The main worry for the start of the season was the temperatures and lack of rain. The levels weren't the lowest I've seen and I had it on good authority the the water temperature had been hovering around 14 ℃, so things weren't too bad. While I didn't get down to the river until mid-afternoon some had been down there ready for 00:00 hours. Personally I don't find early mornings on rivers to be that productive. As usual for the first week or so of the season I was just going to be trotting maggots over hemp for whatever comes along.
By the time I'd got to the swim, kicking up clouds of grass pollen on the way my hay fever had kicked in. I tossed out some hemp and maggots over a largish area and boiled up the kettle for a cuppa waiting for my nose to stop streaming. It's not easy tackle up in that condition. Once things had settled I setup the, now, 13' 6" float rod with centrepin. 0.14mm mainline and a 0.10mm hook length with a B560 size 16 hook. A 4 №4 alloy stemmed stick float shotted shirt button style with № 6 shot. A quick plumb and a few runs through with no bait on to get the depth and we were underway.
The first fish of the season was a dace taken on the third trot through to double maggot. I soon got into a rhythm. A few grains of hemp downstream, some maggots in front of me, cast. While the dace were of a reasonable size there was clearly some smaller fish in the swim as chewed maggots often came back. These turned out to be bleak when I managed to hit the bites. Things went quite steadily with fish coming in a regular intervals. Dace in the main with the odd chublet, roach, and bleak. With a simple counter app on the phone I'd had 48 fish in two and half hours. Then the pike showed up. I'd managed to get one fish out of the water before it snaffled it, but the next was grabbed some way down the swim and I got bitten off. I took this as a hint to have a cuppa and sandwich. I did keep the feed going in while I had my repast.
Re-rigged and back in action the dace were still present. After a couple of fish I latched onto something a tad heavier which slowly trundled towards the semi-submerged dead tree. With out doubt a barbel and the 0.10mm hooklength was not going to stop it getting there. I upped the hooklength to 0.12mm and continued on. A few more dace and the odd bleak followed, but a lot more chewed maggots also occurred. Strangely single maggot hardly got any bites.
Everything went quiet for a while which I suspected may be a pike in the swim. Next fish up, though, was another barbel. This one was kind enough to stay out of the snags. Initially it came towards me quite easily before making a 20 yard dash downstream. Slowly I cranked it back before it did the same thing again.I managed to crank it back then it just sat in the current just upstream of me. It then circled round a few times. each time I got it closer to the net. When it finally got close enough I made a bit of a hash of getting it in the net, but it let me have a second go. A fish around the 5½-6lb. I wanted to unhook it in the water but couldn't reach it as the mud next to the bank was thick and deep as I'd found out earlier. A bit of a rest, on to the mat, unhooked, and photographed took very little time. A further rest in the net, which it didn't seem to need and all was OK.
A couple more roach followed but things ha gone very quiet. Around 20:30 I hooked another barbel that shot straight into the overhanging trees opposite and smashed me up. I pondered getting the heavy trotting gear out but decided to call it day. It had been pleasant enough with some 74 fish and the barbel. I'd enjoyed my bit of stick and 'pin fishing for whatever. The barbel being a bonus. A bit more water obviously won't go amiss and we're being threatened with thunderstorms on Sunday, and some light rain/drizzle through next week. Hopefully this will come to pass.
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