It was cold today & I was planning on heading over to Allestree as I reckoned that only chub or grayling would be willing to feed in the frigid water. In the end the "few jobs" I needed to get done in the morning took until lunchtime, and with only four or so hours of light left decided I couldn't afford the journey time. Instead I made my first visit ot the River Erewash.
Last summer I was chatting on the bank of the Trent to a chap who had been taking the Erewash chub on floating crust (a technique I love). I had decided then that I needed to check it out, and I had since learned that it was stocked with 500 grayling 12 months or so ago. I figured that trotting the stretch through Toton would give me a good recce of the bottom end of the river and the prospect of a chub or grayling would be a decent enough bonus given the conditions.
Travelling light, I was carrying only a small (trout) landing net, 3 stick floats, a pack of size 18 hooks to 1.5lb line and a few split shot. The rod was my 7ft telescopic light spinning rod which I thought would do nicely for roaming along such a small stream. In the end i could have done with an extra couple of feet on the rod, however this is no explanaton for the blank. in the end it was just too cold for the fish, and too cold for me too. I reached the bottom end of the park at 4pm and rather than return to some of the best runs I had found for the last hour, I hopped back home to warm up!
