As I've said before on my blog, river fish stocks in my local rivers are nothing like what they used to be, such a shame as my closest small stream had lots of beefy sized chub & all manner of silvers & perch.
But this river now is low & clear with the only one swim worth casting a line.
So on to a new river for me, a lovely Thames tributary that's 45 mins drive from my house, apparently stocks are low (as with most at the moment) but there are silvers & good chub with a sprinkling of barbel as well.
On first impression is a small river, shallow, but very fast & streamy with many deeper parts with over hanging trees & plenty of cover.
Could this be a productive swim ??So with my ever faithful 13ft Preston carbonactive float rod & minimal gear I walk down to the first fishy looking swim in full roving mode.
With a hand full of maggots chucked in I made my first cast.
No bites after 10 or so casts & it's on to the next likely spot.
This happened for the next 7 or 8 places, it's a strange old river.
Next I found a lovely deep weirpool of sorts & it screamed of fish to me, I must be able 2 get some kind of bite here.
A few twitches of the float in the slack areas & the first fish is hooked, a minnow !!
For the next 30 minutes I proceed to catch a hatfull of gudgeon & minnows.
All very disappointing but there are so many fish holding areas to cast to every 5 meters or so downstream, I'm still feeling confident.
Next up is a nice glide, on the inside bend is a deep hole so that looks as good as any spot to cast to.
Plenty of loosefeed into the fast flowing water & first cast is made.........
Something different has taken my double maggot this time.
Twisting & turning in the fast flow I see a silvery flank, a lovely small dace is swung to hand, the day could be picking up a wee bit.
Next cast in the same fast water & I've hooked a much stronger fish that shoots off upstream, only a descent fish could do that....
My mind was thinking a wild brown trout as I know this stretch has a few dotted about but once again I see a silvery sided fish.
A bit stumped at what this could be but as I readied the net I could see it was a small barbel, lovely stuff !
As you can see in the picture no wonder he fought well, look at the paddle on it !
I knew the river contained small barbel that were stocked 2 years ago & it's great to see these fish feeding well & growing a bit too.
Next up was a small chub & the bites kept on coming, along with more gudgeon & minnows but thankfully not too many.
After quite a few small roach, dace & chublets I decided to keep moving with plenty of river still to explore.
I had also avoided the dredded blank so it's time to relax & try to catch something a wee bit bigger, hopefully !
After retying a size 14 & switching to a fat worm on the hook I proceeded to drop the float down into the deep margins under an overhanging tree.
Straight away the float started to bob about & I thought here's a pesky gudgeon trying to get the whole worm in his mouth.
I don't know why but I left it just a touch longer & that proved to be a good plan as the float shot under & the clutch slowly ticked away.
It's a heavy fish thats burrowing away for the near side snags & I thought it's a good chub.
It twisted & turned in the deep, dark water, first left & then right. What a great scrap.
I'm glad I had enough power in my rod to just about turn him in the fast water but the overhead branches meant I couldn't get the rod high enough to land it just yet.
Net at the ready & THEN my legs turned to jelly as I saw the fish for the first time.
A big black back with stripes, it's a perch !!!
Luckily his in the net first time, I'm so glad I brought my long landing net handle, I would have been "up a creek" without it.
It's a pb for sure as I've never held let alone seen a stripy of this size before & a big perch is a magnificent beast, bristling & proud with the dorsal fin up & beautifully coloured.
As I get the scales ready, my hands are shaking, my estimate as always is on the high side but "it's gotta be 3lb+" I said to myself
Sadly it was 2lb 10oz but I couldn't really be happier, another pb for 2014 !
So I put my prized fish back upstream in a spot where I could get to the waters edge & hold him in the flow till he recovers well enough. Essential after a storming fight on a very hot & sunny day.
Cheekily I thought what's the harm in trying that swim again, you never know what else might be lurking under the big tree.
Crazy but true, after I recast the float started twitching again but no bite developed so I struck anyway, that was met with resistance but it was just a dead weight.
The culprit quickly came 2 the suface & I had been told they can be a right pain on this river.
After a huge crayfish induced tangle I decided to cut my losses & call it a day, what a day it had turned out to be.
Next on my list is a barbel pb, although that's gonna be quite a tough one.
Thanks for reading as always & I'll be writing a fish based blog or two while I'm on holiday in South America. I'll be after the monster catfish and anything else that swims of course in the amazon basin.
Fingers crossed I catch something to write about.
