Cold Snap

I wasn't going to bother turning out last weekend, but a mate of mine suggested the fish would be feeding up to beat the cold weather that was on the way. Like a fool I took his advice and headed out on Saturday afternoon for a short session. The only good thing about it was the lack of rain. The wind was howling out of the east and, although it wasn't actually freezing, sure to be cooling the water.

At least I was able to fish my baits accurately and it wasn't long before the left hand rod signalled a jiggling bite. Lifting into the fish it felt like a real good one. A few shakes of the head suggesting it wasn't another of those odd carp things. It was coming in nicely until it got half way back when it swirled on the surface. My suspicions were aroused. Closer in and it rolled leaving me with spots before my eyes. When it hit the margins it took off to the left making me backwind like mad. There were a couple more runs like that from the net, one going round the line on the middle rod, before I had the daft thing on the bank. Where it went mental.

It's no wonder people kill trout when they catch them. It must make getting the hook out a lot easier. As it was this one unhooked itself in the net. Or so I thought. After I'd returned the fish and was sorting the mess out I discovered the hooklink had snapped.

With everything back to normality I settled down to the routine of recasting the cage feeders at regular intervals and drinking tea. There wasn't much birdy activity. Too cold and windy I reckon. I'd managed to pick a spot that gave me some shelter from the Siberian blast, so sitting it out until dark wasn't a great hardship.

Recent sessions had seen a chance of action around three o'clock. When the left hand bobbin dropped back around the witching hour I thought I was in business. Lifting into the fish there was a heavy weight, a few head shakes, but a horrible feeling of déja vu. Sure enough when the fish hit the margin it tore off, this time along the surface. I began to get a strange feeling that this was the same stupid trout. In the net and probing for the hook with my disgorger, sure enough, there was the hook that had snapped off in the net right next to the one attached to my rig. After removing both hooks I returned the fish hoping it would have had enough of my maggots for the day. The sky was clear and it was still fairly light when I finally gave in and packed up at five.

Sunday was cold and the week following I was tied up with work. Now there's snow around, and solid water, I'm keeping my nose to the grindstone until I can make the most of the feeding frenzy my mate assures me the roach will go on when things warm up...

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A testing session

It being the penultimate Sunday of the river season, a warm and sunny one at that, I expected the river to be busy. It was. With just enough room for one car in the car park I was still hopeful of getting the swim I fancied, as it's not a popular one. Sure enough the anglers fishing were grouped in the expected places and the run below the rapids was free. With the sky as clear as the river I reckoned the deeper water, particularly out by the crease, might be worth a chuck. Not expecting much action until the sun began to drop I left my gear and had a wander. Talking to two anglers who had both just returned their first fish of the day, it was two in the afternoon and they'd arrived around nine in the morning, it seemed like the light needed to fade before the fish would feed well. I wandered back to my swim and took my time setting up. There was no rush.

It's always a pity the river season doesn't last another fortnight. The weather so often starts to turn pleasantly warm around late February and into March. This was one of those days when the bunny suit wasn't really required until later in the day. There was little wind to take the edge off the sun's warmth. By the time I had all my gear arranged round my chair and two baits in the water I was ready for a cup of flask tea.

Despite a mid-week frost and the river having dropped and cleared it had risen in temperature to just shy of 7c. This time out I left the barbel rods and boilies at home. Perhaps I shouldn't have done given the conditions?  Then again I wanted to catch chub, not barbel and to try one of my 1.75lb Torrixes as a chub rod. I had rigged it up to fish a lump of three-year-old cheese paste on a size six hook to a 3lb 6oz Reflo Powerline hooklength. The rig was the same helicopter rig I use for the maggot feeder, but I chose to fish it with a straight lead and let the paste do the attracting. It certainly stank well enough! The other rod fished the same as last time out, a single red maggot on a 16. But this time I had some hemp and pellets to add to the maggots in the feeder.

