Change of Venue

Another early morning session on Thursday, but this time somewhere deeper than the Nidd. I opted for my other favourite river, the Derwent. It's a lovely looking river and just screams fish, but it is rather deceptive. Despite being only 40'-50' wide it's often around 10'-15' deep and with a good bit off current. The swim I choose turned out to be 11' so I opted for a 4.5g avon with a 4g olivette 3' from a size 18 hook. I had quite a few trots through with out any hook bait as some swims can be seriously snaggy. This one appeared to be alright on that score.

I loose fed half a pint of maggots, in the hope of feed off the inevitable minnows, before my first trot down with double maggot. After a few trots down I started picking up the odd gudgeon before I managed to find a snag, a large twig. In fact I ended up hauling for of the put of the river by the end of the session. Why don't they show up when I trot down with out a hook bait on. Constantly feed handfuls of maggots eventually attracted a few large fish in the shape of roach, chub and perch. These seem to come entirely at random. In four casts I had a perch, chub, dace then roach.

 








 








While I had a cuppa tea I tossed out a feeder on the same line, but this seemed to mainly attract minnows. How to they get a size 14 in their mouths and rattle the quivertip so much for such a tiny fish.

 








For a while I watched a young raptor chasing a parent about, squeaking pathetically for food, I assume. The fishing had been steady until the full brightness of the sun broke through, then the bites tailed off. I took the hint and headed home.