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.

A Wander Along An Old Stretch

Tuesday I fished a stretch of river I'd not fished for years and years. Nor had anybody else by the look of things. I did eventually find three or four accessible swims, but none them really had room for a spot of float fishing. The trees growing out into the river meant I couldn't see very far down stream, so I resorted to feeder fishing maggot. As I'd finally acquired a lighter 1oz tip for the rod it would be a useful to see if it would be as useful as I'd hoped. It was. The minnows would whack the tip round like a barbel bite.

After battling through a succession of minnows a tiny dace then an equally tiny roach showed up.

These were quickly followed by a brace of the perch. The largest being 1lb 6oz.

 

Things went rather quiet after that. I stuck it out for another fifteen minutes with out a bite before moving to the next swim. This too produced an awful lot of minnows to start with.

Eventually a shoal of bleak moved in grabbing the hook bait is it dropped through the water. You could see the tip bouncing about as the bait fell. 

After a little lull the next fish to take the bait as it dropped was a small jack pike. Not what you want. More minnows followed before a little bullhead grabbed the bait. I was then bitten off twice by small jacks. So decided to move on.

The third swim seemed to be devoid of minnows as I proceeded to catch several gudgeon before things went quiet for a while.

I then got bit off by another very small jack. This was immediately followed by half a dozen reasonable sized dace. Another little jack grabbed the maggots as I wound in. It proceeded to cause havoc as I unhooked it. It managed to flip as I got the hook out and catch my left hand pinky. It then flipped again and cleared the net landing back in the water. I managed to get a plaster on the half inch long cut which continued to bleed profusely.

The next time I wound in a larger jack grabbed the feeder and bit me off. That was it. I only had a handful of maggots left anyway. Time to back up. The expense of the extra tip for the feeder rod has been worth it as I hit a lot more bites than I had with the heavier tip. I think another trip later in the year, when the vegetation has died back, may be on the cards.

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.

An Incomplete Guide To Short Range Feeder Fishing

 I set out early Tuesday morning in the hope of avoiding the worst of the hot muggy day. It had been my intention the float fish along the edge of a swim I'd fished before. This was not to be though. A bit of plumbing after running the Deeper through the swim showed it to be five foot deep before dropping to seven and a half foot very quickly before rising to six foot equally quickly. I'd accidentality landed the feeder in the hole which had got me a fair few fish last time. It was about four foot from the bank and a couple of rod lengths downstream. So out with the feeder rod and a 30g blackcap. Double maggot as usual. First fish up was a gudgeon. This was soon followed by the inevitable minnow.

There was then a bit of a lull before the next bite. A bit of a rattle then the tip pulled over looking for all the world like a bream bite. The strike showed otherwise. Clearly a perch from the thump, thump, thump. A nice one at that. Over the next forty minutes eight more followed. Most over the pound mark and most with a mouth full of maggots. One smaller fish had a different mouthful in the shape of a small fry and a 4" skinned bullhead.

After the run of perch it again went quiet. I took the opportunity to have a breakfast cuppa. During this time there wasn't a single rattle to the tip. I did, however, nearly end up in the river one one of the chair legs disappeared into a hole. I had to carefully rearrange the seat after that.  After a recast I nearly got the rod ripped out of the rod rest. All I ended up with though was a scale and a couple of chewed maggots. The next cast the rod was still in my hand and the feeder hadn't hit bottom when the rod wrenched over. A bit of a frantic battle ensued for a minute or so before a jack pike came thrashing to the surface. Neatly hooked in the scissors it must have taken the maggots on the drop.

After another lull the bites came thick and fast. I think I hit one in four. There was all sorts down there. You didn't know what was coming up next. Roach, dace, chub, gudgeon all put in an appearance over the next hour or so. Mainly small fish which accounted for the poor hook up rate. I suppose a smaller hook and a single maggot may have solved this problem but I was getting enough fish anyway.

By now the heat was getting a bit much for. I'm not a hot weather person, but sweat dripping down you while you're sat still is a bit silly. I cast out again but something was a bit odd. The feeder never hit the bottom but the line had gone slack. Winding in a came into contact with something in front of me which continued up stream. It felt a bit bigger than everything bar the pike. Eventually I got it to the surface and found I was into another jack. This proved to be a little bugger at the net. Four times it jumped out before I got it on the bank. I did think of packing up then but had a few last casts with the remainder of the maggots. I got bites the moment the feeder hit the bottom. Bleak a shoal of bleak had moved in. Now was the time to pack up. I wasn't faffing about trying to catch beak on a feeder rod.

It wasn't a bad mornings fishing especially as I haven't done particularly well early morning on rivers. Normal evening had been better. I may have to try mornings more often.