It took a while for bites to materialise. A couple of hours in fact. During the quiet spell I was surprised to see some small fish in the margins. The minnows don't usually show up at this time of year, and looking at the size of some of the fish they hadn't long hatched. What they were I don't know. They did seem to prefer the maggots I threw to them over the pellets and hemp though. Perhaps they were trout fry?

A bigger surprise was that the first proper bite, I'd had a few plucks to the maggot, was to the paste. The rod tip bounced continuously and I lifted into a decent feeling fish that woke up half way in. So much for waiting for the light to go. I'd had the choice of fishing to the right of a bush with a nice clean margin of sloping sand, or to its left with a jumble of sunken branches at my feet. Like a fool I chose the latter, so as I dropped my landing net in the edge it drifted with the eddy straight into the wood and got tangled. I managed to keep a tight line to the fish and free the net. But it was touch and go.

The Torrix did its job well, although I think it would be even better if it was a tad lighter in test curve, and maybe a little softer in the butt. Even so I never felt like the hooklength was in danger or parting.

Safely netted it was time to unhook the chub. At first glance I saw my hooklength had snapped. Closer inspection revealed that the broken line was considerably thicker than what I'd been using, and my hooklength hadn't parted at all. How a chub of four and a half pounds had bust off someone fishing with what looked like ten pound mono I don't know. The hook was deep but easily retrieved and had the remains of two white maggots on it. It was also a fairly heavy gauge hook that had partially opened out. Maybe the chub had picked up a snagged rig?

Having forgotten my keepnet last time out I was better prepared, so the chub was slipped safely into the net read to be joined by a host of it's shoalmates.

Next cast in the maggot rod signalled a positive bite. A wriggling, writhing fish suggested a trout, but no. It was a small grayling which I returned immediately. A repeat performance ten minutes later the maggot rod was in action again, this time it was a trout, and another followed another ten minutes after. That was the biggest trout of the day. And as it turned out the final fish too.

I continued to get plucks to the maggot rod as the light faded, but nothing positive save for one that broke the hooklink. The paste rod was also in action, but again nothing that I managed to connect with. I think I should have cast it further upstream after dark to improve the chances of fish hooking themselves. I had neglected to fit the rod with an isotope so seeing the bites was a bit of a problem. A problem touch legering would have solved I suppose.

Having become spoiled by the quality of photos that my DSLR produces compared to my flip-screen camera I used this opportunity to try the DSLR for a self-take or two. I had made a device to allow me to operate my radio remote release with a knee or foot and it had worked fine in the house. On the bank it didn't work at all! I was, therefore, reduced to holding it in my right hand while holding the fish. Which actually worked quite well. A bracket adaptor to take a bulb release like I have for my smaller camera would work better though, and not depend on batteries to function. Framing is a a bit troublesome without a flip-screen, but not insurmountable. I managed well enough with my previous fishing camera, and the larger sensor of the DSLR allows cropping while maintaining better image quality than my flip-screen camera at full frame. Out of four shots one was pretty good. With more practice, and shifting the camera off auto, I'll get better results.

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No pressure

These last two weeks or so I've been in enforced idleness, and I still am - waiting for cork to materialise from somewhere overseas. It's been a case of promises, promises. Mostly I've been occupying my time with the camera, but after two consecutive afternoons on a windswept beach shooting thrill seeking kite boarders I needed a day of rest.

 The idea of some chub fishing was appealing. More so after a pre-lunch call from a friend who had caught a couple of clonkers a few days earlier. A quick check of the river level on the internet and it was a hasty snack followed by a hectic gathering of tackle and bait. With the car loaded I headed away from the river to buy a pint of red maggots with a sprinkling of whites followed by a U-turn to the motorway.

The morning had seen a frost lightly covering the lawn but by the time I arrived at the river the day felt warmer than it was. The strong wind that had the kiters out in force over the weekend had subsided and birdsong could be heard coming from the woods over the river. There was one white van parked up and it  was no surprise to me to see who the owner was, making a brew in the back of it. As he headed back to the river I loaded myself up and followed.

