Monday's Venue On Wednesday

Today, Wednesday, i made another attempt at going to the Ure, my intended destination on Monday until an accident on the road put pay to it. I'd only got four miles when the traffic came to a halt. After then minutes I decided there must have been another accident. As I below the brow of a hill there was no way I was going to attempt a U-turn. This was reinforced when a car behind my attempt one and was nearly hit by a lorry. In fact I think he was lucky it was a lorry as the high cab would have given the driver an earlier view over the brow. Twenty minutes later we started to move, weaving through scarred cars on either side of the road. eventually I arrived at my destination.  I'd decided to do one of those walking to the riverside shots with the action cam, but it wouldn't switch on. A quick noisy into the battery compartment  showed it to be seriously lacking in battery. I assumed they must be still in the chargers at home. Oh well, one less thing to faff with.

 

Having got to the river I headed down to one of the two spots I had in mind, chucking a lure about as I went. Nothing showed until I got to the furthest of the two swims I was going to try. Previously the only pike action I've seen here is when the attacked my swimfeeders as I wound them in. Second cast something hit the lure, which resulted in a couple of scars near the tail. A couple of casts later a reasonable pike followed the lure right to the bank. Despite trying a few more cast and different lures there was no more sign of pike, but at least I knew they were about. By now it looked and felt decidedly wintery.  I set up the dead baits rods. Dropping a sardine in over the nearside shelf and a roach, upstream on the top shelf behind an over hanging tree. Mid morning as I was enjoying a cuppa the sun popped out and it started to rain with the wind getting up. As the rain stopped the wind dropped. In the meantime the dead baits had attracted nothing.

 At mid-day I moved to the other swim I'd had my eye on, a long slow eddy in which I drifted a roach about,. The other rod, which I'd now armed with a piece of lamprey, was cast a third of the way across the river. This was done for no good reason than a hunch I had. By the time I'd finished lunch the sun was back out, but the wind had got up again taking a heat out of the sunshine. The mid river rod was first away. For a short while I had a fish on, but it came adrift with only a couple of scars on the bait. Next away was the roach. This time I didn't contact with anything and there were no marks on the bait. The roach rod went again just after a dredging barge had gone past. this time I had a slightly long battle with something before it managed to steal the bait and eject the hooks. I had another chuck about with the lures to no effect.

 As it headed towards darkness I started to pack up. A dog walker asked how I'd done. Having told I had nowt he informed me that his lad had had half a dozen pike out on Monday. Not the sort of thing i wanted to hear but still we can't always be in the right place at the right time. One thing I'd forgotten was the end of lock down. The traffic home was heavy and slow.