Shopping or....

.....Fishing?

With my kids birthdays coming up in a few weeks the grandparents both want to go shopping for presents this weekend, with my Mrs working all weekend I usually go out with my parents if I'm not fishing. So today was the first 'shopping' day, I couldn't think of anything worse than spending my weekend in Toys'r'us so chucked ultralight gear in the car so i could get dropped off for a few hours on a tiny river i fished a few years ago. On the last visit there was allot of chublets around and i caught loads on dry fly so fancied abit of that today.

On arrival the water was extremely low so I had to walk upstream to find some slightly deeper spots as most of it was about a foot deep with a sandy bottom and i could see there was no fish about. About a mile upstream it finally started to deepen but still only 2-3feet deep but there was quite abit of colour in so thought that might help the fish to ambush. There was also allot of lilies about and my first bit of action came when i was retrieving a small bean lure past some of the lilies. I noticed a big shadow following the bean, at first i thought it was one of the bigger chub but it kept getting bigger until it was virtually right in front of me inhaling the bean, it was a scraper double pike! Looking forward to the fight that was to ensue on the 3g rod i was using i gave it a quick strike but a head shake from the pike saw the bean come flying out...Bugger!

I carried on fishing after the initial bit of excitement and kept picking up perch and the odd small jack, the perch were amazingly coloured with really bright red fins and striking black bars. This was the kind of fishing I had missed for sometime, lots of action and a steady flow of fish despite nothing of great size but still fun on the tiny light rod.

My thoughts started to sway towards the prospect of a tiny river treble which would have been the icing on a very enjoyable couple of hours but despite catching lots of chublets a few years ago i just couldn't find any today.  I finished off with a crazy spell of pike, i think I'd had about 5 pike on in 5 casts all in the one area, all different fish too and another one that looked a scraper double. It didn't help because of the small spinner I was using it was tiny in comparison to a pike mouth and just kept pinging out, but the perch loved it and i was hoping for a chub so didn't bother changing it when it was getting so much action.

In the end i didn't want to leave i was enjoying it so much even falling over in nettles and getting wet through with rain.