AT LAST, AT LONG LAST!

     Fishing a new water apparently containing few decent silvers hasn't helped but it's still no excuse. In recent weeks I've fished the Leicester arm with bread and caught only crayfish. I've had three blanks, two tiny fish and two unwanted Carp, one small and the other a last cast desperate effort with a big piece of flake; in my last six outings. Just to rub salt into my weeping sores, all the Bream I have been seeking have come to Carp anglers and a fellow syndicate member caught a fine bag of decent Roach, Rudd and Hybrids at the scene of my crayfish fiasco. It's been hard going. 

     Today was my first opportunity to get back on the Avon for a year or so and the weather was perfect. For a start there was minimal wind and no rain forecast allowing me a chance to employ one of my all time favourite methods; trotting casters on the waggler. I don't get many chances in a season, but if circumstances allowed I would certainly be doing this a lot. It's a great method, catching mainly silvers but with high chance of big Chub and a reasonable one of a Barbel or two. Fish on the Avon are very mobile however and sometimes the big fish are elsewhere while on others, bites are few and far between but likely to produce decent fish when they come. On those very occasional red-letter days that we all hope for, it all happens at once. 

     My tackle for this has been refined over the years. On open, snag-free waters I use one of my Billy Lane Commodores, they are beautiful Roach rods; probably the best I've ever used. On the Avon which is a snaggy river with a high proportion of larger fish and a lot of pike which can necessitate the rapid catapulting to hand of bigger silvers than one might usually swing in, I use a 12' Hardy Matchmaker. Richard Walker had a hand in designing this rod with Hampshire Avon Chub in mind and it has a lot of useful muscle lower down when things get tricky. I use 12 footers for waggler fishing as they are better balanced for extended use but will use rods of 13' plus for stick float fishing for improved line control. 

 

Rods apart, I always use the same gear on the Avon; a Mitchell Match (bought new when I left school 52 years ago) loaded with 5lb Dave Harrell Pro Match line. I spray floatant onto the spooled line the evening before to make sure it floats as well as possible. Hooklengths are 4.4lb fluoro to a 16 hook. On the river I like an 8" loaded peacock waggler and down the line minimal shot, a single no10 one foot from the hook and one or two sixes between 18" and half depth above that. I want my hookbait to follow as similar path from the surface as the loose feed. Hemp and tares are catapulted in around 4-5 metres further downriver than the casters so that they hopefully end up hitting bottom towards the tail of my swim. 

 

     I'm not sure why but I rarely ever feel the need to strike quickly when waggler fishing. I suspect that because float preceeds the bait most of the time, weight of current helps prick the fish. Certainly I didn't miss many today, neither did many fall off; no more than three or four at any rate. These fairly strong flowing waters seem to just absorb bait unlike slower rivers, canals and stillwaters. The currents are always changing both in direction and speed ultimately scattering uneaten bait far and wide. The fish probably don't chase the bait back much preferring to wait for the next particle heading their way.

 

     I fed a full pint of casters and a similar amount of hemp and tares this morning and had bites from the off. What really surprised me was the average stamp of the roach and dace that I caught with a lot of the former in the 3 to 6 ounce bracket. The Dace were unsurprisingly not quite as big but lots of those weighed three or four ounces; all big enough to resist winding in and several right on the limit for swinging in. Unfortunately, as usual on the Avon, the Pike were a pain in the proverbial and after I'd lost the second one the fishing slowed. My catch rate dropped and the bigger fish were noticeably fewer and farther between. Even so, I finished the morning with a round 10lbs of silvers; the nicest fishing I've had in a while. Sadly the bigger Chub were elsewhere but they'll start coming out to this method a bit later on; at the moment light levels are still quite good and they mostly seem to come out at dusk. 

      On one hand it seems a shame to me that everybody else is soaking pellets while they wait for something bigger to come along and hang itself but having all these roach and dace to myself suits me just fine. At least my dry spell has dampened slightly.