The idea of a social session, fishing close to Eric appealed, but the big crease was a stronger draw. After all, I'd come to catch fish. The water temp was a shade over 5C so my hopes of a barbel on the boilie rod were low. It was cast out slightly downstream and left to fish for itself.

The chub rod was fishing the same rig I'd last used on the river, down to the size 16 hook. The colour was dropping out of the river as the level continued to fall and I reasoned a fine approach might be best for a bite or two. When rummaging in the freezer for my ancient ball of cheese paste I found two carrier bags of what I hoped were liquidised bread and crushed pellets. It turned out one was pellet and hemp mush, which I didn't want, and the other was crushed halibut pellets, which would have to do. Some of the lumps were too big to pass through the holes in the feeder, so not ideal, but they'd still give off a flavour/scent trail. The 30g feeder was heavy enough to hold and was half filled with the crushed pellets before being topped up with maggots.

Within a quarter of an hour of starting out the frequent recasting started to work and a few tentative taps registered on the quiver tip. From previous experience I have found that when double maggot produces enquiries a single maggot can produce bites. And so it proved. The first blank saving fish of the day was a brownie of half a pound or so that came along after an hour and a  quarter. I had had one really positive bite before hand that had smashed my light hooklink and after which the bites dried up. Possibly a barbel, perhaps a decent chub, maybe even an energetic trout.

Around three quarters of an hour later, at twenty-five past four, still in broad daylight now that spring is approaching rapidly, while talking to Eric who had come up for a chat, I lifted into another positive bite and felt something a bit heavier on the end. It wasn't powering away as a barbel would have done, nor was it charging about like a stupid trout. I'd hooked what I'd come for. Once on the shallows I got a glimpse of the fish and it looked quite small, three pounds or less. It wasn't until I lifted the net that I realised why it had taken so long to get in. A stocky and scale perfect chub that surprised us both by spinning the needle to 4lb 13oz. Not a monster, but my biggest fish of the year so far! Eric obliged with the camera, and I even cracked a smile - of sorts!

Half an hour after the chub a sea trout came along, of a similar size to it's brown cousin I had caught earlier. It's that time of year when the river sees the salmon trying to make their way back to the sea. I guess some manage it, but the majority we notice are in a sorry state. If not already dead they are gasping fungus clad specimens clearly destined to become carrion. As one creature dies so others are born. Such is nature's way. Lambs bleating upstream and the constant chinking and trilling of birds in the wood a sure sign the cycle continues.
The sky was cloudy but bright for most of the afternoon, clearing briefly towards sunset when the tops of the far bank trees glowed warmly in the light, the trunks in contrasting shade.

The ruddy glow picked out a stone barn on the other side of the river and I couldn't resist taking a few shots with my fishing camera. I wished I'd packed the DSLR when I reviewed the photos at home, they don't come close to doing the views justice.

In the fading light the tip sprang back once more and after playing the fish gently, as I couldn't remember how strong (or weak) my hooklink was, I landed another chub. A rather tatty-tailed and missing-scaled fish of four pounds-six which I returned without a photograph. It was then I wondered if I should have taken my keepnet along.  Unlike barbel, which can return to a shoal without ill effect on sport, a returning chub appears to spook the rest of the fish in the swim. I always take the keepnet when after roach or dace for the same reason.

My original intention had been to fish until six thirty to avoid teh rush hour traffic on my way home, but when 'Just a Minute' came on the radio I decided to stick it for anther forty-five minutes until 'The Archers' ended. They proved to be forty-five biteless minutes. It was a surprise that I didn't start feeling cold once the light had gone. The air temperature had dropped some four degrees from my arrival, yet it felt quite pleasant. I guess two days in a biting wind must have hardened me up!

Even so it was nice to pack the gear away and head for home. I'd gone a long time with just a flask of tea and one Nutrigrain bar. I needed refueling.

