Maggots Means Minnows

The computer decided my last session of my holidays would be on a section of the Derwent. Really I should have asked for another choice as maggots on this section tend to attract the minnows. As usual I arrived late afternoon. I had a pint of red maggots, a few mixed colours and three quarters of a pint of hemp left. The swim I selected was just over ten foot deep. I rigged up with a 3g bolo float, a 3.3lb hook length with a size 16 hook. After a couple of trots down and the first minnow of the session I also had the first of several twigs. These made a change from the magically appearing immovable snag. This was followed by a gudgeon before the minnows turned up in force.

Eventually the hemp did it's magic and I stared to catch small dace and roach with some regularity. The minnows kept appearing, but not as often as I thought they would. For a while a shoal of bleak moved in and managed to intercept the bait on the drop. I did think of moving to a heavier float in the hope of bypassing them, but they moved on when a predator moved in. I never saw what it was but did see the bleak scattering several times.I was soon back in to the gudgeon along with roach and the occasional dace. Whatever the predator was seemed to have frightened the minnows away as well. After a bit of a flurry of fish the minnows returned. I piled in several handfuls of hemp. and fished in the margin while I had a belated sandwich and cuppa. The margin just produced minnows.

The main line down the centre started to produce more roach, dace and gudgeon. Nothing of any size, but in a match you'd build up a decent weight. Things went quiet for a while before hitting something a bit heavier. At first I thought it was another twig but then it veered across the river straight for a nasty snag. I suspected it was a decent chub as a couple of lads upstream of me had had a few between them on feeder. having turned it away from the snag it continued  past me upstream. A classic barbel tactic. It came back down towards me hugging the bank.Once on the surface it had a couple of last minute attempts at avoid the landing net before it was in. A nice fish around the 3lb mark.

After the barbel the swim had gone quiet. A chucked in the last couple of handfuls of reds and the last handful of hemp. I knew I wouldn't be staying late as, apart from running out of bait, it was predicted to start raining. Just upstream of me the was a big splash and a great deal of bleating. Having a look a sheep had fallen down a sheer overgrown bank. I gave it a prod with the storm pole and it swam down stream a little way until it could get out. It was soon reunited with it's lamb. A few more dace were taken before it started drizzling. By the time I packed up it had stopped, only to start again, some what heavier, as I got to the car.

I thought I'd cracked the problem with the erratic action cam, but it would appear that out of my collection of USB leads I'd managed to pick not one but two faulty ones to use with the power bank. The one I was using kept causing the camera to  such of then back on and corrupt some of the files. Damn technology, always let down by the cheapest part. This was the last of my days off. Not a bad few days fishing for the start of the season. I hadn't really been trying for anything other than enjoying a bit of float fishing.