Seventh Day Fifth Session Of The 2023 River Season

 As I climbed over the stile-of-doom for the final session of the opening week I pondered whether it was a good idea to only have light trotting gear with me on a renowned barbel water. I also knew I may have a bit of a problem finding a swim suited to light float gear as most people fish for barbel. The first accessible swim I found was about two and a half foot deep and in the bright sunshine was seemingly devoid of anything but minnows. I chucked a few handfuls of hemp in with the intention of fishing it on my way back.

After negotiating a couple more stiles I found a nice looking swim on the end of a bend. With seven foot of water at the end of the fifteen foot rod it seemed an ideal place for a bit of not trying very hard to catch fish on the float. A 4 № 4 stick float shotted down with № 6 shot a trotted through nicely. Loose feeding hemp and maggots. I was soon getting chewed maggots. Moving the tell-tail shot closer to the hook and the first out was a small bleak. The pattern for the day was soon set as small bleak, dace, roach, and chublets were occasionally caught. I managed top get a steady rate by gradually shallowing the rig until it was about three from the bottom. This also vastly reduced the problem of chewed maggots. I didn't bother with photos of the fish as I, and you, don't really need any more photos of little tiddlers. I'd not brought the keepnet with me for some reason, either.

Occasionally I'd increase the depth to fish along the bottom but this just resulted in unmissable bites that I could hit and chewed maggots. I did try hemp on the hook a few times but nothing was interested. Some seventy one fish  landed and none needing the landing net. No pike bothering me. It had been a pleasant afternoon/evening. But I did fancy a go in the shallow swim. There seemed to be a few larger fish in it when I got there. They looked like chub around the pound mark. A few maggots tossed in seemed to attract their attention. A change of rig to a one swan loafer shotted with  five BB shot and a size fourteen hook with three maggots on was soon trotting down the run. One thing that was noticeable was how cold the water was. Stood in the shallows my feet could feel the cold through my wellies. Just before the float reached the weed where the chub were it dipped under and out came a little gudgeon. My first of the season. I could no longer see the occasional flash of the chub, so tossed a few more maggots in and climbed up the bank for a better view. No sign of them. I sat and waited, cup of tea in hand. Catapulting more maggots into the swim, but they failed to return.

I didn't want to be too late setting back home as there was going to be several road closures on my route and I didn't fancy spending time traipsing round the diversions. Also there is a nasty steep little climb back to the car. It had been I nice way to spend the opening week, trotting for whatever. No real complications. No rush to catch, just take it as it comes along. For the rest of the season I'll be trying to catch a barbel from all the Yorkshire rivers to which they are endemic. I'd also like a double on float.

Second Day Of The Yorkshire Trout Season 2023

 Second day of the trout season and peek at the river gauges showed the head waters to be dropping. As the others fancied a walk I offered to taxi them to somewhere nearby. The only problem with Sundays in touristy areas is the Sunday drivers who seem to be completely baffled by single track roads and passing places. They seem to think everybody else should use the passing place but not them, unless they want a picnic. Thankfully there was still some space at the parking spot. It was noticeably colder up here. The river had dropped and while it still had a bit of a peaty tinge to it didn't look bad. While having a cuppa I got set up. I was just going to fish spiders so set up the classic triumvirate of Waterhen Bloa, Partridge and Orange, and Snipe and Purple.

Having found my way into the field I was a bit puzzled as to how you got to the river as there was a barbedwire fence between me and the river.Waders and barbed wire are not a good combination. Eventually I spotted a gate and was on the river bank. The wading staff proved it's worth navigating through the tree roots. My preferred method is to fish upstream, but the trees weren't going to make it easy so I settled for up and across. This makes it relatively easy to sort of spey-cast the flies back upstream. The third or fourth cast and the tip of the fly line jagged in the current and a strike had me into a little fish of 6-8" which came adrift when I caught the rod tip in the branch above me. It had taken the bloa on the point. I had a few more casts in the area before moving on. I worked my way back upstream towards the car.

After a spot of lunch and a brief flurry of sleet I headed further upstream. with a euro nymph setup. This didn't last long as all it seemed to do was get snagged between the stones even though it wasn't heavily weighted. I changed back to the spider rig and with a bit more room was able to fished directly upstream. After half an hour I had my second take of the day but lost it when the little beastie jumped. A little bit further on I got another take which was hooked and lost almost immediately. Next cast I was in again. Again it slipped the hook when I lost my footing fumbling for the landing-net. Luckily I was stood in only a couple of inches of water so only ended up with a sore bum rather than a soaking. Not long after the alarm on the phone went which meant I had to be off to pick the others up. 

No trout to the net but at least I'd hooked some so I'm taking that as a win. Back at the car I watched a Grey Wagtail for a while. for a bird with an obvious yellow underside it's not well named. It has as much yellow as the Yellow Wagtail. It may also be time for a set of waders with a zipper. Either that or don't have a big mug of tea before fishing.

