Second Session of the 2022 River Season

Monday's venue was to be a section I hadn't fished this century. A slow deep section that has more renown as a winter venue. The first thing to do was open up a swim. One had been created but I fancied a stretch further downstream. Not that there was really much difference. Having spotted a big stand of Himalayan Balsam by the river I decide it would kill two birds with one stone. Create a swim and rid the country of a patch of these nasty weeds. Twenty minutes with the machete and a nice swim was created and a large area of balsam lay dead and dying.

I knew this stretch was deep so opted for a 3g Bolo float. Plumbing about showed there to be 15' 6" just beyond the rod tip and it remained that depth across the river. The old tactic was to use a slider float but with a 15' rod this wasn't needed, besides I never really like slider fishing on running water. A few droppers of hemp were put in and the maggot hook bait cast out. As the olivette settled the float bobbed about and the first of many tiny bleak was swung in. Their ability to intercept a bait as it plummets through the water is quit incredible. Next cast the bait got through the bleak and when it dipped I was into my first Tommy of the season.

If the bait got through the bleak I was able to pick up small roach and tiny dace, along with some mini gonks and the occasional minnow. I took to using the bait dropper to introduce the maggots as well as hemp in the hope of avoiding the bleak, but this didn't work as they dropped down to the bottom and were been taken where I expected the hemp to have ended up.

A lot of missed bites from the tiny dace grow rather frustrating so I decide to introduce some ground bait to see if I could attract something a tad larger. I introduced the groundbait further out and further upstream. The idea being if a I missed a bite on that line I could still run the bait over the hemp. After allowing the groundbait to do it's magic while I had a cuppa, the first trot down produced a small perch. The second trot had me into something a lot bigger that careered about the swim before snagging me up on the inside. Steady pressure had it free and a rather nice 37cm perch weighing 1lb 13oz was in the net.

After that performance it took a little while for the bites to start again. It was back to the tiny dace and occasional small roach, along with a couple of Tommys. For the last hour the bites were few and far between. I gave up before it got dark . Lifting the keepnet from the water there seemed to be a bit of a shortage of fish in it. Only one of the half dozen gonks was still there. I'd forgotten to repair the hole from the pike attack on the last session. I'll be back to this stretch as I think it has potential even if fishing at 15' is a bit of a chore.