Onegav

Last night I went over to the lake, to do a spot of fishing overnight. Its the same lake I’m concentrating most of my efforts on at the moment, fishing wise.

I arrived later than planned, and ended up getting stuck in some rush hour traffic, but still, I arrived and got setup just on dark.

The night passed without event, save for me being mosquito food whilst listening to the bats playing with my lines; they seem to like flying close to them so that the bite alarms sound. Thats what I like to think they’re doing anyway, and not just playing tricks on me!

After a really good nights sleep (which isn’t a good thing when your carp fishing) I woke just before my alarm, which I’d set so I could at least catch the sunrise. However, with the sky covered in a blanket of cloud, I thought I might not catch the sunrise, or any fish!

As the sun got higher, I decided to have a go at photographing some birds in flight, there are plenty of them on the lake, so maybe I could capture them!

I had a play with some long exposures too, taking advantage of the heavily overcast sky to help me hold a slow shutter speed. It worked out pretty well, though it was tricky to avoid the movement in the trees with shutter speeds of upto 10 seconds long.

I did capture a couple of shots of the seaguls in flight too, which was nice and really good practice; totally at the opposite end of the scale after my long exposure photographs.

However, as I was peering through my long lens, staring at a seagull and wishing it to take off from the water, the alarm on my middle rod screamed into life, signalling a bite from a fish!!

After a nerve wracking few moments, with me wading out into the lake to avoid the weed close in and my other lines interfering with the fish on the other end, I landed the fish. It was a wonderful moment, that I guess only anglers can fully understand.

All good anglers are passionate about wildlife, and we do what we do to get close to nature, and for a brief momet get up close and personal with some amazing fish.

What at first seemed like a trip where I might not catch anything, no fish, no sun rise, no birds in flight; in the end I actually captured them all, and more. As I returned the fish safely to its watery home, in the same condition I caught it only a little grumpier maybe, the sun finaly broke through the clouds and I captured the image you see featured at the op of this post. What a throughly enjoyable way to start any day!

Learnings – erm, loads! I learnt some more about capturing long exposures and freezing “time” with fast shutters, and I’ve also been using different focus point settings recently when shooting landscapes, to maximise whats in focus. I think along with learning what aperture settings my lenses operate best at, focusing on the right spot in the scene is what is helping me to capture sharper images. I was just focusing a third of the way into the scene, but actually I’ve found it to be much better to focus on whats actually a third of the total distance away from you, which isn’t always the same thing.

Oh, and the picture of the fish is my first time taking a proper “self take” photograph with my camera. Its not perfect, but it’s a good start and I now have a forever way to remember this fish with.