Last Session Of 2021

Instead of fishing upstream of the city, as previously, I decided to try downstream, provided the river hadn't risen too much. It was falling Wednesday evening, but expected to rise again Thursday. I didn't expect it to rise much though. As it was the river dropped a couple of inches overnight then rose four inches during the day before dropping again.

After battling the combination lock on the car park gate I was at the first swim. This section is a lot shallower than the previous sections with no discernable shelf in some swims. I dropped a paternostered sardine about a third of the way across with the intention of moving it closer every fifteen minutes or so. A length of lamprey was dropped near the bank under an over-hanging tree. After forty minutes with out a run I swapped the rigs around. I replaced the sardine with a roach as it was falling apart and tossed the bits under the tree. I suspect this was one of the older baits in the bait bag and it had probably defrosted at some point. Not long after the float above the roach jagged away and I was into I nice little 70cm jack that stayed on the hooks. In fact it had engulfed the bait, a six inch roach.

By now it had turned into a rather warm day and layers had been removed. I gave the swim another half hour before moving downstream. Same tactics as before. One bait to a feature and one out a quarter to a third they way across. Giving them thirty to forty minutes before swapping them around. It wasn't until the fourth swim of the day that I got my next run, which I missed. Upon retrieving the lamprey I found a small area of damage in the middle of the bait that looked like it had been made by an eel. The nice day had now turned to drizzle and darkness would soon be on us so packed up. It was nice to end the year with a fish.

Despite the number of dog walkers I'd had no problem with nosey dogs. The only one to cause a little bit of grief was a very excitable spaniel puppy on only her second walk out. Though on a lead she'd managed to grab my towel hanging on a branch. After a bit of an amusing wrestle it was retrieved and returned. As it's owner said - it's a good job the wag their tails all the time, can you imagine how much more energy they'd have if the didn't.