IN MY OWN LITTLE WORLD

     My summer on the Leam has been most enjoyable so far although bigger fish have been pitifully few. At the moment I'm trying as many new swims as possible, hoping to find that one little gem that others might have missed. It gives me a lot more pleasure catching moderately sized fish from unrecognised stretches of water than any number of big fish where big fish are expected. 

     On my last trip I'd fished five yards above a tangled mass of fallen boughs hanging in and over the water. Winter visits with the feeder had produced nothing from here, but laying or tripping bottom with worms and casters on the pole had tweaked out a few Dace and Roach in the barely swingable bracket. Last week I was soundly thrashed and smashed by a Chub that took so violently on the drop that my startled reaction gave my 3lbs hooklength little chance, elastic or not. On my way out, I'd noted two more likely spots around those trees.

 
     The first, at the head of the tangle would be in shade all morning long and would offer the chance that a scent trail might draw a fish or two up to my bait. The second, at the lower end was a little more open to the sun but had more lilies to offer cover, shade and ambush points for the Perch. I fancied this one more because it more closely resembled the most productive area to date. Of course when I turned up this morning it was so heavily choked with Duckweed as to be unfishable. So it was that I settled in amongst the branches at the top end.

     It was a tight swim but, with care, fishable using my top four. I'd stepped my rig up a little to a 10 elastic with a 4.4lbs hooklength and it paid off today. A hooked fish had only to run six feet in any direction to find sanctuary but when a two pound Chub took my worm, I had it on the bank in short order. Bites were a while coming but were pretty easy to hit, tailing off as usual by 10am. The Perch were not as large as I was hoping for but there were definitely more than in the open water despite it being half as deep at around four feet.

     Pushing the pole through a narrow gap in the reeds into a table sized space between the branches with two or three small stands of brown, algae-covered cabbages was like fishing in a tiny overgrown garden. In front of me and to the sides, my horizon was 10 feet away; all I could see was green vegetation and a small piece of water with my bright red quill the only unnatural presence right in the middle. It was the centre of my whole universe until I turned around. Behind me everything as far as the eye could see was the colour of straw; dry, dusty and un-watered for a couple of months now the entire landscape shivered and shimmered in the heat. The cattle dribbling as they waited their turn to drink having only coarse reeds and a bit of water mint to make up for a diet of shrivelled grass and thistles.

     Surely it has to rain soon. Things are getting desperate for man and beast alike and at the moment a single spark would set the world ablaze here as it has in Spain and France. A summer flood to flush away the Duckweed and stagnant slacks would be nice.