Fifth Day Of The River Season 2024

 Fifth day of the river season and the fourth river. Two days since I got a new brolly and I've been lucky enough not to have to us it. The venue has steps cut in the bank and platforms at the bottom. All very nice but the steps could be smaller and the platforms bigger. Even so It'll do. I had a cast round with the Deeper. I found just under four foot by the side of the weeds on the nearside and eleven and a half foot a third of the way across. One rod with a 4xNo6 wire stemmed stick float and the fifteen footer with a 4g bolo float.

 

I started on the inside line flicking some maggots in and trotting the float as close as possible to the weeds with out snagging. I got plenty of chewed maggots before bringing in a little bleak. While I like to see the return of bleak to the river they can be a damned nuisance. Especially when small. After two or three of them I got a small perch then some tiny dace and chublets. The problem was most of the time I just ended up with chewed maggots. While this was going on I'd been firing hemp and maggots out to the far swim.

 

I gave the far swim a try and after a few trots down managed a decent perch before a couple of boats came past from opposite directions. Both swims went quiet, so I had a cuppa. When I lifted the long rod out, having finished my cuppa, a little perch had taken a liking to the chewed maggots. The inside line was still full of tiny little bleak and like, so back out on the Far line. It was a fish a chuck for half a dozen casts. All reasonable sized roach, before I bumped one off and everything going quiet.

Over the next half hour or so I picked up a couple more roach on the far line and a couple of tiny ones on the inside. The last two fish of the session came right at the bottom of the far run. A couple of silver bream. I couldn't fish any further down as the tree to my right blocked my view. Twenty seven fish for 3lb 7oz. Not a great catch, but fun none the less on the float. It wouldn't have won the match on the Sunday as that was won with 30lb+ of bream. In fact I don't think it would have got me a section prize.

A very enjoyable four hours in pleasant sunshine . The only downside was the very vocal lambs on the other side of the river They really were very loud and persistent.

Sixth Day Fourth Session Of The 2023 River Season

 The most exciting part of yesterday's fishing expedition was finding the river. The Dunesfordes are dead end villages. I'd never fished this section before so wasn't quite sure where I was going The sat nav seemed to get confused as you're never sure whether you're on public or private roads. Eventually, after missing a turn hidden behind the apex of a bend and driving into the wrong field I spotted the club sign on a gate. The track through the fields down to the river wasn't as obvious as I'd hoped so I got out and had a wander. It was more obvious on foot than from the car. Eventually I got my way to the river bank despite the apathetic sheep that seemed to be in no hurry to get out of my way. Must be something to do with the solstice.

The river was much as expected. Some 40 yards wide and 2 to 3 fathoms deep. Even though it was some 6" up on normal summer levels there was still very little flow. A brief natter with the only other angler there made me wonder why I'd bothered. He was struggling for bites and had only a couple of small dace for a couple of hours fishing. He said that the all over the place gusty breeze made presentation hard work. There weren't a lot of swims that were easily accessible so I just plumped  for one near where I'd come to a halt in the car.

I set up two rigs.  A 3g slim bolo at 13' for 3 rod lengths out. and a 5g slider rig at 15' for the middle of the river. Hemp and maggots for the inside line and groundbait and maggots for the middle of the river. The middle line was the first to produce with a tiny roach on double maggot. Bites were hard to come by though. A bleak was next up from the middle of the river. I then changed to the inside and had a couple of dace. I then got my hopes up when I got a 6-8oz chub. No more bites were forthcoming so I went out to the middle again and had a slightly larger chub. For the rest of the session I just picked up the odd dace here and there. The other chap left before me and had had a dozen or so small roach and dace. I ended up with 15 fish, 1 roach, 1 bleak, 2 chub, and 11 dace.

Not the most productive day but I wasn't pestered by pike for a change. People tell me this is a winter venue but i know good bags can be had in summer.

Fourth Day Second Session Of The 2023 River Season

 Monday's session took place on a larger deeper slower river. By deeper I mean ten foot deeper at fourteen foot. I set up two rods. One with a 5g Bolo float and the other with a big stick. The rods were fifteen foot Greys Toreon with Daiwa 120M reels. ).16mm reel line and 0.120mm hook lengths with Drennan carbon match hooks in size 16 completed the set up. For bait I'd intend to fish maggot over hemp, but had forgotten to put he hemp in the bag so loose fed maggots it was.

Things didn't get of to a flying start when the first fish turned out to be a minnow. The next fish a while later was a bleak. On the next trot down I hooked a small perch which shot up stream faster than I could wind. The big swirl as I lifted it out showed why. It was being hunted by a pike. Things then went quiet for the best part of an hour. I alternated between the big stick and the bolo. The big stick rig produced a couple of minnows.

