Bad Timing

I had planned to fish a river on ultra light lures for the chub and trout, and having stopped to check on the river late last week and see what good condition it looked, i was hopeful of a good session.
The story of my summer has really been one of missed opportunities, having such a poor year for weather, I have just not been able to make the most of the rivers in the limited time in between the dreadful spells of weather. This session was again, one of many, that i had looked forward to, yet the timing of the weather had meant that on the day I was to fish the conditions of the rivers had taken a turn for the worst. Its so frustrating when you see a small window of opportunity when the rivers are looking really good, yet your not able to fish them.

So after getting down on the bank and wading into the river it was clear to see that although there was reasonable visibility, there was a fair bit of colour and of course extra water and depth. My mate Pete that was fishing with me started off well with 2 decent trout in the first 3 casts! I thought we were about to embark on a fantastic fishing session. We moved up the river and as i was retrieving across a shallow bar in the middle i felt a strong pull on the line and saw the unmistakable white lips of a chub close and move away, a shame it wasn't taking my lure with it.

We waded on and things never really improved at all, fishing all the likely looking water, which i have to say we were spoilt for choice on features to fish.

 

Later on in the session i had another strong pull which again felt like a chub take but again it was a quick snatch and away without making good contact.

 

It wasn't until the end of the session that i manged to save a blank by taking a couple of nice trout and losing a third off after momentarily playing the fish.

 

Just to finish the river session off it decided to absolutely chuck in down, typical! The water was already showing signs of colouring up more so we decided to move on and spend the last bit of time at a canal spot.

Having reached the canal and seeing it quite heavily coloured, I wasn't very hopeful at all, again the fishing was to suffer from the relentless conditions this year. We struggled on into the evening light with only two modest perch to show for it.

 

A tale of bad timing weather wise, but fishing in the rain with not much hope of catching sure beats sat indoors!