Daniels dream

In the late evening sun bright blue damsel flies harried each other to retain their hard won territories near the edge of the ancient lake. Clouds of small insects buzzed near the surface and random swirls of small fish appeared to snatch any that landed on the water. In a quiet lily filled corner of the lake a hidden statue like figure crouched in a gap between the reeds transfixed by a tiny red float top poking above the water close to the lily bed. A sudden movement in the lily pads broke his vigil as he turned to look. Under the water a shoal of tiny Rudd flashed excitedly as they picked at the bounty they had discovered on the bottom. From the shadows of the lilies a huge dark shape of a carp appeared cruising slowly out into the light filled water. Stopping momentarily her fins flared as she again caught the foreign scent that had roused her from a sun induced trance deep within her sanctuary under the lily bed. The movement of the shoal of Rudd confirmed the location of what she sought. As she moved closer the nervous little fish scattered fearful of the presence of a much larger fish. Nearing the smell it became stronger, then something white fluttering near the bottom caught her eye and she dipped to investigate.

Above the water, ripples emanated from the red float top, followed a quick jerk, then the white quill float rose slowly and fell sideways flat onto the surface before sliding slowly away under the water.....

And when i woke from this heavenly summer dream this was the sight that greeted me!

As nothing really happened on this session i have little to write, but what follows are a selection of photos for your amusement. And yes someone was out fishing in the blizzard on Thursday. Me.

There is only one thing i can say right now.

Will this infernal winter ever end!!!!!!

The quest continues...

Dedication; perseverance; patience; hope; guile; shrewdness; self belief; cunning. These are all attributes i believe that a person needs to be a winter carp angler. I though am running a bit short of all of the above right now.

In short my Sunday morning session produced exactly Zip! The only good thing to come from this session was meeting Roger Booth when i moved swim. The hour and a bit i spent chatting to him gave me enough info and tips to keep me continuing this winter carp madness until they actually start feeding in the spring. Thanks Roger.

Muddy mixed bag

An impromptu mid week session saw me meet up with Rob to go and check out a stretch of the river Avon at Welford that rob has fished recently with some good results.

When we arrived at this normally wide, deep and sluggish section i could see that even though the water level was not too high it did have good bit of power to it.

Not to be caught out as in my last session i had brought a few different rods and good selection of baits. The depth and power of the river made float fishing impossible so the trusty bread feeder went out. My first cast landed under a tree on the far bank, then a minute and a lot of tip bouncing later the line indicated the feeder had settled back on my bank. I ended up using a two ounce cage feeder which barely held bottom. We had started fishing at the top of the stretch but after an hour and one little chub we upped sticks and headed off down towards the top of the weir at the bottom off the meadow where we thought the fish my be holding.

It turned out to be the right move as both of us got instant reactions and the bites came every cast. The weird thing was that all the bites we got were drop backs, which are hard to hit when its only a little fish. It took me a while to realise what was happening. Whenever a fish took the hook bait they were dislodging the feeders precarious hold in the powerful flow, which then rolled back towards the bank slackening the line and giving a sharp drop back on the rod tip. Trying to connect with these bites was not easy but we soon got the hang of it and began swinging in little chub, skimmers and dace.

The spot we had chosen to fish from was a nice level shelf behind an old reed bed which gave us good coverage of the whole river, but the recent floods and thaws had left the ground very soft; that combined with our constant moving round turned the peg into a mud bath. Soon my boots were caked, my thermal trousers were nothing but mud to the knees i even had it on my face and in my ears though i did manage to stay upright allday unlike Rob.

Around midday Rob caught a jack pike from near a floating raft down stream, and by late afternoon my constant casting of feeders full of liquidised bread and crushed hemp had attracted some mint condition roach onto the swim, which seemed to get larger with each one i caught. Sadly i had to leave not long after the roach switched on, but i will be very interested to return here when the river is a bit more sedate to have another go and see how big these roach grow.