This session drove home to me how much more enjoyable it is to do something when you really want to do it, with nothing to prove, than to do it because you think you should or because you are trying to hit a target. There was no pressure on me, self-imposed or otherwise, to catch anything. No feeling that I had to be there doing what I was doing. I was fishing for chub because I felt like fishing for chub. And it was fun. So much so that I might be going back today as the sun is shining as I write this. Unfortunately my back is aching like mad. Carrying even a light load a short distance and then sitting in a low chair for a few hours doesn't sound like fun today. That's growing old for you. I hope that cork arrives so I can do some work for a rest.

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Out again at last

There was something in the air this morning that made me want to get the rods out rather than the cameras. Not having any pressing work to do as I'm awaiting a delivery of blanks and fittings next week to keep me busy I posted the two orders for bits and bobs, nipped to the tackle shop for some maggots and then headed home to make some pack-up and sort my river feeder kit out. Knowing the tide was to peak around noon I managed to time it spot on to fish as it turned.

The river had been producing big bags of chub, roach and dace through the long cold spell but I hadn't been in the mood to face the weather or the crowds that had been lining the banks - both because of the good catches and the lack of fishable stillwaters.

Needless to say when I asked an angler on the stretch I was going to fish how he was fairing I found out he hadn't had a bite in the hour and a half since he started, and nobody else around had caught much either.

The river looked in good nick, not too low, not too clear. I was still confident as I began to set up. The flow stopped just as I prepared to cast out and the river began to back up a little. After I had fished a couple of casts the tide turned and I swapped from double red maggot on a 14 to a single red on a 16. I reckoned the bright sun and clearish water might need a more delicate approach. Anticipating a huge haul of silvers I had my keepnet at the ready as I have found returning these smaller fish immediately tends to put the shoals off and catches dwindle. Unlike dumb barbel that couldn't care less about their shoalmates being caught and returned.

Fred was keeping an eye on the quiver tip while my mind and eyes wandered from the task and watched the birdlife. Apart from a wren in the bush behind me there were flocks of starlings working the field opposite, and mingling with them were smaller numbers of fieldfare and redwing.Three goosander flew downriver and I think I spied a distant peregrine. With other birds calling and being seen it wasn't a bad few hours birdwatching - if I'd been birdwatching! I've almost been sucked into the birding world by a friend of mine. Luckily I realised that I see just as many species, if not more, when I'm fishing. Purely because I'm sat in one place for a few hours. Birders tend to do that in a hide. I find hides unbearably dull after ten minutes. If I want to sit around waiting for something to happen I'd rather be it a fish hanging itself on my rig. Enough of my thankful epiphany and return to the fold of angling.

Even though it is still most definitely winter the world starts to anticipate spring once the days start to lengthen. It only takes a blue sky and sunshine to get the great tits chinking away, and every year I am still surprised to see the tips of new shoots timidly poking through the frosted earth. I should know better, because the buds forming on trees actually help push the old leaves off in autumn. Nature doesn't hang around in it's constant cycle.

Bites were slow coming. I kept fishing the same nearside line that has produced for me in this swim before. Eventually the tip did the repeated spring-back-pull-down thing and I felt the first fish of the year on the end of my line. It would have been the first fish of the year if it hadn't dropped off... The next cast was a repeat with the exception that the fish stayed hooked. It was a surprise to net a trout though. I'm not good on differentiating brown from sea trout, so I'll just say it was a trout!

Recasting to the same spot saw another trouty thing wriggling its way netwards. Every time I catch a trout I wonder why people choose to fish fro them. They're stupid and fight like erratic eels. On the plus side they can be tasty to eat, but that's about their only good point. It's no wonder there are rules making them difficult to catch, and a long close season for them on rivers. Chuck a maggot at a trout and it's yours for supper if you want it. They make barbel seem difficult to catch...

