Sunshine And Swans

 As it was a glorious sunny day and the river was nearby I had a couple of hours chucking a feeder into it. A few maggots, turning to casters, and some hemp all left over from last week were to be used up. One thing that puzzled me was the bank side vegetation had been nibbled at but there were no beats in the filed. Nor had there been for sometime. This was solved as I tackled up the feeder rod. Three cygnets swim up and when I offered them nowt they started munch on the vegetation before making their way up stream. Strangely there were no adults in sight. It's not very often I've seen cygnets with out the adults before they get their adult plumage.

First drop in with the feeder and the tip shot round. A cute little minnow being the first fish of the day. A couple more followed all producing positive tugs on the tip. The little roach that followed only managed to produce a pathetic rattle on the tip.

How these little things get a size 16 and double maggot in their mouths I don't know. A few more of them followed. The final minnow of the session was grabbed by something as I wound in. Not a pike but a 1lb perch had taken it for a change. Amazingly the slightly battered minnow was still on the hook and swam away when released. Another smaller perch followed a couple of casts later. The a steady procession of gudgeon then followed.

During the lull that followed a family of swans swam sedately upstream.

Followed a little later by a cygnet that seemed to be desperately trying to catch them up.

With about half an hour to go before I had to be away a shoal of decent dace showed up in the swim. I'd had fourteen of them before with ten minutes to go. While I was checking the time on the phone I put the rod on the rest with the chewed maggots dangling a few inches below the surface. I saw the swirl as a little jack took a fancy to them. I didn't mess about, bundling it into the net as quick as I could. This brought proceedings to an end as it must have bitten through the line while in the net. No point in retackling now as I couldn't be late for my appointment.

Not a bad little session sat in a t-shirt watching a quiver tip bounce about.