Choosing a swim a bit further downstream on a slightly narrower and faster bit of river with about twelve and a half foot of depth, I opted for a10x4 alloy stemmed stick. Feeding large handfuls of maggots I was quickly in gudgeon and dace, before a jack interrupted proceedings. This set the pattern for the session, every 30-40 minutes a jack would appear and grab a fish I was retrieving. One even took a maggot feeder on the drop and hung on until it was a couple of feet from the landing net. I had a few goes with various lures, but only got one follow. After a bit of a lull when the wind got up and it threatened rain I latched on to a couple of hard fighting perch of 1lb 5oz and 1lb 11oz before bumping a third and scaring the rest away.
I'd brought a keepnet with me this time just to give me a better idea of what I'd caught. When I hauled it out of the water it didn't seem to have as many fish in it as I thought I'd caught. This was not surprising really as there was now to largish holes in the bottom of it. I thought I'd seen it twitch about at one point. I'm assuming a pike had had a go at it as there weren't any holes in it when I'd got it out as I'd given it a thorough check over. What was left weighed just shy of 5lb 8oz, which along with the perch gave 8lb 8oz for a six hour session fished through the middle of the day. Which was more than the winning team managed when the national was fished just upstream of here. The individual weight was 2lb 2oz 8dr by the legendary Leeds angler J. H. R. Bazley. That was in 1910 mind you.
One thing I haven't seen before was dace coughing up little pin fry as I unhooked them. I know most fish can be predatory, but his surprised me.
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