Jigging for Minows

One of my favourite little becks has a stretch which is nearly unfishable with a fly rod. Low hang branches, high banks and it's width all conspire to prevent a fly rod being waved about. In the past I've wiggled fly line out of the rod tip in the hope of drifting a fly under the branches down to the fish, but the varying currents rarely allowed a fly to be presented properly. This time I decided to try flicking small jigs about.

With the beck being shallow and clear I decided to start with a natural, brown, coloured lure. After a few casts along side some tree roots a little trout popped out and followed the lure for a yard or so. It did this next cast so I changed to to something more lurid, chartreuse, which was quickly grabbed, but only by the tail. Further on another little trout popped out from under an undercut bank and followed the lure before dodging back under the bank. Again a change of colour, to pink, provided the stimulus for a take. Unfortunately it's acrobatics snagged the line on a trailing briar and by the time I'd got upstream it had shaken it's self off the de-barbed hook.

One thing I'd noticed this season was the lack of coarse fish, hardly any  chub, dace or gudgeon and an astonishing lack of minnows. This was to change in the next few swims, which were rammed with minnows several of which I managed to foul hook. Occasionally one managed to grab the hook and a few grabbed the tail of the lure seemingly unable to eject it.

As I neared the end of the stretch I dropped the lure into one of the deeper, 2 foot, holes and was finally reward with another small acrobatic trout.

At this point I was at the edge of the woods and realised what the background noise was. It had been raining for quite a while. A brisk walk back through the woods got me back to the car just before the heavens opened.