I had monday off work, so after getting into a dispute at the post office about the maximum length of cylindrical items that could be posted second class, took a handful of chubbers and a trotting rod down to the river Erewash for a dabble after some summer chub. I'm still angling to get one on floating crust here, but once more I didn't pull it off.
with one or two exceptions there aren't really any pegs, though you can sometimes tell where the occasional visitor had pushed through the long grass and brambles. Its more a case of getting to a spot where you can wield a rod and find more than a few inches of water. The stretch here at Toton is barely a river, a rod length wide and crossable with wellies in many places. Its still beautiful, with the occasional deeper pool scattered between the glides and riffles of the meandering stream.
I started in a dark corner, a dozen maggots wriggled through the water before they suddenly began changing course and disappearing, I fed again and again, each time watching the shadowy shapes below frenzy over the maggots. I was trying to work out what they were before fishing, I was also hoping that a more significant fish might show up. After ten minutes my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to drop the chubber float, set to fish at about 15 inches with a barbless size 18 and single maggot, into the water. I had reckoned that the mystery fish were mostly dace, with some roach also present.
The first fish out was a very small chub, "h'mm, small chub not dace then perhaps" , to confirm it I continued picking up small chub, a couple of roach, a couple of gudgeon and minnows. Later, as I watched the maggots, I spotted a larger shadow in the depths, this time unmistakably stripey. It sucked in, chewed and spat out the maggots without causing a dither on the float. Rebaiting, I watched as it hoovered up another dozen freebies, before lowering the rebaited hook into the zone. this time there was no mistaking the bite as the float sailed away, and a 12oz perch tried burying its head into the tree roots on the oppposite bank, before trying plan b and heading for the reeds on my bank. Great fun!. A kingfisher flitted by below my rod, returning a few minutes later with a flypast at eye level.
After a few more chub I headed upstream, a handful of maggots was greeted by a hoarde of minnows, and after catching about 20 of them I began wading downstream finding a minnow within seconds whenever there was anything remotely shallow about the swim. I spent the rest of the day wading the riffles and fishing the gldes and pools, catching gudgeon, roach, small chub and perch, whenever I could evade the minnows that is!
Packing up at 18:30 I must have had 200 fish in 5 hours (admittedly over 50% were kamakaze minnows) but only a handful that you would measure in oz's. Despite catching about 40 chublets I didn't manage to id a single dace. There were some better chub around, a saw a few in the 2-4 lb class, but they had spotted, or heard me before I spotted them. The exceptions were a pair holding station in the relief channel, they ignored the breadflake and maggots that I offered them, not hungry I guess. I never managed to get any better fish feeding in my swim, pellets would probably sort that and keep the small stuff out of the equation, if I had planned in spending a few more hours into the evening that would have been my next strategy. As is was I'd had a fix of fish catching,I can face another few blanks again now.
(pictures to follow)
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