Not Quite The Outcome I Had In Mind

I made my first trip to the syndicate water for this winter. I should have known soon after arrival that things weren't going to be quite as I'd hoped when I discovered I'd forgot my cup, so no hot drinks. Thankfully a solution was found in the shape of an old, clean, pot noodle container that happened to be in the car. I'd also knocked the liner out of one of the guides, but as this was on the short extension section the rod was still usable at 3m.

Having selected my swim, I dropped a float fished sprat close to the remaining bank-side vegetation. As the sprat was still frozen it sank very slowly and  a dinky little pike shot out and grabbed it's tail, quickly letting go as it dived back into the weeds. Pity really as it would have bay a nice bait given it's tiny size. The two legered baits were chucked out into known spots. One popped up smelt and a bluey to be fished on the bottom. These were to be moved every 30-40 minutes, which I did, all morning. Once they baits had defrosted I injected them with oils.

After lunch the drop off on the bluey rod dropped off, but I wound down to nothing. I retrieved it slowly back just in case,. On arrival at the bank it had clearly been chewed on, so I stuck another on and swung it back to the same place. The remains were chopped up and dropped around the float. Half an hour later the float started bobbing, I wound down and struck, I felt a couple of jags and then nothing. Hmm. Out went another one. After a short while the floated headed off out into the lake for a couple of yards then stopped. I contacted with nothing. There were a few scales missing from the bait so I dropped it back in. That, though, was that for the day even though I stayed through the showers and in to dark.

Not the start I was hoping for, especially as the carp angler in the next swim had had a twenty pound pike out earlier in the month, on a boilie.

Little Lure, Big Fish

Managed a couple of short midweek sessions. The first on a local pond, due to the rivers being out of sorts. I tried using a variety of small crank baits with nothing to show until I got to the last swim.  This was in a bay that I've never taken a pike from. Here a very lively pike of 7lb 3oz latched on to a Salmo Minnow. On the perch gear it put up an excellent fight, going airborne several times.

 










The next session was on the Aire & Calder Navigation. A couple of perch appeared quite quickly to a Salmo Rattlin Hornet followed by a small jack. It was another 40 minutes before I got another take which resulted in a 7lb 14oz pike which like the one earlier in the week, took to the air on several occasions. A third one followed soon after, again on the Rattlin Hornet. This one, at 9lb 14oz, stayed deep and took some effort to get to the net on perch gear.

 









 










By now the sun had disappeared behind the trees and it was getting bloody cold. Time to head home.

New Line - Same Grayling

I've had a nymph line for quite a while now but never used it. It's one of those lines that is supposed to work with weight 2-5 rods and having cast it about over grass with a couple of rods it does appear to work. How it worked on the water, I was about to find out. Setting up a czech nymph type rig, but with a split shot rather than a second dropper it performed as expected even when cast a bit further upstream, when I couldn't get along side the deeper runs. Not that it really mattered as I wasn't getting anything on this set up. 

Around midday a few fish started rising. A quick change to a #22 IOBO and four fish in four casts, tiny things mind you. I only photographed the one as I couldn't see the point in loads of photos of tiny grayling, preferring to flick them off the hook so as not to cause undue stress to them. The new line behaved well and landed the fly where I aimed it. After this though I was back to missing takes, left-right-and-centre. As the light altered, and with the help of the clip-ons, I could see what was going on. The clean takes occurred when only one fish was rising to the fly. When two or three fish all rose they missed. It appeared as if they had only one eye on lunch and the other on the competition.

After a couple more fish I moved on to the next spot where fish were rising. Again these were of a similar size and again caused similar hooking rate problems. One thing I noticed here, when the light was right, was there were some slightly larger fish that never seemed to rise to the fly. I tried bigger dries, traditional wets and various nymphs, all to no avail. I'd seen something similar years ago, only with considerably a larger grayling. I was happily taking fish around the 6-8oz mark when I noticed a few fish about three times the size, just seemingly hanging mid-water, ignoring everything. I sometimes wish I couldn't see what's going on as it can get rather frustrating.

By the time the sun had disappeared and the rises had stopped I'd taken 14 of the little beasties, as I was within site of the car and the temperature was plummeting rapidly I called it a day. The new line had performed rather well, in fact while dry fly fishing it had performed a lot better than I'd expected it would. Not sure how it would perform on a breezy day mind you, I'm sure I'll find out.

Foss From Fossa - Meaning Ditch

Popped down to my local river for a short session midweek. Fishing a bit further downstream then my last session there, but still waist high in nettles. This section is not as deep as the previous either, so I spent a lot of time picking weed off the lure.

 

 










By sticking to the deeper areas and around the dying plants  I managed to pick out a couple of jacks and lost another when I failed to strike as I thought , initially, I'd picked up some more weed. I also had quite a few chub bump the lure, but only managed to connect with one of them. Admittedly most of them were no bigger than the lure.

 










I did try one of my small crank baits, but it refused to swim properly with a steel trace attached to it. With a bit of light remaining I nipped back to the car and set up a light rig with a fluorocarbon leader. I quickly managed a slightly larger chub before the light faded.

Looks like I'll have to make up some ultralight steel traces for my next trip down here, as I know  jack will turn up and bite through the fluoro.

