Sunday 3 August 2014

Ultralight river fishing

I've only just found enough time to write up what i got up to last week having every day of the week to fish straight from work until dark if needs be. I chose to fish ultralight, mostly small cranks as it was pacey water i was mostly going to be fishing and wading allot of it too.

Tuesday was to be a day fishing with my mate Steve whom id not fished with for nearly a year so it was going to be a nice catch up more than anything else, the river spot we chose to fish though had always done us well so we was looking forward to getting amongst some fish too.
The further we got down the river stretch the more and more we was realising that spots we usually catch from every time were not producing and despite a few perch it wasn't really producing anything at all. We fished the stretch through though with Steve catching the majority of perch while i just had one or two and a bonus chub. Disappointing, and we wasn't sure if the lack of rain and oxygen had anything to do with it.

We moved off to another river next a smaller river which would be a nice change and good chances of big chub and trout. Again it was more of the same, that being a bit of a struggle. I manged to find a half decent chub which was a result but the most interesting part of the session was finding all the big crays that we kept seeing on the river bed.





On Wednesday I met up with Paul whom and we both agreed that we fancied a half days trout fishing and then move onto a canal or river later in the day for a hopefully a mixed bag.
So we started off on a small stream that i had not fished before so I'd have that exciting feeling of not knowing what the pool round the next corner was going to be like or have lurking in it! We were off to a good start straight away but that soon fizzled off when it was evident that the stream was lacking in water so it was a case of walking further to find any deeper holes. When ever we did find any they produced fish. Nothing massive was caught but we had fun getting amongst fish and missing lots of hits from smaller ones.




Later in the day we headed closer to home for an evening on a bigger river and there was always the chance of a treble here, but again things proved difficult for what ever reason and we were struggling to find many fish with just the odd perch showing, sadly no pike action though. I got a bonus fish in the form of a chub so i was pushing hard for a pike later on to complete a treble but it never came. We had a flurry of perch late in the evening but that was it. Pretty knackered by the end of the day after being up for work at 4:10am and not getting home till 22:30pm with just the odd crisp sandwich to sustain me all day.




On Thursday my fuel was running low and i nearly made the decision not to bother but as soon as i finished work i thought sod it and off i went again, a bit of a drive to where i wanted to fish but hopefully it would be worth it.
Things started off slow as i had the difficulty of getting good river access as the area i wanted to fish was taken up by stick float fishers and any further downstream was going to be too deep to wade and no bank access at all. I really wanted to get amongst the chub with a fly rod but this just didn't suit where was going to have to fish. Pretty frustrated i thought id just get in the river where i could and see how far i could wade downstream before it became too dangerous.
I picked up a nice chub early on and then the odd few perch here and there before id fished out that area. i thought I'd go back upstream and fish through it again as id spooked a decent chub under a tree and thought id get a second shot at it. As i neared the spot i saw the chub come up and take something off the top so thought it would be great to see if i could catch it on a floating bean crank. I must have spooked it again as it never showed any interest but i suddenly started catch allot more fish all be it smaller in size, both chub and perch and a few pike to complete a treble. The bean was a floating crank that skittered across the surface but by casting it downstream and pulling it across or into the flow it dived a few inches and the fish seemed to really like this.

After fishing through that stretch again and catching much more i thought id go see if the other guys had gone as it was now reaching early evening. I was pleased to see they had gone and i then enjoyed a great hour or so catching fish after fish, most perch but i also had more chub with some better ones mixed in. I'd now had chub from 4 different rivers this week and it was great to get amongst them.
I'd saved the best untill last and despite being frustrated early on about more than i mentioned which i won't go into on here, it ended up a really good day with plenty caught.














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