I continued to feed but only at every other cast. I missed the next bite as I was busy watching a barn owl quartering the field opposite. I wound in to find something of a reasonable size on the end. After a bit of a spirited fight a perch of 1lb 10oz was in the net. At no point in the fight did it feel like a perch. No head shakes, just sheer speed. Things then went quiet again.

Another hour or so passed before I started to get bites on the big stick rig. For the next hour and a half there was a steady flow of fish. Dace, bleak, roach, and the occasional chublet came in. You didn't know what the next bite would be from. They were all in the same area though, roughly where I expected the loose feed to hit the river bed. It then went quiet again. As I was running low on bait I called it a day. A total of forty six fish for 5lb 8oz, although nearly a third of that weight was the big perch. You can see why match anglers often set up an inside line for the odd perch like that.

Alarming Failure

The threat of a heat wave type thing suggested an early start might be a good option. For an early start you have to be up early. This normally involves and alarm which you have to set the night before. Which I didn't, so ended up waking a lot later than intended. I changed my plans to fish match hours instead. As it was it didn't get quite as hot as expected, partially due to a nice breeze. I was fishing further downstream then my last couple of visits as I'd been reminded that there was access available to the middle of this long stretch.

 

Tactics were to be much the same, though I intended to use a slider this time. I'd been through my float collection and picked a few appropriate ones out, but I'd failed to put them in the bag. As I've mentioned before I always seem to forget something. I'm trying to keep things to a minimum but this means taking things in and out of the bag and invariably something goes missing. A slider would have been wonderful today. While there was a twelve foot deep shelf a rod length out it was full of debris. Nearly every trot down I snagged some weed or reeled in a twig. Two rod lengths out it was sixteen and half foot deep. With a fifteen foot rod this was going to be fun.

 

I also set up a waggler rod at about twelve foot initially in case the fish were higher up in the water. I could shallow this up if needed. Out went the groundbait laced with maggots well downstream. I then loose fed maggots for the waggler rod hopping they would land near the ground bait. An hour with the waggler rod produced two minnows, a small roach, and a tiny dace. A change to the bolo set up got me a couple of perch and a couple of chewed maggots. Despite trying all sorts of depths  and things I then failed to get so much as a chewed maggot of a couple of hours. Then in the last hour I managed half a dozen decent dace and six roach. It was hard work for an average of one fish every fifteen minutes. There clearly wasn't many fish in the swim.

 

You can tell how much I was concentrating on getting bites, I only took three photos.

What a Load of Bolo

 For the last day of the month I headed down to the slow deep stretch of the Derwent again. This time I was (slightly) better prepared as I'd put a couple of bait droppers in the bag. I'd also dusted of an old Harlow 'pin. A big beast at 5¼" diameter. The reason it hadn't been used for a long time is that the reel foot is larger than modern reels. This means it doesn't fit a lot of modern reel seats but it did just fit the Greys 15'.

On the way to the swim I collected a bit of soil from a molehill to add to the groundbait. The ix was a simple one; dark breadcrumb, molehill soil and crushed hemp. Mixed firmly it should get down the bottom of the 15' deep swim before breaking up. I was also going to introduce maggots and hemp with a bait dropper in the hope this would not attract as many small dace or bleak. This idea seemed to fail as the first fish out was a minnow, but this turned out to be the only one of the session. My other attempt at avoiding the little bits was to use a 6g bolo float. I reckoned it would be enough weight to get past the bits.

After the minnow it was a little while before the next fish showed up. Mainly gudgeon with a few small dace mixed in. I put a dropper of hemp and maggots every half dozen casts and a ball of groundbait every thirty minutes, or so. Eventually some decent sized dace turned up but I had trouble hitting the bites at times. This was probably down to the size of the float. I think a slider may be a better option, even if I don't like fishing them, as it would allow me to strike through the float.

After another lull the roach turned up. Mainly hand sized or smaller. Their bites were a lot easier to hit being a lot slower. Out of no where I struck into to something bigger. At first I thought it was a perch but when it surfaced it was a larger roach. A rather nice fish around the pound mark. I managed a couple more smaller ones before are rather large pike turned up and snaffled one I was reeling in. I managed to play it for half a minute before it bit me off.

Obviously things went rather quiet after this, but I did manage three smaller perch before bites dried up completely. I did try down the edge but this just produced a lot of chewed maggots. I did manage 7lb 2oz of bits. Although 15% of the weight was the one large roach.

I think I'll have to sort the slider floats out for these deeper venues. Once they get beyond 10' they're a bit problematic. Especially when heavy weights are used to avoid the bleak and minnows.