The Stile of Doom

 Having successfully negotiated The Stile Of Doom, the one that maimed me last year, and got to the top of the hill I had my first sight of the river. It looked wider, browner, and deeper than it should have. I'd looked at the levels the night before, at that time it was dropping having risen nearly eighteen inches the night before.  I'd forgotten about the second wave of rain that moved across The Dales which had lifted it again. I decided to give it a go even so. There river has plenty of bends here so there should be a few slacks  on the inside of the bends.

After a bit of a trudge I found half-a-dozen slacks into which I drop a few bits of chopped up fish soaked in sardine oil. The first swim I fished surprised me being nearly ten foot deep a foot from the bank and nearly fourteen foot three foot further out. First bait out of the cool bag was a lamprey section, so this was dropped a foot from the bank on a float ledger rig. There it sat for forty minutes or so before being moved further out. After a half hour or so I put a smaller weight on and shallowed up so the bait was about a foot from the bottom and let the float drift about for fifteen minutes. 

On to the next swim and the same tactics although this swim was somewhat shallower at eight foot. With no action after ninety minutes I moved on. As I arrived at the third swim there was a splash and a swirl. Pike feeding I thought (hoped). The furry face of an otter popped up took one look at me and dived again. I wondered if it had been feeding on the fish bits I'd tossed in earlier. Despite the otter I gave it a go while I had a cuppa. As it was a tad bigger than the other swims I put half a small mackerel out on the ledger rod in the main current. It took four ounces of lead to hold bottom. Again a blank. I did wonder whether to spend a bit longer in the swim but decided my best hope was to move. 

The fourth swim was a snag pit. I could feel the lead hitting branches on the way down. By now the river had dropped six inches and the fifth slack had all but disappeared. I tried dropping a bait in but it was soon dragged out into the main current. The sixth slack, though, had turned into a larger slack, so out went both baits. I spent two and a half hours in this swim as I was now hungry so spent lunch time there as well. Not that the extra time help as nothing was feeding  apparently. A bit of a scout round and another slack had appeared where there wasn't one before. Again devoid of feeding fish.

 

 

That was it one otter, an egret, some long tail tits, and no fish. The Wharfe is  bit of a bogey water for me when it comes to pike. I've had more pike attack swim feeders and maggots when I've been winding in than I've hooked and landed while pike fishing. I'll crack it one day though, provided I remember to look at the water levels before I set off.

The River Has Risen

It does seem to be far to warm for piking at the moment, but I was all set. While checking the river levels, on Thursday, I noted that the upper Wharfe was rising. From past experience this would arrive at my favoured barbel spot on Friday morning.  Sure enough checking the river levels Friday morning and it was rising. So barbel fishing it was. The river was, as expected, up by about 6-8" and carrying a bit of colour. Not too coloured though as I could see the bottom about a foot or so down. There didn't seem to be too many leafs coming down either.

By now it had warmed up quite a bit and by the time I got to the swim I was mafted. There didn't appear to be need of the fleece and  bib 'n' brace. The sun kept popping out from behind the clouds as well. I did have the gumption to bring the clip ons with me as I would be sat on the northern back so face straight into the sun when it appeared. A big lump of meat was dropped under an overhanging tree downstream. I decided to see if a 120g feeder would hold bottom in the far bank gully. As the feeder got about two thirds the way across I was dazzled by the sun as it appeared from behind the clouds and lost tack of the feeder. The dull thud as it hit the far bank let me know where it had landed. A quick tug and it was in the water. It held for a few minutes before the debris slowly started to drag it downstream. Looking into the river with the polarizing lenses I could see the problem. For every leaf floating along the  surface a dozen were drifting along under water. It looked like both rods would be fishing the inside line. One downstream, one upstream.

As I sat waiting for a bite I got the impression I was been watched. Looking round I could see know one, but the impression still lingered. I then saw the reflection on the water and looking up a red kite was hovering in the breeze that got up. By the time I'd got my phone for a photo it had dropped over the flood bank and disappeared towards the trees. This spooked a couple of pheasant. I had to recast every 20-30 minutes to clear the leafs from the line which wasn't too bad, but because of the breeze that had sprung up more leafs were floating down on the surface as well. The baits were now lasting about ten minutes before been dragged away, so I had a wander about looking at other swims to see it any had less leafs floating down. I found one that didn't have any on the surface and which was a nice 3-4' deep gully on the inside. No sooner had I got the rods out when a great raft of leafs came drifting down. Thy had been piled up behind a partial sunken branch, but the weight must have got too much and pushed the broken branch to one side. One rod nearly got dragged in as I was winding the other in. I sat and had my lunch hoping the leafs would clear, but with the branch out of the way they were just getting funnelled down the inside.

