Trotting at Toton

It was a sunny afternoon which seemed too good to waste, with only a few hours of light remaining of these short autumnal evenings I decided to head to the Erewash. Half a loaf of bread was retrieved from the freezer and I grabbed a float rod and centrepin loaded with 4lb line. Cutdown waders and small folding net were flung into the boot of the car and I was soon heading across Nottingham.
  Dropping into the peg nearest the car park, I dabbled a piece of flake beneath a small loafer under the rod tip, testing out the slack water to either side of the flow for a few minutes, before allowing it into the stream and allowing it to trot slowly through, holding back fairly hard by allowing my thumb to drag the drum of the pin. The water was carrying a bit of colour and I could see no sign of any fish, however towards the end of the first trot through the float buried and the first chub of the day was heading for the tree roots which line this stretch of river.

It is uncommon in my experiece to take two chub out of the same swim around here, the commotion puts the fish down for a good while, and today was no different, half an hour later I was regretting not moving sooner & moved towards the top of the section, getting pestered by minnows for 10 mins in one peg before working my way downstream, getting lots of bites but hitting none of them, probably minnows too small to hook up on the size 14 hook.

Eventually a kamakaze minnow managed to chomp the hook well down, and with some blood showing from the gills decided that it was a euthanasia case - I therefore tapped it on the head before extracting the hook, and then hooked the dead fish just behind the dorsal and trotted it through below some overhanding trees. once more the float buried and another chub, smaller this time, was brought to hand.

Satisfied with this result a moved further downstream, typically giving each swim two runs through before moving on. the sun was down by the time a third fish succombed, once more from slack water below overhanging trees. The fish managed to get the line around some submerged twigs as I was slow in burying the rod tip beneath the surface, fortunately I got lucky this time, and the downward pressure fromt he rod and the fish combined to ping the line free and the fish was soon landed. I worked my way back to the first swim eaking out the last of the fading light, but there would be no more bites. All in all a pleasant and relaxing 3 hours of fishing.

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