Last Session of the Year

The last session of the year went much as expected, not particularly good. A wander round with a lure rod produce a small jack and after a couple of missed runs a slightly bigger jack came from the margins on smelt. Even the camera decided to let me down by producing slightly out of focus pictures.

Lets hope next year is a bit better.

Winter Walk

With only a couple of hours available to fish, I decide to take a walk along a stretch of river I hadn't fished in a long while. With jerk bait rod in hand the only thing I discovered was the fact it was a lot more snags than I remember. I spent nearly as much time bending hooks out of immovable objects as I did fishing. Still it was a proper, pleasant, windless winters day.

Dead Fish at Dawn

Arriving at the syndicate just before light, I soon had a popped up herring flung out along the bar in front of my chosen swim. A popped up eel section was dropped at the bottom of the bar and a sprat  in the margins. Some hours later the sprat bait was taken and a jack of exactly 5lb landed after giving the impression of a far larger fish. With the sun out it was now warm enough to remove may big coat. I had been moving the baits every 30-40 minutes, but this had failed to attract any pike. Two more runs occurred on the sprat, mid-afternoon. The first resulted in a waterlogged branch and the second left just a small bit of flesh on the hook.

After Sales Quickie

After entering one of these evil tackle emporiums that was having a sale and parting company with far more money then I intended, I headed down to the syndicate for a quick session with the lure rod.
A line through roach was tried first, despite the fact it really did look like a real fish it failed to attract any attention. I then moved to the other extreme with a fire tiger jerk bait which produced the goods in the shape of a 3-lb jack.

Bit Bigger Than a Jack

After a delayed start and heavier than normal traffic, I finally got to the syndicate water just before eleven. With little sign of any fish I decided to chuck a E-Sox Jell-Ignite about, after a couple of casts a three large perch followed the lure before speeding past it, followed by a jack not much bigger than them. Despite trying several more cast with different lures I was unable to attract any more action. 

I set up three dead bait rods. One, with lamprey section, was cast onto the far shelf. The nest, with half a herring, was cast across halfway and the third, with a smelt, was dropped on to the near shelf under the trees. The two furthest baits were moved a yard or so every 30 to 40 minutes. The near one swapped either side of the peg every hour or so.

Finally around 4 o'clock I got a few bleeps on the lamprey rod, which by now was at the bottom of the far shelf and wound in to some thing very solid. Clearly a powerful fish, it continued to hug the bottom and short powerful runs as I pumped it back some 40 yards. Eventually it was netted and was clearly heavier than it looked as I lifted it out of the water. I was rather surprised when the scales read 20lb 11oz. While it was rested in the landing net I re-weighed the weigh sling and then re-weighed the fish, definitely 20lb 11oz and 39" long.

Not a bad for the first decent fish of the pike season.

Syndicated Jacks

Despite a large collection of lures I spent a few hours wandering round the syndicate water through a good old Mepps Aglia about. This resulted in a few jacks and some very small perch, a fish whose greed will never cease to amaze me.

Tagging Trout

Had another paddle around the river today, in search of grayling. The resent rain had done it's job and raised the river about 6", covering areas that had been high and dry last weekend. With no sign of any activity on the surface I opted for a duo rig. First put in and a small trout grab the Red Tag Jig on the point. After fifteen minutes of catching nothing but willow leaves and weed I waded across to the middle to fish the deep run on the far side. AS I change the dropper fly for a drab shrimp to something a garish for the deeper water the rod tip whacked over. Another little brown trout had grabbed the Red Tag as it trailed in the water.

As a rainbow appeared I wondered if was natures way of apologising for the rain. Between showers I continued to fish various runs, mainly picking up willow leaves until another little trout grabbed the bright Pink shrimp on the dropper. A natter with a bait angler confirmed not much about but the occasional small 6-8" trout. Quite where the grayling have got to we had no idea.  Darkness quickly descended as I plodded back to the car. At least I didn't have the bullocks to contend with this time.