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.