By now the river had peaked and was starting to drop very slowly. I considered packing up as it all looked a bit futile and given I was the only one fishing it was clear other appeared to have known better. I had another wander about and found a swim with a large slack in it. I decided I'd give it a go. While I was sorting my self out after the move a very pale looking heron flew along the far bank. I took me quite a while, staring at it, to realise it was in fact an Egret just as it disappeared behind the trees. This is the first one I've seen up here which was quite pleasing.

I dropped a pellet into a crease down stream and meat into the same crease upstream. As i prepared  a cuppa the pellet o buckled over and the baitrunner clicked away. After a spirited fight in which the fish attempted to pass me and swim upstream like a big barbel I had one of 6lb 9oz in the net. Mission accomplished. With darkness arriving so early and suddenly at the moment I thought that would do. so started to pack up. When I opened the feeder to remove the pellet debris I found a little minnow inside, so I'd caught two fish.

I wish I'd remembered about the big slack earlier as I think it may have produced more. Still mission accomplished.

Long Way Round

A combination of decorating, angling, and incompetence is why this blog is late. I have four days fishing available to me this week. Undecided where to go I put all the club waters in a program and which selected one at random on Monday morning, and knocked it of the list. I'll use this whenever I'm undecided. First pick was a section of the Wharfe I hadn't fished for years and hadn't really done very well on when I had fished it. The other problem I always had was finding the parking spots and access paths. A trend I continued Monday. I found the parking spot. I then dutifully followed the signed path which seemed, at times, to be taking me away from the river and seemed to be overly log. Sure enough I ended up a good distance from where I wanted to be, a spot recommended in the tackle shop.. As luck would have it on the way back down stream I came across an interesting looking swim. A narrower deeper channel on the far bank caused by a load of stone on the near bank. I was setting up an hour later than intended, but did have high hopes for this swim.

The rig was to be a 4.4g Loafer with an olivette just above a 3.3lb hook length and a size 16 hook. The next problem was finding a spot among the rocks for the bait tray. I found one just before the level dropped away just above wellie level. I was going to bring waders, but decided I couldn't be arsed carting them about.  So I had a five foot deep channel with an 18" deep slack on my side of the bank. Having found a spot to get the bankstick in for the camera I thought I'd have a couple of trots down to see how the framing was. Second trot I was on. At first I didn't think it was very big, but as I pulled it over into the shallow slack it decided to head back into the main current. Barbel, which I suspected it was, don't like been dragged into shallow water and tend to go berserk. Eventually a nice little battling barbel was landed and after a quick photo was rested in the landing net while I checked the video. I'd forgot to switch it to record.

While the barbel was resting I had another go at checking the framing. Some more hemp was added to the swim and the double maggot trotted down and I was in again. Like the first barbel this one came up stream quit easily at first. It then realised it was hooked and started to kick up a fuss.  After a little while I seemed to lose control of it and couldn't get it to go where I wanted it to.  With a bit of extra force I got it to the surface to discover that the line had wrapped round the dorsal fin. It took ages before I managed to net it, after tipping the first barbel out of the net. A bigger fish than the first but not huge. Thankfully I'd switched record on and the framing was sort of OK. 

I had to re-rig as the line had been damaged by the dorsal fin. When I went to release barbel from the landing net I discovered I'd managed to break it. Thankfully I (nearly) always carry a telescopic storm pole, which I mainly use to aid the descent of steep, overgrown banks. The next few fish were a mixture of small dace and chublets. 

The steady flow of small fish was disrupted by the arrival of assorted moo cows some of whom wanted a drink. While I guarded the tackle from the nosey cattle I had myself a sandwich and a cuppa. After the cattle departed I was back fishing again with the largest barbel of the day coming after a quiet spell. Another spirited fish that didn't like been dragged into the shallows. Soon after the smallest barbel of the day arrived with only a little bit of fuss. Again fishing was disrupted. This time by the swan family hat decided it wand to go back upstream from whence they came.

 
This stretch is tidal at times, depending on water level, moon phase, etc. Sometimes it's barely noticeable, but this time it was rising quite quickly and the fast channel all but disappeared. Also it was now and inch from the top of my wellies. Having got everything to the bank before it was over the top of them I contemplated what to do next. With a satisfactory session and the thought of the long walk back to the car I opted to call it a day.

 Considering I was fishing less than three hours what with the interruptions I don't think that was a bad session at all. Luckily I didn't have a long walk back. I spotted a dog walker arriving from the direction of the car and asked them about the paths. While it looks like a short walk back to the car there are several fields with hedges so you could end up wandering about looking for the gates. Apparently a footpath sign has gone missing and would have saved me a lot of time on the way down. Once you know where the path is from the car park it's obvious. Some of the paths, though, are ones worn by the cattle and will just take you round the fields if you follow them.