Sitting In The Sun With A New Landing Net And Christening It

Final day of the Christmas New Year holidays, before returning to work tomorrow, and I head down to the Nidd mouth on the Ouse or as I call these days - The Nun Monkton Ferry Terminal. I had been avoiding it as it had got a bit silly with number of anglers down there. A bit like Whitby pier at mackerel time. When I arrived there was only one other angler and he was on the other bank. As you can't fish the beach any more I opted for a swim just upstream of it, having dunked my net in to make sure I could reach down the now sheer bank. The floods of the last couple of years have cut away the lower part of it.

I plumb around and found the deeper hole at just under three fathoms downstream where I plonked a float ledgered mackerel tail. Upstream the edge of the drop off was around two fathoms and here I placed a float ledgered sardine. The sun had now come out so it was off with the big coat. I had, however, left the clip-ons in the car which was a fare walk away so I just squinted. After an hour I got my first run, on the sardine, but after a short fight it came adrift. It was just after twelve, just as I'd got my cheese & broccoli pasta prepared, that I got another run again on the sardine. After a fare battle and a few seconds of it getting snagged  I had a fish which despite it's length felt a bit light. It weighed in at 6lb 4oz on too sets of scales. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the other float moving away. I lowered the jack into the water in the weigh sling/sack and latched into something a bit more vicious. Again I after a fare old battle I had a fish in the net, but not after a bit of a struggle at the net when it attempted to get behind it.  It nearly had me in though. As it made another run my boots had broken through the mud crust and I was down to wet greasy stuff. Dropping onto my arse stopped me going in. This fish, although not much longer than the previous, weighed in at 11lb 3oz. I nice way to christen the new net, the extending handle of which had allowed me to fish this swim.

As a Christmas present to my self I'd bought one of those chest harnesses for the action cam and had been attempting to film the action. From the results I need to sort out the angle of the camera and remember to clean the lens. Most importantly I need to know whether it's switched on or off.

Half an hour after the previous fish I got another run on the sardine. Again a battler of a fish that came adrift at the net. A small fish with a noticeable dark mark behind it's head. The sardine, which was elasticated, was reasonably intact and tossed out again. Less than a minute later the float was away and I made no mistake this time. In the net was the very same fish. The mark at the back of the head was a bunch of growths. I've been told by a couple of people that it's a cancer, but I've had no confirmation from any sort of expert in this area. It also had a couple of growths around it's mouth, but otherwise seemed to be in good health and put up a fare scrap.

The next run came to a mackerel head that had replaced the tail earlier. Although I wound down to something it failed to hook. The head came back basically intact so was tossed out again. The sardine float jittered about occasionally, but I put this down to the wind, which had picked up, and the increase in debris floating about. When I wound it in at the end of the day it was well and truly chewed looking suspiciously like crayfish damage. I've not heard much mention of crayfish in the Ouse at all but I'm not sure what else it could be.

It was nice to get back into some action after a string of blanks and the pike here tend to be quite hard fighters, it is barbel country after all. Back to work Saturday so it'll be five days before I can fish again and grayling could well be the target.