Final Act?

A couple of downpours in the latter part of the week saw the river on the rise again. Nothing too serious though, but an extra 4 inches or so on top of last week's conditions - thankfully it was on the drop during my Sunday session. The forecasters predicted some wet and windy conditions for the afternoon, so I headed off at 7am with the intention of packing in when the rain set in.

It has been a strange old season this time around. Mostly mild throughout, very dry for the first part and then horribly wet for the back end. Winter has decided to have a year off and we seem to have retained a very much Autumnal feel to our weather for months on end now.  

For what is possibly my last shot at the river this year I decided to go for roach. With some colour in the water, I figured I'd have a go at putting togehter a bag of redfins. I even brought my keepnet out of retirement - it hasn't seen the light of day for a few seasons now.

I picked a peg where I was both comfortable on the bank and also had a bit of slacker water to aim for. My first choice peg was just too muddy and unsafe, but this peg left me with plenty of water to go at.

I went for a positive approach and boshed out a few balls of groundbait into about 10 foot of water and kept it topped up with an open ended feeder throughout the session. I opted for braid to help with seeing and hitting the bites.

Fish came at regular intervals but were of a small stamp. It was mostly roach, with the odd dace thrown in. I missed a lot of bites that I just couldn't connect with. A more solid thump followed one of my strikes, but a hook pull soon afterwards left me cursing and knowing that bream were now probably in the swim. I managed to winkle one out in the last hour or so - a welcome fish of about 3lb.

I popped out a deadbait for about half an hour at the very end of the session, but had no takers.

Next week we have some mild weather moving in toward the back end of the week and the river should be fining down again very nicely. It looks like it could be bang on for the last weekend of the season - just a shame that I'm mostly tied up already! There's half a chance that I might get out for a quick session though and I'll be doing everything I can to make it happen. It will be pike for sure if it does happen. I need to use up some deadbaits pretty quickly.

The Ricoh Arena fishing show is also in town again next week - be rude not to pop down!