23/09/2019 - Back so soon?

Not wanting to rest on my laurels after Friday's session and with some unfinished business with a big perch I arranged to work at home so that I could finish and be out the door at 3 o'clock on the dot - the benefit of working flexi time! Refreshed my remaining maggots with another pint of mixed from Bridge Tackle in Long Eaton and headed off to the Soar once more. Got to the venue to find that the river was still clear, but that the rain over the weekend had injected a bit more pace into the flow, making it a lot easier to run the float through my chosen swim. Another obvious change was that the hordes of ravenous chub seemed to have moved on elsewhere which, as it turned out, at least gave a some different species a chance.

Soon got into a rhythm catching bleak, chub, roach and dace on the stick and, like on Friday, the perch paternoster was soon deployed at the bottom end of the swim. It had been grey and dull when I arrived, so I wasn't surprised when it started spitting with rain after about an hour. Rather stupidly I had left my coat in the car, so had to rely on my fleece and the tree canopy above me as a natural umbrella. 












This meant that I had to retreat backwards out of the river a few paces, so ended up trotting down a different line out of the main flow. This didn't seem to make a difference as I carried on catching silvers, but also added some bonus species in the way of perch, gudgeon and a little ruffe. Can't actually remember the last time I caught one of these so, along with the gudgeon, it was a welcome surprise.

The  perch rod had been looking after itself all this time, so when the bite alarm eventually signalled a take it came completely out of the blue. However, my hopes of my first big stripey of the season were dashed when another jack started charging around the swim instead. Carried on and added a skimmer on the float rod to make it nine species for the night, before just concentrating on the perch rod for the last half an hour. Unfortunately, I only managed another jack and a small perch that eyes far bigger than its belly! Ended up with 34 bleak, 24 dace, 24 chub, 14 roach, 5 perch, 4 gudgeon, 2 pike, a ruffe and a skimmer.

So whilst a big perch eluded me again, It was another enjoyable session on a river that is obviously in a very healthy condition at the moment. Packed up and headed home a little damp, but happy!