Cardboard Guards and Hedge Laying

 I must admit I wasn't too confident as I headed to the river. It had dropped to below a metre up, but the temperatures had also dropped again. I quick wander round showed only a couple of swim to be safely accessible in the freezing conditions. The current was quite fast and coupled with a downstream wind float fishing would be near on impossible out in the main river. So, I opted for a ledger rig, something I don't often do. A float rig was still used in the inside slack though.

After casting out the ledger rig nearly half way across on to the feeder line I tried to set up the drop-off indicator but some thing was pulling the line. Eventually my brain switched on and realised it may be a bite. The strike suggested something heavy but it didn't really feel like a fish. About half way back everything went slack. Don't know what it was, maybe some debris. Out it went again with another half a small mackerel on. The float was dropped into the slack with a smelt on. I recast every 30mins or so but nowt showed.

After lunch I moved swims same tactics as previous but this time the ledger rod had a large piece of lamprey on and the float a small trout. Again the baits were moved every half hour or so. Around mid-afternoon the float moved away. As I wound down a branch near the float started to move towards me. The line had been blown into the overhanging tree with the pike trying to pull the branch one way and me pulling it another. The line eventually came free but the ensuing slack line allowed the fish time to shed the hooks. Bugger! At least one fish was feeding so there may be more.

That was it for the day. First blank of the year. As I left I discovered what the noise of chain saw had been doing. I'd seen that a couple of hundred metres of hedging had been planted with cardboard guards rather than those dreadful plastic things. The chainsaw, though, had been used for a bit of hedge restoration. A nice thing to see. Don't know how the cardboard guards will cope with the rabbits and/or deer.