INTO THE TREES

     One of the joys of having over a mile of river pretty much to one's self is that every new swim is an unknown quantity. Driven further upriver by the thick covering of duckweed that has made so many spots unfishable, I'd reached the second, middle field which has a fair bit of tree cover. At the bottom end that the bushes becomes a proper wood matching the one on the other side, and the resulting light reduction appeared to be keeping the dreaded green scum at bay. Obviously it also keeps the lilies and reeds from growing there as well leaving an uncharacteristically barren stretch of maybe 50, gloomy yards.

     Never having fished there before it remained to be seen whether it was fishable or not and if it was, whether it held any fish either. With those variables in mind I decided to set up the pole and do a bit of plumbing around. Luckily, the depth was good; surprisingly, it was snag free and presumably because it was an unusually straight section, that depth held from the near bank to the middle of the river which was as far as I could reach. All of this suggested two things; that the fishing would be technically comfortable and that there might be few if any fish. Only time and the application of bait would tell.

 

     As usual it was straight out with the bait dropper and in with some chop and casters. I know it's predictable these days but there's not much else one can use that will work for Perch, Roach and Chub without drawing in hordes of minnows. It's working so far so I stick with it. I wasn't quite so sure that there would be all that much here to catch today though. So far I have been working on the principle that the Perch, in particular, would be close to cover given the resident Otter population and in the wood there was no sub-surface protection at all as far as I could see. Twenty yards upstream there was a large fallen tree in the river and twenty yards downstream reeds, lilies and branches galore: surely they would be there?

     Yet again my theories were found wanting as bites came immediately; small fish mostly, it's true but some nice 'weight builders' in match angling parlance; a Roach and a Perch of half a pound apiece and two very nice Dace of around 5 ounces. As always seems to happen, I found out something useful that fills me with hope and optimism just in time to go away and be unable to return for a fortnight. Never mind, a point was proven; cover is not always necessary and as it turned out neither were worms. I never had a fish on them, everything wanted casters today.