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.

Second Day Of The River Season 2024

 The weather forecast for the second day of the season wasn't good. Heavy downpours were predicted. Looking at the rain radar it looked like a trip northwards should miss them. So northwards I went. I arrived in lovely sunshine. The river was nearly a foot up, as expected, and rather peat stained. One problem I'd not thought about was the bankside vegetation which was some way into the river. The 15' rod reached over it though.

I'd brought my Deeper Sonar with me to do the depth finding rather than faffing with a plummet. A cast about with it showed there to be around eight and half foot on the near near third of the river before it slowly increased in depth to ten and a half foot three quarters of the way across. I set up a 7 No.4 alloy stemmed stick float shotted shirt-button style. I then proceeded to catapult out some hemp and maggots onto two lines when disaster struck. The catapult broke at the pouch. Throwing the hemp was OK but I could only just throw the hemp onto the far line I intended to fish.

 

Another angler came wandering down with the intention of fishing. He just wanted to see what the levels were like. He thought they were OK, but we may struggle to get more than a few fish. He also reckoned we wouldn't see more than a bit of drizzle. By the time he'd got back to his car the heavens had opened. I never saw him again. I think he'd sat in his car then given up. I should probably have done the same at this point. My rather elderly brolly was anything but waterproof. Me and everything else was getting soaked. As trotting was near on impossible I just layed the rig next to the vegetation and sat the rod in the rested and waited for the better weather that was on the horizon. I did try to keep feeding the two swims but really had no idea where the bait was landing.

When the rain eventually stopped I went to lift the float out of the water but it snagged on the vegetation. I gave it a bit of a annoyed tug and the whole lot wrapped itself around the rod tip. Time for something to eat. Re rigged I set about fishing in earnest. The sun had come back, making it quite a nice evening. It was the best part of an hour before I got my first bite which I promptly missed. Half an hour later a second bite which I managed to hit despite a large amount of slack in the line. Something gave a decent bend to the rod. I managed to keep it out of the nearside vegetation and get it in the net. I rather welcome hand sized perch. An other half hour passed before the next bite and in came a very welcome little tommy ruffe.

Two hours two fish. Not the best of going but two more species to the roster. I fished on for another hour for one chewed maggot before the arrival of drizzle suggested I pack up. The rain radar showed heavier rain due. Which arrived as I got in the car.

 

A rather frustrating days fishing but not a blank so I'll take it.

 

Today I made my way to the tackle shop for a new brolly and ended up with this rather fetching number that also doubles as an advertising hoarding.  So if it doesn't rain again you know who to thank. Along with some bait and a few bits and pieces I also managed to leave with a shiny new feeder rod.

Second Session of the 2022 River Season

Monday's venue was to be a section I hadn't fished this century. A slow deep section that has more renown as a winter venue. The first thing to do was open up a swim. One had been created but I fancied a stretch further downstream. Not that there was really much difference. Having spotted a big stand of Himalayan Balsam by the river I decide it would kill two birds with one stone. Create a swim and rid the country of a patch of these nasty weeds. Twenty minutes with the machete and a nice swim was created and a large area of balsam lay dead and dying.

I knew this stretch was deep so opted for a 3g Bolo float. Plumbing about showed there to be 15' 6" just beyond the rod tip and it remained that depth across the river. The old tactic was to use a slider float but with a 15' rod this wasn't needed, besides I never really like slider fishing on running water. A few droppers of hemp were put in and the maggot hook bait cast out. As the olivette settled the float bobbed about and the first of many tiny bleak was swung in. Their ability to intercept a bait as it plummets through the water is quit incredible. Next cast the bait got through the bleak and when it dipped I was into my first Tommy of the season.

If the bait got through the bleak I was able to pick up small roach and tiny dace, along with some mini gonks and the occasional minnow. I took to using the bait dropper to introduce the maggots as well as hemp in the hope of avoiding the bleak, but this didn't work as they dropped down to the bottom and were been taken where I expected the hemp to have ended up.

A lot of missed bites from the tiny dace grow rather frustrating so I decide to introduce some ground bait to see if I could attract something a tad larger. I introduced the groundbait further out and further upstream. The idea being if a I missed a bite on that line I could still run the bait over the hemp. After allowing the groundbait to do it's magic while I had a cuppa, the first trot down produced a small perch. The second trot had me into something a lot bigger that careered about the swim before snagging me up on the inside. Steady pressure had it free and a rather nice 37cm perch weighing 1lb 13oz was in the net.

After that performance it took a little while for the bites to start again. It was back to the tiny dace and occasional small roach, along with a couple of Tommys. For the last hour the bites were few and far between. I gave up before it got dark . Lifting the keepnet from the water there seemed to be a bit of a shortage of fish in it. Only one of the half dozen gonks was still there. I'd forgotten to repair the hole from the pike attack on the last session. I'll be back to this stretch as I think it has potential even if fishing at 15' is a bit of a chore.

Autumn Barbeling in Autumn

My original intention for today was to go pike fishing. Then I remembered that I'd chopped up all the old wire traces, I'm trying to tidy up a bit, and needed to make some new ones. As the barbel kit was still set up I decide to have another go for them. Unlike the last outing the weather was decidedly autumnal. The bit of heat in the sun, when it got through the clouds, just about made up for the chill breeze. There was also the occasional bit of drizzle thrown in as well. There was only one other angler when I got to the river. As I wandered along trying to decide which swim to fish I had the bright idea of fishing a swim that's never produced a barbel for me. Given that very few barbel have been coming out and the usual swim weren't producing it seemed a reasonable gamble.

I plonked a largish piece of meat and hemp feeder as close to the tree roots, on my left, as I dare with out snagging. On the upstream rod I had a worm and a plain lead which I was going to try various spots in the hope of picking up something. Somewhere behind the trees the buzzards were active judging by their squawks. When I did see them for a short while it looked like parents chasing their young away. This was confirmed by a man with binoculars who'd been watching them the day before. He also told me the red kite I'd seen previously had been chased away by the buzzards. The fishing was slow. In fact totally bite free until the middle of the afternoon when I wound in a tommy on the worm rod. I didn't even know it was hooked I just thought I had a load of crap on the line as usual.

The only other thing of note was a RAF A400 that came trundling past just as I was thinking it had been quiet on the aircraft front. The RAF do seem to like fly down the valley.

Talking to the only other  angler we agreed that it had generally been crap down here this autumn, apart from a brief period when the water rose. Time to get the pike kit sorted me thinks.