At intervals this was how things progressed. Two or three bites on consecutive casts (resulting in a trout or nothing) followed by a lull before another few bites. The one break in the routine was a fish that felt different, and a bit larger, than the small, writhing trout. I wasn't convinced until I saw a 'coarse' dorsal break surface. I was well pleased to slide the net under a 'prime redfin' that tipped the scales at a few ounces over the pound mark. Maybe I'm easily pleased when it comes to roach, or maybe it's the young lad in me, but I think any roach over a pound is worth catching. The roach is one of the most fishy of fishes, and one I grew up catching from my local canal. I slipped the fish into the keepnet ready for it to be joined by more. It didn't happen. So I took its photo through a misted up camera lens, while Fred looked on, as I packed up in the dark with frost forming once more on the banks, and on my luggage.

Weighing small fish species can be a bit of a problem. Carp or pike size, and even 'specimen size', weigh slings are unnecessarily large, plastic carrier bags are okay and easy to come by but can hold water (cough!). I've used all three in my time but have never been too happy with them. A few weeks ago after selling my boat I was sorting through some stuff I hadn't been able to get at in the garage when the boat was in residence and found an old 'sling' my mum had made for me when I was a teenager. I'm pretty sure it was based on one I had seen described in a fishing magazine. All it consists of is a square of net curtain material (floral pattern optional), with a nylon curtain ring sewn to each corner. Mine is about two feet square. It folds up neatly, almost shakes dry, and is just the right size for fish like roach, rudd, perch and dace. Almost too simple to be true!

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On the dark(ish) side

I spent over an hour and a half walking along a stretch of my local canal bringing back happy memories of my teenage fishing years. The spot I caught my first pike on a deadbait from, the bend where I caught a net-full of small perch and the next bend that seemed a mile away where I caught a perch of a pound that got my name in Angling Times and a Kingfisher Guild certificate!

I was also reminded why the place now drives me mad. Drifting mats of reeds broken up from the margins and rafts of dead reeds, both of which drift around with attendant outriders of single stalks hanging subsurface in order to catch your line when you are lure fishing. Or in my case today, fishing with a fly rod.

The bane of mobile canal fishing

Some six or eight years ago I gave pike fly fishing a whirl, even built a rod for the job but I was never really happy with it and stopped selling it. I wasn't too sure that pike could be landed quickly enough on fly gear. Having been assured that they can, by people whose judgement I trust, I'm getting the urge to give it another go. So I rustled up a blank I thought might be suitable and dug out my fly lines and 'flies'. The rod certainly casts a 10 or 11 weight well enough - even better in an experienced caster's hands. The canal is always a banker for a jack or two, especially on a warm and sunny spring day like today when something sparkly usually does the trick. So that's why I was there having a walk. Trying to find a fish to put a bend in the rod.

I tried lots of spots, each one should have had an eager jack lurking in the side waiting to nip out and grab a lure. But not today. It was a grand day to be out though, a buzzard mewed and soared overhead, lapwings and shellduck were in the ploughed and harrowed field at my back, frogs croaking in the reeds, blue skies and fresh green leaves on the hawthorn. I could have easily stopped out all afternoon, but I had somewhere to go and someone to meet.

Something sparkly

It always makes me laugh that pike flies are tied to look nice when they are dry, when what matters is what they look like when wet. That tinselly lure looks like nowt when it's bedraggled, but in the water it comes alive. Fished on a floating line it's weighted head gives it a pulsating rise'n'dive action. One that jacks can't resist. But not today!

Something sparkly in the water

I think I can see the appeal that fly fishing has for some people. There are lots of gadgets, gizmos and gunks to collect, not to mention the flies themselves, and there is a pleasure in the casting itself. In some ways it's like golf, though - a good walk spoiled! It's certainly an inefficient way of catching fish. Why put all that effort into repeatedly casting when a juicy maggot will catch trout for fun? Some people obviously like to make their leisure hours more like hard work...

Anyway, the good news is that my knee appears to be working properly. So, sod all that rod wafting, it's time to sit behind the buzzers again!

