Back in the flow

How I have missed your tranquil embrace, cabbage patches and gravel runs looking so sumptuous, but at last the hiatus has finally abated.

Despite enjoying still water fishing, I do feel more of an affinity for flowing water, the sound of  rivers as they makes their way through the landscape is almost a language of its own, plucking at an anglers heartstrings. The heady aroma as mist rises from the rivers on a June morning, deer picking their way through the fields, foxes and their offspring tumbling about together until they rest in a heap on top of mum and dad.


My first trip out of the new season found me heading to the Blackwater in the afternoon replete with feeder rod and link leger in hand, along with a small amount of bait in my bucket (maggots,lob worms, sweetcorn). I was stuck in two minds, fish a few swims or concentrate on one only, the latter was decided upon,I settled down in a rather snug Borneo-esque swim that was alive with the chatter of Dormice and they did take a liking to one of my rucksack straps leaving me with a souvenir in the shape of a tiny nibble hole.

With a reasonably deep margin in front of me I decided to start by lightly feeding a mixture of maggot and corn slightly upstream. Downstream of my near margin there was some perfect coverage that simply screamed chub and it was here that I intended to let the link leger trundle down to.


The first trundle resulted in the first fish of the new season in the shape of a brassy chub (4.4) which gave a good account of itself.

A little and often approach with the feeding and I was soon picking up chublets, gudgeon and perch at regular intervals and a smile was fully cemented on my face. Into the evening the bigger fish started to show and after a very agressive bite and scrap saw a rather short, but deep bodied chub try to ditch me in the marginal foliage, I slipped the net under the first 5lb+ chub of the season, this fish was rather hollow and looked like it would be a good 6 come winter time.

 

5.3

I can assure you I have not knelt in something nasty in this picture, unfortunately my landing net had decided to break, the metal thread coming away from the plastic spreader block, I was not amused to say the least and spent a good hour trying to repair it, in the end I had something that was sturdy enough yet looked akin to a sawn of shotgun meets the mummy from one of those hammer horror films, I was only too glad to get it repaired once home, but I guess that will teach me for buying a cheap net.

I fished on till late evening, switching to sweetcorn in hope of picking up one of the rivers bigger bream. At around 9pm the quiver tip pulled round steadily and I was into what looked a rather wide slab which gave a great account of itself, slipping it into the mummy of all landing nets I could see she was in very nice condition and my first Blackwater bream.

8.9 of healthy river Abramis

Metal thread into plastic what a great idea... not

This was to be my last fish before heading off home,it had been an excellent way to start the new season off on this fabulous little waterway, however back at home a healthy amount of glue was awaiting said spreader block...