandy around 250,000 were killed.

For my and your freedom.

James Hill, 93, is D-Day’s oldest
surviving senior officer.

The thought of what these men went through on this day 60 years ago is frightening. The bravery these men exhibited in advancing the Normandy beaches under a hail of German machine gun fire is unsurpassed. Can you even begin to imagine their hell?

“Never in the face of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.”
- Winston Churchill.

How very true.

On the way home from work tonight I heard that Ronad Reagan had died. It was quite a somber moment.

Growing up, Reagan was the first American President I can remember. I’m sure he will have his critics, but to me there was something of a ‘feel good factor’ to him. Ever cheerful even in the face of adversity, though more of a figurehead than a strong leader with a grasp for detail, he was the best communicator the White House had ever had. For a while, he made America feel good about itself again.

Ronnie also had a great friendship with then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

That always seemed symbolic of the friendship of our two nations and forged the strong Anglo - American bonds that continue today.

And possibly the factor that endeared me to him the most, who can ever forget the funniest most satirical programme ever unleashed on the British public… The fantastic SPITTING IMAGE! And the puppet that was Ronald Reagan…

Ronnie had been suffering from the terrible brain debilitating Alzheimers disease for a number of years. His wife Nancy today said that it was so bad in the final weeks that Ronnie couldn’t ever remember being president. How sad. I trust his suffering is over.

R.I.P. Ronald Reagan. 1911 ~ 2004.

A bit like a new skin on a media player etc, you can now view the newts.net in the style of your choice with Style Switcher. A clever little plug in from wordpress developer Alex King. I’m keeping the space newt theme as the default style for now, but I’ve been working on a fishing style skin which you can see in the menu bar under ’style:’

Just click ‘fishing’ to switch to the new skin.

Same shit, different smell ;0)

9 months old today and just 3 months away from the BIG ONE!

And he’s already an adept photoshopper!

Yep, big Bov hits the big 29 today so we’re all off to Gaz’s for a barbie to plan his 30th celebrations! A week in Vegas has been mentioned, but I’m sure we’ll all commit to world cruises once the beer starts to flow. We usually do!