A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and as the
title suggests it has been a really tough week on the bank which saw us really
struggling on both the River Dee and Dane.
I really am struggling to come up with a reason why the River Dee is
fishing so poor at the moment. We have
tried banker swims from last year and new undiscovered swims in an attempt to
locate where the dace shoals have settled this year.
With not getting out on the bank for a few weeks while we
welcomed our daughter into the world I must admit I am lacking the patience I
had last year when you could take a bad session on the chin as you knew you
would more than likely have a bumper session the next week when you visited a
stretch you could bank on fishing well, now with the river campaign stuttering
along with little action and running out of locations to try I must admit I
just want a session where that float keeps going under and it looks like till
the cold frosts arrive we may have to retreat onto the local ponds to get the
top of our floats wet.
On to this weeks fishing:-
Inspired to chase
those Chevins
I start this week’s update with our most recent trip out
to the river which was on Wednesday when my dad and I visited the River Dane in
Holmes Chapel. I had planned on us fishing
a tributary of the River Dee for the lady of the stream, the grayling, but
after watching and reading a fellow anglers blog I was inspired to chase some
“chevins” of my own the following day.
This angler, more than deserves a shout out as he produces some great
videos on Youtube and also backs them up with a written update that always
incorporates both the fishing and the feel of the day, which as a fellow blog
writer can be so hard to do, consistently.
A link to marks blog is here http://fishing-for-memories.blogspot.co.uk/
and links to his weekly updates as always will pop up on my left hand side bar
of the blog, keep up the good work mate.
We arrived in the car park situated towards the upstream
limit of the stretch and quickly unloaded the carp as we dodged the countless
slugs that lined the moist grass beneath our feet, the car unloaded we quickly
picked up a few of the deep black slugs for bait, well known as a classic chub
bait which is said to be down to the “plop” they make as they fall onto the
water’s surface.
One thing that did catch my attention as we made our way
to the river was the amount of browns and oranges appearing amongst the green
of the trees and the undergrowth. Some
of the ferns had an autumnal feel to them which I must admit came as a shock to
me having basked in the warm sunshine on the Saturday morning surrounded by
head high Himalayan Balsam.
The plan was to travel light with all our terminal tackle
in my Korum Rucksack and carrying the bare essentials tackle wise with a feeder
rod each and my trusty trotting rod for fishing the glorious intimate
picturesque glides the river Dane is famous for. We as anglers were all set for a day’s roving
all we needed was the chub to play game.
During the day we
made a way through all manner of swims and likely looking spots from newly
created swims to swims we had done well in previous years fishing. All seemed devoid of our chosen species the
chub. Below are some pictures of the
likely looking swims we fished as you can see they all scream chub, they were
there all right but they proved to be very elusive.
As the day wore on towards midday we had spent around a
hour in each of the swims and had reached the final swim for the day, a swim
where I had caught countless chub in the past and one of those swims you would
feel confident in catching from in any conditions. I started off on the trotting rod and after a
few trots down the float buried and for a split moment my heart sped up as I
felt that sold resistance on the line but after a few more seconds it became
very apparent this was no chub and was in fact a wiry feisty grayling that
decided to male as much commotion as possible making its way upstream, I knew
this would be bad for the chub fishing but was glad to get a fish on the
bank. The grayling is one of those
magical fish you catch on the river that have so many colours to them and their
beauty cannot help but brighten up the hardest of days on the river.
We gave the last swim a good hour after this grayling but
no chub were forthcoming but in the midday sun we were treated to a great
aerial display by the local pair of buzzards, I really do love seeing these
birds when I am on the bank and with them being more popular than ever I am
regularly treated to their company, more of this species later on in the
update.
Saturday 15th
September
Saturday would be my first session back on the bank after
the birth of our little girl and I must say the break had worked a treat; I was
wide awake all Friday night, excited for the session ahead. Previous to abbey being born we had been on
the banks pretty much solid for a whole year and I must admit to flagging a bit
as the birth drew near, I found myself drifting away during the time on the
bank, wondering what the future held and not really putting 100% concentration
into both my fishing and the blog, looking back it has showed, so I was pleased
to have that fire back and it was a more than welcome companion.
The week leading up to Saturday’s session was full of
indecision about where on the River Dee to try, so much river we could fish but
settling on one venue was proving to be difficult. We eventually decided on the lower Dee on a
stretch of river that at this time of year usually fishes quite well and what’s
more there are fewer more remote places along the Dee than this stretch.
The walk to the river was a short one but actually
getting to the river’s edge proved to be a real task, there has always been a
swim situated on this stretch but as the picture above shows nature had done
her best to reclaim the space with head high Himalayan Balsam all around. This invasive species has got a real foothold
it seems now on most of the rivers we visit but the good thing is it isn’t too difficult
to work a path through and it wasn’t long before my dad was making his first
cast of the day on his trusty Drennan feeder rod.
I took a little longer setting up than my dad with his
pre-setup up feeder as my plan of attack was to trot a float down the steady
current with my 17ft float rod using both maggot and castor for bait. The swim I was in as I said had a lovely
steady pace to it and with a slack on the inside and a tree overhanging with
its leaves just lapping the water downstream I had high prospects for the day
ahead. As normal I had drip fed the swim
as I was going about setting my float rod so by the time I was set to make my
first cast I was optimistic.
