Sorry Looking River

Sometimes when you turn up at a venue everything looks right for a great day, other times things look a bit iffy. Today's venue looked very sorry for it's self indeed, I don't know why and I can't describe why.

I started off with the usual jerk bait, which were not easy to control in the fast current, but persisted. On the other rod I'd put on a large gold spoon, which I've  had quite a bit of success with in the past on faster rivers. The only rod bending action I had with them was the occasional water logged branch. In fact it was more than occasional at times with every third or fourth cast snagging one, some of them quite large and a bit troublesome in the fast current.

Part way along the stretch I had a natter with an angler feeder fishing who'd been there a couple of hours with out a bite. He agreed with me that the river didn't look good after the floods. and also noted the lack of signs, footprints, that any other anglers had been down. We wished each other look and I carried on to the next swim. Alternating between jerk baits, crankbaits, and spoons depending on the flow just continued to pick up water logged branches or nothing. On the way back to the car for a spot of lunch I talked to the other angler a again, who still hadn't had a bite, not even a minnow that can plague this stretch at time. Where do they go in winter?

Like me he had considered going further down stream, but preferred this stretch, and like me was beginning to regret not sticking with the first and probably more sensible plan. After lunch I continued along in the other direction. This area contains a lot more eddies, prime pike holding spots according to all the books and articles. Clearly the pike weren't hungry today as the ignored my lures. I did, however see the unmistakeable signs that an angler had been in one of the swims, footprints, bankstick holes, etc. So we weren't the only fools.

As the afternoon wore on I began contemplating heading for home before the traffic built up. The multiplier also seemed to have similar ideas as it was beginning to make an irritating squeaking noise. Not wanting to cause any damage to the reel I gave up and headed home, but not before heading over to see the other angler. He to was packing up, bite-less. We both hoped the rivers would perk up before the end of the season as we haven't really had much of a chance on them this year.