I was supposed to go to Norfolk today but the weather was all wrong and honestly, its hard enough at the best of times. So no early start, I rolled out of bed around 0700 and pottered about a bit before loading up and scraping ice from the screen. Destination today was the river and when I got my first glimpse I was surprised to see it well up and pushing through. I’d got out of the habit of checking the levels but surely we hadn’t had that much rain lately? Well I suppose that extra water must have come from somewhere. No matter, at least it would narrow the options a bit, I’d mostly be fishing slacks today.
I was fishing by 0830, two deadbaits, sardine and bluey as usual, in a swim which gave me loads of options within a sensible distance of the chair. Apart from being cold the morning was misty without a breath of wind. The late change of plans had me disorganised, I didn’t notice one of the rods I’d picked up was set up with a leger rig and as I was travelling light I had no spare floats nor bobbins. I had to improvise with a weight attached to a battered poly ball hanging on the line. In reality I didn’t need to do this because sitting close to the rod, watching the tip and the line I would comfortably see any movement. For some reason I felt obliged, blame the internet experts with their buzzers back and front along with three ounce leads. To be fair a bit more lead might have been handy today as there was enough flow to shift the float rig and a one ounce bomb but I was mostly interested in the slacks so no drama.
I felt lazy today but this was kind of justified by the conditions and I had plenty of scope to move the rods and cover water. After an hour I dropped half a bluey in close just downstream and ten minutes later the tip banged and the bobbin jumped, followed belatedly by a bleep from the alarm. I wound down, felt the weight and… Bugger! Nothing there once again, this keeps happening on this river! I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself as the other rod cast to the far slack was moving and this time I did set the hooks. A nice sized fish plodded around and tried to hang in the flow but it couldn’t hold out for long and I soon had it in the net. A nice low double, probably a fish I’ve caught already this year? I’ll check later.
I stayed put for a while longer, the mist cleared and the sun came out, for some reason it didn’t feel right for Pike fishing now. Time for a change of scenery, a short move downstream to a spot that allowed me to squeeze a bait into a small bay, this was just off the main river and surrounded by reeds. I’d never been tempted before but today it looked right and within seconds the float jabbed… And then did nothing?? A minute or so later it did it again and I couldn’t resist checking it, winding in to find nothing but my bait which had been battered before I cast it. I fished here for twenty minutes or so and the jabs on the float kept occurring. I tried shallowing up the float and fishing the bait just off bottom and this too received the quick pulls followed by nothing. In the end I gave up and moved on to the next bend, what was causing the float to pull like that remains a mystery but I wonder if the bastards had claws?
After forty five minutes in the new swim I’d decided on a
move and was actually about to wind the leger rod in when the bobbin started
dancing. Happy days, pick up the rod
wind down and there was nothing there FFS!
I recast and sat back on the chair to ponder. This happens a hell of a lot on this river
and almost always on a bluey. They can’t
all be trout and I haven’t forgotten how to set hooks so what is going on? The penny dropped eventually, just a couple
of months too late. On similar sized
rivers closer to home, I’d expect to encounter plenty of Jacks but here almost
everything I’ve caught has been over six pounds and plenty big enough to handle
half a bluey. On my home rivers I used
to fish smaller baits; sprats, smelt and herring mostly and that’s probably
what I should be doing here. The trouble
is bluey gets me twice as many takes as all the other baits put together.
Time passed, the weather actually felt warm for the first
time this year and it was nice just being there. But despite moving twice more I hadn’t found
any more Pike and was running out of spots that inspired any confidence. Not strictly true, there are a couple of
places where I would have fancied my chances but that would have meant a long
walk, past the car and then some. The
time was 1430 and I’d had enough so the walk stopped at the car and went no
further.