The first trot through of a session is a magical thing,
has the bait you trickled in done the trick?? Have you picked the right line to
fish?? And the dreaded one, especially on the River Dee, is there a massive
snag in your trot?? All these questions
are normally answered within the first few trots down. First cast and with the wind calm and the
river like a plain of ice I had my float dotted right down to detect any shy
bites, she was going down the river a treat and right wherein expected a bite
the float buried and I was into my first fish of the day, a dace.
Great start I thought, always a good sign to catch on
your first cast, back in and again the float buried and I was playing something
more substantial than the previous dace, it certainly wasn’t a roach as their jagged
fight is a dead giveaway, what was it?.
I played the fish with the upmost delicacy and it was rewarded when I fin
perfect chub broke the surface, two casts and two fish, one of which a chub, I was
over the moon.
My dad and uncle were also swiftly into fish with my dad
picking up some quality dace and my uncle some chub and roach. I continued to pick up fish quite regularly
with the best fish being this perch shown below. You can always tell if me or my uncle are
catching when you are not in eyesight as we see very little of each other
during the session as we are busy fishing.
The first hour was great and I thought we were all in for a bumper return
to the river.
The church bells in the distance signalled it was 8am and
to be honest them bells stuck in my memory as not long after they stopped
chiming the swim absolutely died completely on me and a swim that I could do no
wrong in suddenly seemed devoid of fish.
My dad say next to me coincidently went through the same phenomenon as
myself so this basically ruled out a hungry pike lurking in the depths of my
swim.
Not long after this I could hear the crunching of grass
under foot as my uncle made his way along the bank to see how we were getting
on and before I could explain what had happened he went on to take the words
right out of my mouth, he had also had a good hour and then all of a sudden
nothing.
We soldiered on till 12 noon and between us we picked up
around 10 fish with none worth writing home about and we decided there and then
to make a move onto a small pond on the way back to Runcorn. In the intervening hours we tried all manner
of tricks to catch, alternating line, depth and feeding to no avail. As we
were packing away the rivers level rose significantly and it took me by
surprise as I really had not been expecting it, luckily we were above the
rising level and all was fine but for once I fell foul of my own rule and hadn’t
checked the levels before we set off.
Had I checked the levels I would have noticed there had
been some really high tides throughout the week and this instantly would have
seen me trying a more reliable section of river with more of a slack I could
have fished as this was undoubtedly where the fish had moved to as the level
rose.
Afternoon
session
When I am driving in and around my local area I am always
on the lookout for new ponds, lakes etc and when I find one I do my homework to see
who has the fishing rights to it and what fish are in it, most of the time the
answer is no club own it and it has a natural stock of fish. Places like this are a god send when times
are tough elsewhere and like in last weeks update this pond we visited on the way
home is a pond I have passed time and time again but never fished, that was
about to change today, what did it hold? If anything, a box full of maggots
would surely find out the answer.
As you can see my uncles swim was a far cry from the
pruned banks of any commercial with the pegs being nothing more than a door thrown
on top of a gap in the reeds. The
bottom looked to be carpeted in weed and the water was crystal clear revealing
the water to be no more than 3 feet deep in the middle. I started off fishing into open water spraying
maggots little and often whilst fishing the pole using a homemade polystyrene
ball to indicate any bits, as I was fishing the pole there was no need for any
weight on the line. This method is as
deadly as they come for catching fish in the summer because it allows the bait
to fall naturally through the water, if the fish are there you will catch them
and once you get them going it can be a fish a chuck.
Fishing the open water was painfully slow with no action
at all so I moved my line to right off the reeds and it instantly brought a
bite from a shy Rudd. One fish turned to
two on the next put in and within 10 minutes I was into a rhythm of feeding,
shipping out and striking into a fish.
The rudd where not of any major size but the float was going under and that’s
all I was bothered about after the tough morning on the river. A typical rudd is shown below.
My uncle had also sussed out that against the reeds was
the place to be for bites and was also getting regular bites off the reeds to
his right. This place could hold some real
specimen Rudd judging by the swirls we saw on the day and judging by the fry
scarpering in the margins there may be the odd good carnivorous perch living in
this weedy pond. My theory is with the
water being so clear and shallow it is very open to predation from herons and
maybe even the odd cormorant so the fish stick in and around the cover provided
by the reeds.
The fishing was so manic I took a break to give my arm a
rest hehe and went to visit my uncle on his peg, while I was there our attention
was grabbed by a buzzard trying to raid a nest on top of a pylon to our
right. The buzzard was trying its
hardest to get into their nest for a good 10 minutes with the smaller birds
constantly dive bombing the buzzard trying really hard to keep the bigger
buzzard from landing. As you can see on
the video below the buzzard manages to land and had in fact won but the perseverance
of the smaller birds eventually made the buzzard move on and they gave her a
right telling off on her way.
Back to the fishing and by the end of the few hours we
had we had a really impressive net of fish between us and although there was
nothing major in the catches it saved a bad day on the river and is a venue I will
be keeping in mind for future visits as it has got potential.
The plan for this weekend is to get back on the river and
hope that with the tides reducing we may get into some consistent sport, if
not, next week’s update may leave you
with a real sense of déjà vu.
Till next time I wish you all
Tight lines
Danny
