I’ve written a number
of blog entries that start in much the same way, typically “and now
for something different” etc. This session is somewhat similar. I
set myself a target this year of fishing at least 4 new venues,
partly to force myself away from the same old waters and partly to
get away from the same old pole gear, and, maybe, to catch something
a little different.
Although, by some
standards, I don’t have a brilliant list of personal bests, they
are not bad. I don’t tend to want to put significant time into
hunting specimens, but I’ve picked up some nice fish along the way.
I have, I suspect, lost some big fish too, by not fishing for them on
suitable gear, but this comes along with the territory.
Anyway, enough of this
background, and on with some fishing. And, by the way, if you think
the preceding diatribe was in some way a set up to tell you I’ve
caught a whopper, it is not. Sorry about that.
Sunday 15th
July was forecasted to be a nice day. Given the recent mixed to wet
weather, this seemed like a good opportunity for me to nip out for a
few hours on the bank. With it being Fishomania weekend, I did want
to catch some television as well, so a
short session to use some leftover maggots seemed like a good idea.
I’m fortunate to live
near the Colne Valley, (the one down south with the big fish
reputation) and membership of the local club affords me access to a
number of stretches. I decided to have a go at one these that I’d
not fished before. In fact I’d not even seen in. I had, however
seen a few catch reports, and a few match results and this suggested
that there were a few silver fish to be caught. Now, I don’t know
about you, but I don’t catch many roach on purpose these days. A
combination of commercials and cormorants has seen to that. But the
chance to catch a few by design always catches my attention.
I’d had a quick run
through my gear the day before, this is my light travelling gear, and
I had the remains of some maggots from a few weeks back to use as
bait. These were not ideal, but they’d do for an hour or two. I had
my usual light gear – one day I’ll run through this and for once
I took my small chair, just in case I ended up on the feeder.
Anyway, ten minutes or
so after leaving the house I was parked up and ready to go. There was
one other car there already, but with 20 plus pegs this didn’t
worry me. Wellies on, it had been raining a bit for the last three
months, in case you hadn’t noticed, and it was over the stile and
along the path. At this point, it struck me that I should have popped
in one day to check out the venue (I drive past regularly), but
actually, faced with the mud, I’d probably made the right call.
The first peg I came to
looked sock on for trotting, nice glide on a bend, no obvious weed
and decent access to the water’s edge. I decided that fishing the
first peg was not the best idea though – what else might be up
there? So I decided to head up towards the far end where I believe
there was a weir.
I wandered up the
stretch and looked at the pegs on offer. Most were weeded, overhung
and offered difficult access, but you have to have a good look on
your first visit don’t you? After a fair walk I found the other
angler in residence, setting up heavy for barbel, the path was
narrow, muddy and a bit tight overhead. This mostly ruled out fishing
a few pegs in short stints. I was advised by the other angler that
the weir was difficult to fish and the first peg was probably the
best for trotting, he was right. I checked out the weir, on another
day it might be quite good fishing, but the current flow rate was not
an attractive proposition, so I started to wander back to peg 1 and
hope that it was still empty. There was good news in that respect.
So happy that I’d had
a good look around, I settle for a bit of trotting and set up. A 4 no
4 stick float fitted the bill, shotted short-button style with no 6s,
fished on 3lb line to a 0.10mm hooklength and size 18 barbless hook
seemed about right, trotted through on my 14ft match rod with the
very soft action. I flicked in a few maggot as I set up, the river
was only about 30 feet wide at this point (if that) so loose feeding
was easy. There was about 3 feet of water out there, a few bits of
weed in places, but all-in-all it felt fairly comfortable.
I started running
through along the far side, just inside the weedy overhang, and then
the float would cross towards the near side on the bend and towards
and overhanging branch about 15m downstream. This overhang was
perfectly placed so that however I fished I’d always send up with
the rig or line caught in it. It was very annoying, and unreachable. But, I still had a
decent clear trot until that point.
 |
| The straight ahead line |
 |
| The trotting run around the bend |
Five runs through and
absolutely nothing. I was starting to get a little worried. Had the
cormorants wreaked there awful havoc down here as well?
Sixth run down and as
the float started to drift towards the inside it sank. I struck,
there was resistance. It wasn’t a big fish, but it tried to dive in
the weeds on both banks. But a little constant pressure and a nice
perch surfaced, maybe 6 ounces on a good day. That was a result –
blank avoided. (I don’t blank often, but I hate it when I do).
Next run through and in
mid-stream I got another bite, but this time a 3 ounce dace was the
culprit. Nice. Maybe the steady feeding at the head of the swim was
starting to pay dividends.
Next run through and a
bite in a similar location. But this time a roach of about 4 ounces.
This was very rewarding, as roach are a rare sight in the river. Now
wall that was left was to see if it had a few friends.
I plugged away at the
swim, a little bit of loosefeed, some targeted casting and more fish
followed. And thankfully they were almost entirely roach. In fact
after about an hour’s fishing I was up to nearly 15 fish. It was
never frenetic. A couple of quick fish, then a lull; sometimes in
mid-stream, sometimes on the near side by the overhang.
 |
| Typical Colne roach for the session |
Occasionally, I’d get
the float to run past the overhang, and this did produce one perch,
but more often than not I’d have to pull the line out sharpish, and
this was not ideal.
I tried a few changes.
Bulking the shot (since most of the bites were near the bottom)
didn’t speed things up at all, deeper, shallower, holding back.
They all got the odd fish, but nothing got me a bite a cast (I
suspect a little more bait and a catapult for tighter grouping would
have given me more options), but fish came in slowly, as the gaps
between bites was getting longer.
Towards the end I
picked up a couple of fish at the head of the swim. Just when I
thought I’d relocated the shoal, these disappeared as well… maybe
it’s just the kind of venue where you can’t catch in the same way
all day. I dunno.
Soon the little hand
started to point towards the 10 on my watch and I knew it was time to
go. A two and a half hour session had produced a nice selection of
fish. Nothing huge, but with my best bag of river roach for quite
some years, I went home a happy man.
Catch:
20 roach
1 dace
3 perch
1 bleak
Total weight: 5lb
