A friend had offered me the chance to fish a stretch belonging to a little club/syndicate on Wednesday. The stretch, a little under three quarters of a mile had been a club stretch many years ago, but when the farm changed hands the new owners were a bit greedy so the club dropped it. It then changed hands again a few years ago and the new owners were more amiable. My friend and a few others formed a club to rent the stretch along with a pond. I was invited when it formed, but felt the cost couldn't be justified. It did produce a few good barbel and chub in the first two or three years, but has since become a bit erratic. This season has been especially bad so far, but a few more chub and barbel have been showing over the last couple of weeks mainly on the slower deeper upstream section.
When I arrived at the car park my friend was already there along with five other vehicles. It was a busier than average day apparently. Two anglers arrived back at their cars as I was unloading my tackle. They'd had a less than stellar morning, a few small chublets to pellet from the faster lower section. The path down to the river arrives at the middle of the section. The faster shallower section to the right and the slower deeper section downstream to the left. We headed upstream. The three other anglers we talked to on the way up hadn't done much better. A few little chublets and the odd gudgeon to maggot. No sign of any barbel. They all said the same thing, though. They couldn't get the fish to settle in the swim. They'd get one fish then have to wait quite a while for the next one.
All the swims were much of a muchness on this section. Five to six foot deep, far bank trees and marginal weed. We picked the two swims at the top of the section as they didn't look like they'd been fished much being slightly overgrown. Just as we started setting up the first of the day's showers started. I stared with a pellet feeder over to the trees, but all I did was snag a few twigs. The same as the inside line when I tried to float fish it. The centre of the rivers was no better. I moved down to the next swim when the rain stopped.
My mate was the first to catch with a small grayling to sweet corn. I'd tossed the pellet feeder upstream and, after a few trots down, fed the inside line and the far back with pellets and proceeded to trot them a various depths for the rest of the day. Eventually I managed a couple of little chub lets. One from the nearside and one form the far side. My friend added a little to chublet to his grayling. Nothing touched the stationary baits at all, something the other anglers had pointed out. I did, however, cleanly hook a waterlogged bit of bark that put up a little bit of a struggle. My friend kept apologising for the poor sport and promised me a drink to make up for it. The one problem with that was the nearest pub hadn't reopened yet.
The problem of whether to fish into dark was soon solved by it starting to drizzle and a look at the weather radar showed heavier rain on the way. As we wandered back to the car the only other remaining angler was packing up having added a couple of perch to his tally. The two other anglers had left earlier having failed to add to there catches. Nobody had blanked though.
When we got back to the car park a large wagon was blocking the lane. Knocking on the cab door failed to produce an answer. As did ringing the number on the cab. My friend wandered down to the farm, in the drizzle, to see if they knew anything. About fifteen minutes later the heavens opened. Five minutes after that a very soggy jogger appeared at the wagon. Apparently the driver liked to go for a run at the end of his shift. My mate arrived a little bit later to tell us that the farmer was going to give the driver a ring. With that drivers phone rang. The farmer had told the driver he could park at the end of the lane over night. He meant the other end and to be fair the driver wouldn't have seen our cars behind the trees.
Music while typing provided by: Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine
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