And Thus It Endeth

I spent last night pondering whether to fish for pike or chub/barbel on the final day of the season. My mate was going to alternate between cheese paste and lob worm. In the end I decided to fish for pike as I'd finished the season last year with one at the same venue. We were surprised to find only one car there when we arrived. We wandered down to the bottom of the stretch to begin our assault.

I fished all the classic swims. Slacks behind trees, along side dead and dying vegetation, undercut banks, etc. with out a sniff. Not even a dropped run or chewed bait. Oh well. My mate took a tiny perch first cast then proceeded to spend the next couple of hours throwing swimfeeders into every snag in the river. during the afternoon a few more anglers materialised. Around four after several missed bites he managed a half pound chub, again on worm. We were now discussing whether to stay until dark despite the rain. The problem was solved for us when he received a phone call requesting his presence at home.

As I've said before I still wonder why I keep taking part in this last day of the season ritual. Despite the occasional shower it was quite a pleasant day out apart from an hour spent fishing in the vicinity of a rookery. Those things make a real ear grating racket. There was also a fallen tree by one of the gates that caused a bit of grief as you had to just about crawl under it. I attempted it with the ruckseat on my back and the handle got snagged giving my mate a good laugh as I tried to free myself. I didn't attempt this on the way back.

Ten days to go before the start of the trout season. Lets hope the rivers have dropped sufficiently to allow them to be fished in a reasonable manner.




 

Penultimate Day of the River Season

I'd been informed the Derwent looked to be at a reasonable level, so headed down there. My mate couldn't make it today so I was on my own, or self-isolating as everybody calls it these days. Sure enough it didn't look to bad when I got there. My initial intention was to fish some slacks below the weir, but it was tanking through and there was very little slack water. Another angler was catching roach and grayling on the feeder in one of the deeper slightly slower swims.. After a bit of a natter I returned above the weir to fish the two slacks I'd fished last time I was here.

After a bit of plumbing around a float legered roach was drop in the downstream slack. As I was setting up the second rod the float disappeared and I was into a powerful fish. After a bit of a protracted  battle when it got into the main current it was in the net. 106cm and 19lb 2oz a nice start to the day. Comparing photos when I got home showed it to be the twenty form the previous visit here. Had it spawned, or had it struggled to feed during the floods?

A little while later the first of the heavy showers passed over, so up with the brolly. The angler from below the weir appeared, apparently the speed of the current ha increased massively and even a heavy feeder was been swung round in to the snags. We assumed the sluices by the weir had been opened. This also caused the down stream slack to change shape and the upstream one to shrink. When I went to reposition the upstream bait it was snagged. Having wrapped the braid round the handle of the pliers I proceeded to pull, but instead of the hooks bending as they usually did the braid parted at the knot to the wire trace. Not something I like to happen, but it was Friday the 13th. Nothing else happened until late afternoon when the downstream float popped under. Again I contacted with something heavy, but everything went slack. On retrieving the rig the wire trace had parted. Measured against a new trace it appeared to have gone just at the upper hook. This is 40lb Carboflex, a wire I've never had problems with before. I've had 7 strand stuff from various manufactures fail before, presumably from kinks, but this stuff is very very had o kink. Hopefully with the hooks been barbless the fish will be able to dislodge it.

Tomorrow is the last day of the river coarse season, my mate and myself have yet to decide what to do and with it been a weekend we suspect there may well be  a few others fishing. There seems to be a group of people that only fish the rivers on the first and last days of the season and always seem to be in the best swims. Quite why I've taken part in this ritual for so long I have no idea.

How High's the Water Mama

When I got up I checked the river levels. The Ouse was still falling, but way upstream the tributaries were slowly rising. At 3m up I knew i was still within it's banks and that it would be fishable provided it didn't rise too fast. By the time I'd picked my mate up and was heading towards the river it was starting to rise again. The rain that had swung across during the night was coming out of the dales already. When we got to river things didn't look too bad. We'd already discussed tactics in the car. My mate had decided to wander along dropping a bait in any slacks. Whereas I'd decided to head to where I knew there'd b a couple of large slack areas near the confluence of the two rivers that generally produced a pike or two, and on occasion considerably more. I left him at the first inviting slack and headed upstream.

Plumbing up showed the upstream rod would be fishing at around four fathoms and the downstream rod nearer five. A sardine was flung into the upstream slack. While attaching a lamprey to the other rod the float boobed about before disappearing. I wound down to nothing but a missing sardine. Quickly replaced it was dropped back in the same slack. The lamprey down stream of it in another slack. A phone call from my mate to tell me he'd already had seventeen million branches and a swimfeeder, but no pike. It seems a lot of the slacks were full of debris from the previous flood(s). The lamprey float then bobbed about before sliding under. A strike hit something solid, very solid,. A bit of pressure and up came a length of branch. Out went the lamprey again. The river was now rising at about two inches an hour and the slack appeared to be getting smaller, but all that had happened was it had moved as increasing amounts of water came down the Nidd. Around eleven thirty the sardine float bobbed and disappeared. I contacted with with a feisty little jack that temporally snagged it's self. At the net one of the hooks snagged at the front, but a bit of wiggling the net got the little beast in before it spat the other hook out. A nice little fish of 70cm with quite a few leeches on it. The river was now rising a bit quicker and required a bit of adjustment of the depth the floats were set at.

