Seems at least one seal down at Chepstow has celebrity status

https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/19811687.seal-river-wye-chepstow-second-day-christmas/ 

Plenty of water around again with a lot more to come,  Not good news for any redds that's for sure.   Very mild too -wonder if they will drag up the 'too warm to spawn' arguement again

==========================================================================

Further to my initial canal post;

The area being mentioned in the last post was on the Birmingam/Worcester canal known as the Astwood Flight, consisting of a series of pounds, as they were known, which with help of the locks negotiated the incline towards Birmingham.  Several were just a couple of hundred yards long though one was a mile long –the miler- and another five miles long – known to us obviously as the Fiver.   The one just across from home and where I was fishing was known as the bathing pool for obvious reasons and used in the summer months for swimming and general messing about.   However it was the ‘fiver’ that held the appeal.  The five mile long ‘pound’ a mile or so downstream was rumoured by those adults who had fished it to be the best part of the canal with better and bigger fish of several species, including bream and carp. This whole canal on the towing path side was rented by the Birmingham Anglers Association who made good use of it especially on weekends with regular competitions and I had to join the BAA to fish the towing path side. 

Eventually I managed to persuade my parents that I would be capable enough and safe enough on my bike to negotiate the towing path used by the barge horses and which was in fair condition with not too many potholes, though looking back it could have been a somewhat hazardous journey had there been a mishap with me ending up in the canal with my creel strapped to my back..

The first time I went to the ‘fiver’ I saw that the far bank was totally covered by tall beds of rushes with much on the towpath side having stands of rushes too.  It was there I met someone I knew who was fishing there.  A local match angler called Johnny.  I stopped to speak to him and noticed his rod tip was up high and his line went across the canal to rest on the top of the rushes.   I pondered on this for a while not wishing to appear stupid but in the end I had to ask “John, Why is your line tangled in the rushes over there”   He replied and said “It’s not”.   He must have seen my confusion and explained.   The line is in the rushes but the bait is a piece of  crust on the end pf the line lying on the water surface a foot or so into the rushes.  The rush bed was about six feet thick and he explained that the carp very rarely came out from the rushes at least during the day but they would take a floating crust actually in the rushes where they felt safe.  When they took the crust you need to strike quickly, taking a step or two back and literally horse the carp out of their sanctuary as if they gained any purchase you would be snagged and almost certainly lose the fish. These were wild carp going up to about 10lbs not the semi tame ones so beloved of carp fishermen now.  Even in later years large lake carp never held any attraction to me whatsoever..

Thanks to Johnny those canal carp proved to be the ultimate goal for the rest of my childhood on the canal and became somewhat obsessive. More later.