Yep, the rollers are the business. I unloaded onto the slipway and went and parked the car. I was on the water within 15 minutes of depositing the girls and five minutes later I was back where I finished off yesterday.
I put 3 maggots on each of the two size 16’s on my trace – either side of the feeder – and filled said feeder with wet crumb and maggot mix. Out went the first rod, the second following shortly after. I basked in the sunshine in a mild 10 degrees.
For a couple of minutes…at which point the tip jerked and I brought in the first fish of the day – a common bream.
Already things were looking promising. It was around 10:30.
Not too big so I fitted him to a livebait trace and cast him upstream to trot down past me.
Next little rattle brought the first Roach of the session
Fin-perfect, these silver fish have bright red fins and a lovely metallic blue sheen on their backs at the moment in this water.
I decided to wind in and re-cast my bream and suddenly felt it go heavy…
This wasn’t a bream…
The first pike run of the day developed but alas the combination of flattened barbs and a large mouthful (the bream was larger than I normally bait with) meant that I was left with a mauled bream and no pike – not even a tantalising glimpse! The damage was not enough to kill the bream but was pretty severe:
A few puncture wounds and that gash at the bottom left was 5mm+ deep and a good inch long. I figured the fish was dead so swapped it for a (smaller roach) which conveniently came aboard and was promptly cast back out.
I then proceeded to alternate between bream
And roach
For the rest of the day!
One new species for the year also came aboard – my old favourite and perhaps the prettiest fish in UK freshwater; Perca Fluviatalis – the Perch.
The spike s on those fins hurt so it’s worth paying attention to them. It’s great watching them chasing spinners with the fins up like mini-sailfish – they really are a beautiful and exciting fish to watch in action – a great predator and common. Sadly they don’t take to fishtanks well as quite honestly in my eye they are way nicer to watch than most tropicals.
I cast the roach off at some point and noticing some movement in the semi-expired bream I popped him on again. Bugger me if he didn’t get taken again! This was an even heavier fish and was on for a good minute before once again I brought in a chomped bream – this time with gashes in the head as well as the flanks. From then on I stuck to smaller livebaits although I failed to get another run all day.
I was still getting plenty of bites and fish and then something happened that I have never had in the UK, sea or river, a double shot! Up came a roach
And I noticed another roach on the bottom hook. (Pic above is of the bottom one).
After a while the bites slackened off so I moved off elsewhere:
I had a beautiful bite here, very powerful, and was left without a hook. I snapped another hook on a snag and only had one other nibble so went back again, trying my luck first in the quay itself. Bored within five minutes there and with the sun in my eyes I went back to my usual patch.
Boing!! Said Zebedee as once again the bites were coming.
I was running out of time and had to go pick up the girls so did the last cast business and went home on another roach.
As I paddled in past the moored cruisers that run up and down all summer I had some time to bask in the pleasure of such a super day’s fishing.
Apart from possibly the summer tournament when I stopped counting this must have been my best day’s fishing – number-wise – ever in the UK. I bagged up. Final tally for the day was three species – one first for the year –a total of 13 Bream, 17 Roach and 1 Perch! Just goes to show what a difference groundbaiting makes. The two lost pike didn’t really matter although I now only have 5 weeks to get my first yak-caught 20lb’er so the pressure is on…..a la semaine prochaine, as my wife would say…
(i'm really enjoying this tiddler-bashing species-hunt I'm on!)
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