Soar thumb!

I reckoned I had found a carpy looking bit of the Soar, and with the Trent being so difficult this summer decided to give it a try.

  This area has seen quite a bit of work to the pegs this year, with steps cut and some swims dug out and levelled. I arrived at about 6pm, fishing using stocking bags and boilies, 2kg of vitalin and crumb groundbait went out at the start , mostly to a spot upstream amd in the middle of the river, a small downstream patch, closer to the margin was also baited with three apple sized balls of bait. this was the spot I was expecting to produce a carp. Things were slow to begin with, there were lots of small fish topping and rolling over the baited area, but no bites. I spotted a large fish slurping at the surface on the opposite bank, so recast to this spot for an hour, before topping up the groundbait by balling in another couple of kg and putting another pva stocking out on the downstream rod.
It was just after 11pm when the downstream rod regestered a pick up, I lifted into a reasonable chub, that was compliant at first, until it reached the reeds at my feet and powered between them. I smiled to myself, as this is actually one of the things I like about night fishing... I tend to keep the head torch turned off while playing a fish, relying on well adjusted night vision and sharpend senses to understand what the fish is doing... its times like this that the ability is tested, and all too often is found wanting.

The chub, of about 4lbs was followed at 11:30 by a bream, again, of 4lbs,  this time from the upstream baited area, taking the popped up source boilie. The source boilie would also account for this chub at about half past twelve. I popped this one on the scales, it had a good head and shoulders and in the headtorch beam I thought it might have a chance of scraping 5lb. At 4lb 9oz my guess was a bit optimistic...

As I returned this chub disaster almost struck, My feet slipped from under me.  Falling backwards, I instinctively reached a hand back to break my fall, but instead of my hand taking the load my whole bodyweight fell on my outstretched thumb. In the explosion of pain which followed my first thought was whether I'd be able to drive back with a broken thumb... though as the initial pain subsided and I tentatively manipulated the swollen joint I suspected a bad sprain, rather than broken bone was the problem.
I fished on, another 4lb bream took the spicy prawn boilie on the downstream rod at 1am, and it began to rain, very light and drizzly at first, in stops and starts. By 2am it was becoming a heavier drizzle and I was weighing up whether to call it a night. By 2:30 I had decided that I'd pack up at 3. At that moment another 4lb bream intervened, again falling to spicy prawn on the downstream rod, It was 2:40, my thumb was killing and it was starting to properly rain. Sometimes you need to listen to what the Gods are telling you so I decided to call it a night, once I had walked to the car and driven back to and across Nottingham.... It would be late to bed tonight.