Monday's session took place on a larger deeper slower river. By deeper I mean ten foot deeper at fourteen foot. I set up two rods. One with a 5g Bolo float and the other with a big stick. The rods were fifteen foot Greys Toreon with Daiwa 120M reels. ).16mm reel line and 0.120mm hook lengths with Drennan carbon match hooks in size 16 completed the set up. For bait I'd intend to fish maggot over hemp, but had forgotten to put he hemp in the bag so loose fed maggots it was.
Things didn't get of to a flying start when the first fish turned out to be a minnow. The next fish a while later was a bleak. On the next trot down I hooked a small perch which shot up stream faster than I could wind. The big swirl as I lifted it out showed why. It was being hunted by a pike. Things then went quiet for the best part of an hour. I alternated between the big stick and the bolo. The big stick rig produced a couple of minnows.
I continued to feed but only at every other cast. I missed the next bite as I was busy watching a barn owl quartering the field opposite. I wound in to find something of a reasonable size on the end. After a bit of a spirited fight a perch of 1lb 10oz was in the net. At no point in the fight did it feel like a perch. No head shakes, just sheer speed. Things then went quiet again.
Another hour or so passed before I started to get bites on the big stick rig. For the next hour and a half there was a steady flow of fish. Dace, bleak, roach, and the occasional chublet came in. You didn't know what the next bite would be from. They were all in the same area though, roughly where I expected the loose feed to hit the river bed. It then went quiet again. As I was running low on bait I called it a day. A total of forty six fish for 5lb 8oz, although nearly a third of that weight was the big perch. You can see why match anglers often set up an inside line for the odd perch like that.
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