Sliding Down The River

 Thursday wasn't looking great weather wise. Overcast, drizzly, windy, an easterly at that, but you just never know. I wandered down the stretch a bit to just above a large sweeping bend. The wind wasn't too bad but gusting downstream. A bit of plumbing showed there to be nearly fifteen foot of water. With this in mind I rigged up a 5SSG sliding waggler with a 5g olivette a couple of feet above the hook. The weight should get the double maggot bait past most of the bleak and minnows that tend to appear. Half a dozen tennis ball sized balls of ground bait laced with chopped worm and maggots were flung in with remarkable accuracy. The gudgeon were the first to move onto the bait after a little while.

It was a fish a chuck with a couple of dozen soon amassed. Three or four dace soon followed before it it went quiet. A couple more balls of ground bait wee added. After some adjustment of the depth so that it was fishing over depth a steady precession of hand sized roach. Again as the bites tailed off I put out a couple more balls of groundbait. The next few fish were tiddlers and minnows, before the roach returned.

I then put the kibosh on matters. Having thought to myself that it had been nice not to get pestered by pike the very next roach was grabbed by a pike. After a minute or so of battle it let go of the roach. With no more bites even after fiddling with the depth I hurled in the last of the ground bait. Sone after a rather fine Ruffe turned up.

A bit more depth fiddling followed as I was not getting any more bites. With the bait an inch or two off the bottom. Some thing a bit bigger took the bate. The thump thump as I played it suggested a perch. A rather nice fish of 1lb 7oz. Next cast produced another a couple of ounce bigger. A couple more trots down I hooked another which felt even bigger. Unfortunately it came adrift.

I fished on but only got the occasional chewed maggot, the odd tiny minnow, and a bleak. Not a bad haul in the end considering the gusty downstream wind and occasional bouts of drizzle.