Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Opening week...

The rivers opening again were finally here and I had made plans previous to get the most out of them when they opened. I booked two days off work after opening day which fell on a Sunday, this meant i had a good three days to go fishing.

It all started the Wednesday before opening day, I planned to fish a local canal and meet up with my mate Neil to discuss the first day and make some plans. We came up with a plan which was to fish a river that Neil had fished before from his boat and we picked the best spot to get into the river. While we was out making these plans we did do some fishing, the canal was not really up to much and in places still quite coloured, however after many hours fishing i finally got a reward in the shape of a good perch. At first I thought it was bigger than it weighed but was still happy when it read 2.5lb not much else caught but that one fish made up for it.

 
The day on the boat did not really go as well as we hoped, it was a real struggle and all though we caught 23 fish between us, that was well below average for the river. However it was great being out afloat and we enjoyed the day none the less, just sometimes you have too much expectancy.
Here's some photos of the day, the little jacks were crazy jumping and tail walking all over the place, we even had one jump into the boat which made for easy landing! Towards the end of the session I managed to capture one of the jacks jumping out.
 









 
During the session on the boat on opening day, i had developed hay fever which i hadn't had for years. This developed much worse on my second fishing day to the point i had to seek medical attention.
On the Monday which followed opening day I had planned to fish a few rivers from the bank with my mate Paul, ideally we had chub in mind but it was on the cards for a good mixed species day. Those plans all went out the window when we arrived on the bank to find the river flowing through very heavily coloured, the level wasn't a problem just horrible colour. We thought we should give it a go anyway and it turned out it was a good move as Paul landed a beast of a chub!
 
 
After that cracking fish we decided it would be better to go fish a small stream and catch some trout along with a good chance of chub,perch and pike on lures. Again the fishing was hard work this time on account of the low level and clean water making it hard to find the fish without them seeing us first, and when we did find fish they were not really in the mood only half heatedly having a go at the little cranks. Persistence paid off though as i managed to tempt quite a nice trout. By this point we had done allot of walking in long grass and often there was a fog of pollen around me, you can see the start of the terrible hay fever setting in, my eyes were starting to swell and itch and i couldn't talk for sneezing.
 
 
A few more smaller fish were caught before the end of the session, not what we would have hoped for but those two nice fish still sent us home happy. Well, I say happy... My hay fever became so severe it was suggested i go see a doctor as i couldn't even turn my eyes sideways they were so swollen and inflamed, the water was streaming out of them constantly.
Things are improving a little now but still in a bad way which wasn't made easy by going out fishing again this morning in the long grass. the river i chose was pretty choked with blanket weed so i just decided to take myself home and try to rest away from any pollen!
 
 
 

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