Stick N Pin On A Falling River

 I had a careful look at the river levels Friday morning after the heavy rain on Thursday. Te little river  intended to fish had risen a foot overnight but had since dropped about six inches and was still falling so should be OK. Looking from the bridge when i arrived an colour there had been seemed to have dropped out of it. This time I headed downstream instead of up like last time. I soon found a nice looking swim, but the descent into it was a bit dodgy on the wet grass. I set up the float rod with a quick depth finding rig and made my way down. I didn't want to get all the tackle down there and find some sort of snag filled hell hole. Luckily there seemed to be a nice smooth run, so the rest of the tackle was brought down. As I sorted myself out  noticed a bit of mono on the bank a bit down from me. It turned out to be three log lengths of heavy (barbel?) stuff. This wasn't a snap off it was clearly dumped. Why?

After the tidy up I set up a feeder rod and a float rod with a 4x4 stick float. The plumbing had shown the swim to be a bit over eight foot deep. The float was shotted shirt button style. I was going to be fishing maggot over hemp for what ever turned up.

First cast and the float failed to settle. In came a tiny little bleak. Not wishing to contend with them I bulked the shot a couple of foot above the hook. Next cast I avoided the bleak but ended up with a equally tiny roach. Third cast The float got half way down the swim before disappearing. Another tiny fish that I thought was a leaf at first. A gudgeon this time.

Just after I swung the gudgeon in fish scattered throughout the swim. Damned pike. I continued to feed hemp and maggot but didn't get a bit for a good forty minutes. When I did it was from a good fish. Just as I got it to the surface a huge mouth grabbed what looked like a chub of around two pound. What looked to be a good double figure pike shot at great speed into the tree roots downstream. I chucked the feeder rod out as I rerigged. The tip went over not long after I tightened up. A perch that imagined it was a lot bigger was swung out so as to avoid the pike following it. That turned out to be the last pike I saw. The next fish was a hand sized roach.

I had very few bites on the feeder, which I'd left out while I had lunch. After lunch I resumed with the float. With constant feeding. I started to get a decent run of fish. Not quite one every cast but steady none the less. I've no idea how many I caught or what they weighed but it wasn't a bad afternoon at all considering how hot and bright it was.

The only reason I stopped was that i had to be elsewhere. The bites, typically, were getting better and more frequent. One problem, of my own making, was I but my phone on the side tray causing it to over heat again. Placing it in the shade under the seat cooled it enough for the final photo. The heat had, however, corrupted the memory card and It took me several hours to sort things out and get the photos off the phone. Several were corrupt and couldn't be rescued though. I think I should take an ice pack to place it on.