Making Sense of Weather Forecasts, or Not

I could have sworn blind that the weather forecast on Thursday evening said Friday morning would be mainly dry and the afternoon mainly wet. As it turned out it was the other way round. Having ben given a kicking by the Derwent I decided to give the Nidd a go on Friday. It was going to be a shortish session with an early start so as to avoid the traffic and the worse of the weather. As isolated thunderstorms had been predicted late afternoon I didn't want to be out in them. The morning was as predicted, to start with. Hot air balloons drifted overhead as I head towards the river.

 








The two or three swims I looked at didn't seem to be have been heavily fished at all. Little in the way of footprints and trampled vegetation. Having selected my swim I tossed a few handful of pellets in and set about trotting a 6mm one under a 3.6g loafer. After an hour of no bites and with the onset of rain I change to a legered bait. Half an hour later, just as the rain eased off, the tip started rattling about and I was into a fish. It was a strangely compliant barbel which came in with very little fuss until it broke the surface, then it went berserk. After a rather tense few minutes it was in the net, a fish of 4lb 15oz. 

 

 









By lunch time noting more had happened so I moved to another swim for an hour or so. This one didn't even produce a bite, should've stayed where I was. By now the rain had stopped again so I packed up and headed home in order to beat the Friday traffic which would be extra heavy do to the rain.