By lunch my mate had arrived having taken a few more branches and a foul hooked chublet. He reckoned the bait must have landed on it as it was hooked in the back just ahead of the dorsal fin. The wind was now rather gusty and every now and then showers of catkins would fall from the trees making quite a splash as they hit the water. While boiling water for tea I managed to set fire to the handle of my cool bag which I was using as a wind-brake. After lunch we tried a few swims upstream, but they too seemed to be full of rubbish. so we returned back to the big slacks. My mate fishing one downstream of me where he lost a little jack at the net. By mid afternoon the river had risen a couple of feet and was rising quicker. The slacks we were fishing were now disappearing and we were now struggling to hold bottom, even with 4oz leads. We decided to call it a day. Just after we got packed up a large limb broke from a tree and landed in the river in front of where I'd been fishing.

Looks like the end of the river season is going to be another damp squib with the rivers virtually unfishable. On the way home we discussed the idea of heading south into Lincolnshire or somewhere, but it would have been rather a short session as he had an appointment first thing in the morning. We decided to to see what was happening with the levels in the morning.

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Two Familiar Faces

The grass was white over with frost and the air filled with the smell of chocolate, from the factory formally known as Rowntree's, as I set off towards the river. I'd decided on the Wharfe as it was less than a foot up. The Derwent was going through like an express train, apparently. The Nidd was too high and the Ouse was at an awkward height. By the time I got there the sun was out and it looked a pleasant day. The river was surprisingly clear, this meant I could see the river bottom. This was odd as on my last visit I was stood in two foot of water at this point and now, with the river one foot up, it was only a foot deep. A whole new gravel bar has materialised as a result of the floods. I found similar results in half of the swims I'd visited. The river bed has been well and truly re-sculptured. Looks like I may have to sit in the middle of the river while barbel fishing next season.

The first swim I fished was a classic pike swim, according to the books and magazines. Slack water behind a tree on the inside of a bend. Float legered  roach and sardine were the offers. One at the bottom of the ledge, one on the top.  When I got my phone out ot take a picture of it I found it had died and no matter what I did it rrfused to start up.After an hour and a half with nothing to show I moved on to a similar swim further upstream with similar results. The same result also occurred in the third swim. After a spot of lunch and a rethink I moved on to a fourth swim. This time I dropped the roach in to a deeper spot besides an over hanging tree. The other rod was changed to a running leger and lamprey. This was flung across the river into the faster current on the far side.  The pike I'd foul hooked when grayling fishing was from a similar swim upstream, so why not.

While sat waiting for a bite I was approached by a familiar face I couldn't initially place. It turned out to be Mark Barrow of Beneath British Waters fame who was looking for some wet wipes to swim in or something. It's nice to meet people off the WEB. We had a brief discussion on sewage outfalls, angling, etc. before parting. Despite been distracted from the rods no runs occurred. The fifth and final swim was the one I'd foul hooked the pike in.  The same tactics as the previous swim, but with the float rod downstream in a little slack. While waiting for a run something otter/mink like swam across the river downstream of me. I did try to film it but as it was too far away really all I got was a bit of the wake. It then headed upstream along the bottom of the bank. Once opposite me I could see it was a mink. I quickly disappeared into the some tree roots when a spaniel appeared with it's owner and was not seen again.

Not long after the baitrunner on the legered lamprey began clicking before moving off at quite a rate. My strike contacted with something which felt like a log or branch at first, but then shook it's head a few times before coming adrift. A slightly serrated lamprey was retrieved and recast, now oozing more blood. Shortly after the float started to head towards the tree. A quick strike and a heave resulted in a small jack thrashing on the surface before becoming snagged on a sunken branch. By the time I'd made my way down to the snag the jack had come adrift. From the other side of the snag the hooks came away quite easily. Another roach was put on and dropped in the same area. There both baits sat until nearly dark.

Three more sessions available before the end of the river season. The rivers are slowly dropping so hopefully I should be able to find some pike somewhere. The problem now is the fact that pike appear to be spawning so may well be tightly bunched up and vast lengths of river basically devoid of pike.

I managed to get the phone going again when I got home. It would appear the battery has failed, or half of it anyway as it now holds only half the charge it should. With the Chinese factories shut down due to Covid-19 this is not the best time to get a replacement battery. I was on the look out for a new phone anyway.

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