Thieving Aliens

When I got out of the car by the river a vicious northerly damn near sliced me in two. It hadn't felt that bad at home. I quickly piled on the layers and set off towards the bottom of the stretch. I had to stop and remove a layer half way down as I was now too warm. The river had cleared up quite a bit since last weekend and looked quite promising. The wind, though, was strengthening and blowing straight downstream. Flicking a couple of weighted nymphs upstream proved easier-said-then-done. never mind trying to spot bites.

After about an hour with nothing to show for my efforts I found a slightly sheltered spot. After a warming cuppa I proceeded to fish through it. After a missing a couple of plucks, I latch on to a little silvery thing. Which was almost immediately grabbed by a big silvery thing which shot straight past me and under the trailing branches of a far bank tree where everything went solid. Heaving it out wasn't working so I gave it a bit of slack and crossed over the river. As I got onto the bank there was a great swirl under the tree. I tightened up again and could see one of the nymphs attached to a branch. It was clear the fish was gone, taking the point fly with it. I suspect the culprit was one of the large feral rainbows that in habit thee parts.

Tying on another fly I continued on, upstream, for another hour with out a touch. By this time I was in sight of the car and it was starting to rain. By the time I reached the car it had turned to hail stones then sleety rain. Sitting in the car with a cuppa and sandwich I had a sudden attack of common sense, watching the Grand Prix in a nice warm house  was what I should be doing.

Killing an Hour

With an hour or so to kill I wandered down to a nearby stretch I hadn't fished for a year or so. Clearly nobody else had been down there for some time as the brambles and remains of the nettles made getting about hard work. Added to this the weed also proved to be a problem, as it tends to be as it dies back at this time of year, leaving lumps drifting about in the current.

As the water here is no more than a couple of foot deep, at the most, I opted for a small fire tiger 4play. The great advantage of this lure, apart from been shallow diving, is it only needs to be retrieved slowly in the current to impart a lot of movement. A great advantage when there's only a 4-6' gap to move it through. Between battling the undergrowth and picking weed from the lure I managed two skinny, but athletic jack pike and had an other throw the hooks.

 










A great way to waste away an hour, as these athletic jacks go crazy in the shallow water and punch well above their weight.

Exploding Crank Bait

Another midweek session on the navigation saw me chucking small crank baits about for perch. The first fish to grab hold felt like a pike which quickly detached itself from the lure. The next fish, a perch, did the same. An inspection of the lure showed the hooks to be exceedingly blunt. Not having any spares with me I swapped lures, same model , different colour. These are cheap, £1.50, lures original bought to chuck around snag ridden rivers. They invariably don't swim straight and have to be adjusted to do so. The hooks on the are nasty and don't keep their edge at all, I really should have swapped the hooks before hand. The have, however, been very good lures taking their fair share of fish and I've not minded losing them to the snags. The next problem to befall this one occurred when a miscast had it hitting the stonework around a bridge and it exploded on impact. I only have a couple left now and I don't think they're available any more.

























As the navigation isn't really snaggy I don't really know why I use the here, they really don't work any better the my more expensive lures. After a couple more hours work I ended up with a half dozen smallish perch and no more fish shaking them selves free. Not sure where the other two photos have got to.

Mud

I'd been watching the river level rising since late Friday. Thankfully, even though it was already a tad high, it was only a couple of inches and it was now dropping again. When I got there it was a bit more coloured than I was expecting. It wasn't bad though. The banks, however, proved treacherous in places, steep sided and covered in a thing layer of mud. The wind and lack of promised sunshine made it a lot colder than it looked as I wandered down to the bottom end.

The plan of attack was small, well weighted nymphs on jig hooks. The jig hooks appeared to be working as I wasn't snagging anything like as often as normal. It was half an hour before I was into my first fish, a small chub or reasonable dace which came adrift as it reached the surface. A few casts later and I was into another fish which felt about the same size. It came to and abrupt halt as I brought it in. I managed to slip ans slide along the steep bank up stream of the snag retrieving the fly, but not the fish. After another 10 minutes of fling nymphs in and around the area I moved on.

The next section being somewhat shallower, I decided to wade rather than slip and slide about the bank. This didn't prove to bit such a bright idea though. After a little while my left foot became stuck in some very sticky, soft clay, sinking about nine inches. On the bank it's hard enough getting your foot out of this stuff. In the water it starts to become a bit farcical. Eventually I managed to free myself with out falling in and decided the bank wasn't so bad after all. Normally you can see the change in colour of the river bed and can avoid these areas.

Stopping at the bottom of one of the longer glides for a cuppa the sun came out and the bitter wind dropped. By the time I'd finished the odd fish was rising. A changed to a small plume fly soon had fish rising to it. For the life of me I was unable to contact with them though. A change from a size 20 to 16, in the hope that a bigger target may help, eventually connected with a fish. A small grayling like those I'd caught previously, foul hooked, flipped out of my hand and off the hook. A few more casts and the chill wind got up again and the sky started to blacken. I continued on with the nymphs to no avail. As I came with in sight of the car it started to drizzle and the sun came out again. By the time I reached the car it was looking like a nice day again, but I'd had enough.