Field And Stream

Field & Stream Making the most of the fading summer sunshine

THE FIELD

with Tria Stebbing

There is an unplanned item in the paddock area. How lovely to go to the Shaftesbury and Gillingham Show to look at all things agriculture, and of course sheep. I look at sheep every day and wonder what possesses them to try and get their heads through stock fencing or why they insist on rubbing their heads on a tree until their head is sore. We currently run a herd of rare breed Dutch sheep, and breed them to maintain a breed standard, they are incredibly easy to bucket train and to lamb. So, I am not sure how or why I returned from the show and immediately bought a pair of Poll Dorset lambs. Poll Dorset’s are a short wool, meat-producing sheep and uniquely can breed all year round and can lamb twice a year unlike other sheep. The fleece is soft and white, strong and of good fibre and highly used in the bedding industry. By the end of the week the two Dorset Poll lambs had three Shearlings joining them too. I can only think that the lack of good weather and nights drawing in prompted more lap top grazing time….oh dear. Having worked out where we would put them, we went off to pick them up, one clearly displaying how fast they can run when they need to. We have put them in a paddock by themselves for a few weeks to ensure that they do not bring anything into the flock, but plan shortly to have them running with our Zwartbles. The offspring will increase our numbers, and be black, white or both. The weather has finally settled, and we have cut the field. Not the searing heat of a few weeks ago, more like end of summer sunshine. The dew is taking half of the morning to dry off so we will be turning it for more days than usual as it is taking longer to dry. It is valuable time that can be spent walking up and down picking out the docks and nettles and checking for woody stems and twigs. The new cutter made light work of the job we can only hope that the baler behaves itself for us this time. I noticed that the sloes are ripe already so need to organise myself for this year’s gin making, many

lessons were learnt last year. and I will be picking early and freezing, rather than waiting for the first frost. It is a busy time once again in the field.

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ANGLING

Sturminster and Hinton Angling Association Sunday 22 August 2021 Colber The Pairs Cup and fifth Summer Points match was fished at Colber on the upstream and downstream fields from the old railway bridge. Weights were generally better than recent matches despite the bright sunshine, gin clear water and slow flow. The match was won by Nicky Collins in the upstream field with 16lbs 3ozs. Nick had a bream of about 5bs, two smaller bream and a back up of roach, all caught using caster, maggot and pinkie over groundbait. Second was Neil Sims fishing the first peg below the white footbridge and managed 10lbs 7ozs of roach and perch, together with two small skimmers, on methods similar to the winner. Third place was taken by Kev Bennett who based his tactics on targeting little fish and he had 183 roach, dace and perch for 8lbs 11ozs. On the day, there were four sections and the winner of Pegs 1 - 5 was Jeff Sibley with 5lbs 15ozs; 6 - 10 was Jamie Bumby with 8lbs 10ozs; 11 - 16 was Dean Walters with 6lbs 08ozs and the downstream end Section was won by Charlie Way with 5lbs 04ozs. With the exception of Jamie, who snared a 3lbs bream, all the section winners used similar tactics of maggot, pinkie and caster over groundbait to catch roach and perch. Some fish were caught on worms but it seemed to attract pike into anglers’ swims. The trophy was won by the team of Nicky Collins and Charlie Way with an excellent combined weight of 21 - 07. The next club match will be on Sunday, September 5, please check the website for further details. The charity match in support of the air ambulance is now scheduled for Saturday, September 18, details of how to enter, venues etc. are on the club website.