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A grand day out

Well, I bought my maggots on Saturday, but by the time I'd got home after idling in the tackle shop, and learned how to use my new toy (of which more at a later date) it had started drizzling. The prospect of catching a few chub didn't appeal all that much so I postponed my next session until Sunday, which dawned less warm than I'd hoped and rather breezy. Monday was taken up foraging for a new washing machine - the smoke that had billowed from the old one suggesting it had finally spun it's last. Tuesday I'd be on the bank at dawn. That plan lasted until I remembered I had a phone call to make...

With the air temperature having made it into double figures for the first time in ages seeing three other anglers sorting their gear out in the car park when I arrived was no great surprise. Spying a rod rest that had been left behind I let the other anglers move off before pouncing. It's always a good omen to find some tackle at the start of a session!

Not being sure what conditions I'd be faced with after my long drive I packed two barbel rods, my tip rod and a float rod. The usual pellets were accompanied by lobs, dendrobenas, cheese paste, maggots and liquidised bread. I was rather loaded up as I braved Dog Turd Alley. I managed to avoid the turds but was pursued by spaniels at one point. This time I walked on past the alley itself to a spot where the river deepens below a riffly stretch and a crease cuts across from the bank I was on to the opposite side of the river. A bush in the water upstream to my left and one overhanging to my right gives plenty of room to spread the baits out.

An 8mm crab Pellet-O went upstream with a small bag of pellets, while downstream I cast a maggot feeder with a lobworm on the hook. Although the river looked to be a foot or so up it was fairly clear, but with a greenish tinge suggesting snow melt and it was dropping. However the thermometer read an encouraging 6.1c.

Settling into the swim I decided to bag up some pellets and while rummaging in my bait bag for the pellet tub and stocking-filler I thought I saw the quiver rod bounce. Maybe I'd knocked it. With the pellet tub between my knees idly bagging away the rod bounced again. Definitely a fish. It did it a third time and I struck, flinging some half-bagged pellets and the filler to the ground, and connected with something that was pulling back, trying to make it to the downstream bush.

My first thought was a barbel, then I remembered the light rod I was using and changed my mind to chub. Which was what the slate grey fin that emerged confirmed. I'd chosen to fish a lob worm partly to tempt a chub but also to see if there are any perch in the stretch. Half an hour and a fish on the bank. A chub would do. Not a bad start.

Still no 'five' this season

Although plump enough it was in a bit of a state. As the photo (not too clearly) shows some of its scales seemed to be covered in a thick brown mucus, but on trying to scrape it off it proved not to be slime but something beneath the scales that was raising their texture.

On recasting I began to get non-stop tiny tremors on the quiver. Some would almost look like decent bites, most would not. I thought minnows might be the cause, but when I examined the worm after a while it had been bitten half way through at the tail. Minnows with minuscule knives?

I switched the lobworm to two dendrobenas, thinking a smaller bait might encourage whatever was down there to take a proper hold. The vibrations of the tip continued until I struck at one and found the smallest minnow I think I have ever seen impaled on the hook. The dendrobenas were mere tubes of worm skin. This time I rebaited with a single, but larger, dendrobena.

I'd just wished an attractive dog walker on the far bank a good afternoon when the quiver sprang purposefully into life. The strike met sold resistance. Then something leapt from the water. I'd hooked a spotty creature. A rather thin, and out of season, brown trout.

Spotty Muldoon

The worms didn't produce anything more, but were still getting pecked at. I crammed four or five red maggots on the size eight and gave that a try. As soon as the rig settled the tip came alive. I struck into something that pulled for a second then fell off. In an attempt to see if they really were ravenous minnows I swapped the size eight for a fourteen with two red maggots. It didn't take long for a plump minnow to be swung to hand.

Greedy guts

Although it was frustrating knowing there was probably a shoal of the greedy litte beggars mopping up my maggots, sucking at my hookbaits, and driving me mad with their tip twitching antics I stuck at it missing most bites, hooking a few more minnows. On the point of giving up the maggot fishing I remembered how I had put up with this in the past for one or two of the bites to turn into grayling. I carried on enduring the tap-tap-tap of the Chinese Minnow Torture.

