WHAT YOU DO WHEN THINGS GET TOUGH?

Dawn on the River Tame 

     

I'm not an awfully patient man I have to admit. I've already had two blanks this week. The first was on the Warwickshire Avon when even hedging my bets pretty much failed me. I didn't just leger luncheon meat for Chub and the outside chance of a Barbel, I lobbed out a Roach deadbait as well. Neither was exactly productive. The same jack Pike took my deadbait twice when I was winding in but never hung on long enough to land, but that was it. The meat never even came back with a corner nibbled off by Minnows.

     Wednesday was no better. I fished meat again but on the Tame this time with Loz and other than one possible tap each, nothing. That could have been a leaf brushing the line anyway. Two blanks and that is a quandary for me, what next? In the end I made the potentially foolish decision, given the cold weather, to fish for Roach again at Jubilee. I was prepared for a hard day; I even tied some 20s to 1.3 lbs hooklengths. Five, that's all I tied and I'm not looking forward to doing it again, I could hardly see the damn things, or hold them come to that.

 
     So, dawn this morning found me in a favourite swim on the Island pool threading the line by torchlight. The float was dotted down further than usual and I was hoping a single maggot on a twenty would generate some interest. I pretty much set up to be scratching for bites and for a long time it seemed like a pointless exercise. Just what do you do when things are so tough that you can't get a bite on a single maggot on a 20 hook to one pound line? I mean, where do you go next?

Just for a few minutes I had thought that it might be a busy day. My first two casts produced the tiniest of indications so there was life down there. All I could think of to do was to keep on trickling in bait in the hope that eventually something might be tempted to begin feeding. I suppose you could say it worked although it was a good couple of hours before I had something to strike at.

 
     My first bite was pretty unusual, the float sinking incredibly slowly. So slowly in fact that I didn't believe it was a bite but possibly just drag. Close inspection showed the line at the tip under no tension whatsoever so eventually I just lifted tentatively. What initially felt like a bit of rubbish on the hook turned out to be a fish. It felt like small skimmer, just a little weight that began pulling gently but it quickly came adrift. I carried on flicking four or five maggots around the float every few minutes until eventually a similar bite developed. It must have taken ten seconds or more to pull the float under and I only had half an inch showing. These were very strange bites but this time a more purposeful strike connected with another small fish. Bizarrely, after nodding around for a while it shot off making the reel spin. Clearly this was a better fish than I had first thought. It turned into a 1-1 Perch as it slid over the net.

 
     I struck too hard and broke on the next bite but I soon had another Perch on the bank, this one 1-4. Up until now, it was a flat calm with zero drift. It was a good job because I was getting more indications as time went on but most of them, while definitely fish, would have been invisible if there had been any ripple on the water. I had elected to fish off, but as close to, the bottom as I could but at about 10.30 a really annoying drift to the right began and the float was constantly drifting away from the feeding zone. I decided to risk putting the float up and moving the two bottom shot, a six and an eight, to within six inches of the hook to anchor the bait. When I had tried this earlier on, I had caught leaves pretty regularly so I wasn't particularly optimistic really.

 
     It worked however and produced two more nice fish in the last hour, a 1-5 Perch and a stunning ten ounce Roach. I never had so much as a single 'proper', float slides away, bite all morning, just numerous tiny indications which occasionally led to the float slowly submerging and all the hook-holds were just in the lip. What had begun as a typical cold winter slog actually ended up as one of my better days and was all the more satisfying given the conditions. I think I might persevere with the stillwater Roach on these pools into the winter as they seem to be of a better average size than earlier in the year and if there are some decent Perch to be caught at the same time, well so much the better. Some new wagglers with finer tips might be in order but otherwise I feel I have my set up about right.