It struck me that there might be some better fish hanging back downstream of the minnow shoal concentrated on where the feeder was landing, picking off what maggots the minnows missed. The next cast went a bit closer to the overhanging bush. The tip was still when the rig settled. Then it registered a proper bite and I was playing something more substantial. At first I thought it was another chub, until it started jagging when I considered a perch. The flash of silver finally said grayling. One that would obviously require the scales. Not a specimen in most people's books, but when you haven't caught many grayling, and none that were worth weighing let alone setting up a tripod for, it was a nice fish.

The first self-take of the year

It didn't take long for the minnow hordes to discover the feeder was landing somewhere else and I was soon back to the constantly trembling fibreglass. I got a friendly wave from another lady dog walker. Again on the far bank. The tip kept trembling. Some noisy fieldfares flew overhead, quite high. The river was warming. The tip rod started bouncing. Another grayling, smaller by about a pound, was unhooked and returned.

All the pellet rod had caught was a long length of heavy mono that was easy to remove from the river. It was lightly caught up in the upstream bush's branches and hardly attached to anything downstream. It must have been lying on the river bed the full run of the swim - some twenty yards or more. I can't understand why the angler who lost the line lost so much of it.

What to do after dark? With the constant feeding of maggots I decided to try fishing a couple of plastic casters over them on one of my barbel outfits for an hour. This failed. The pellet rod was also immobile. The evening was warm. By the time I settled into another swim downstream, the swim I caught my last barbel from, I was wishing I could have stopped the night. This new swim was, like the banks themselves, much drier and firmer than last time out. So I set up on the 'plateau' by the water's edge. Tucked down the bank there it was nice and cosy. If I'd had a bedchair I'd soon have nodded off.

All afternoon I'd been listening to England's good progress in the hastily arranged third test from Antigua. I'd give it until the close of the West Indies innings or close of play, whichever came first. Pleasant as it was sitting by the river my confidence had ebbed away. When the last wicket fell just before nine I called it a day. It had been enjoyable. Although the minnows were frustrating it was almost like being a kid again. Sometimes getting bites and landing anything is all you need to satisfy the soul. Even a small, and unexpected, PB can do the same for you.

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Low, slow and cold

There's only one thing to do when the sun shines for the first time in a few days and melts away the frost. Go fishing. So I was surprised to have the river to myself. After such a spell of cold dry weather it was now well and truly down to summer level, running clear and a chilly 2.2c. But the afternoon was warm - until the cloud came in and extinguished the sun.

There was cat ice in the slack margins, and the water cold enough for the salmon to have donned their furry white winter jackets. There were a few sorry looking salmon mooching about the shallows and a couple that had expired. No really big fish that sometimes show up.

I put two rods out, one fishing a cage feeder and bread flake the other trying the in-line maggot feeder again. It took a couple of hours for bites to start developing. Short slow pulls on the quiver tip when I switched to cheese paste and faster stabs on the maggot rod. One bite to the single red maggot resulted in a snapped hooklink. I forgot the size sixteen was attached to a 2lb 12oz hooklink...

Home made polyball bobbin

There was so little flow that I tried using a bobbin on the paste rod to slow the bites down. Of course I didn't get a bite while trying it, and as soon as I reverted to the tip I'd get a pull!

For the first time in ages darkness wasn't accompanied by a ground frost. Not even by dew forming on the rods. Although it wasn't exactly warm, the temperature held up. It was at half five that I managed to connect with a bite on the cheese paste. The bite was no different to any of the others, but I connected. Only a small fish. Nonetheless a surprising one. An out of season brown trout. Was this the reason the bites were difficult to connect with, or were the others from chub? I'll never know.

A spotty thing

Half an hour later I was on my way home, trying to think of somewhere I can go to catch some fish by design. Not that the session was wasted. I'd walked the banks taking advantage of the low, clear water to scope out some spots for future reference. I think I've sussed a couple that look like they might be worth putting a couple of baits in at some time.

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