After three consecutive early mornings I was in need of a lie in, so had a day off from the fishing and went for a walk with the family instead.
However, arriving down at Amroth later I wished that I had got a rod and some feathers with me as there was a large flock of gulls chasing a shoal of sandeels or whitebait on the surface close to the shore, no doubt as they were harried by the mackerel from below. There were a couple of grey seals knocking about as well and when my lad went in for a quick swim one of them popped up about two metres from him to say hello and then followed him over the next few minutes, much to the amusement of everybody watching.
Anyway, suitably refreshed by a large coffee and a bowl of chips at the Pirates Cafe and back at the in-laws I pondered where to go on the Bank Holiday. Decided that a change of scenery was in order, so spent an hour scrabbling around in the farmyard turning over wood and plastic sheeting until I'd gathered a hundred or so redworms. Early the next day I was off to Haverfordwest to "my" urban trout stream. Parked in the layby off the dual carriageway, surreptitiously donned my waders and then slipped down the bank when the coast was clear. It was dark under the tree canopy and when my eyes adjusted I saw that the little stream was clear, but running at a nice level - not bare bones like last summer.
Baited up a pink, 0.5 g tungsten jighead with a worm and cast it upstream, allowing it to bump back along the bottom with the flow assisted by little flicks of the rod tip. Was just about to lift it out of the water when the worm got smashed at my feet.
Unfortunately he didn't stay on long, but it was a good sign. Worked my way slowly upstream, casting into any little holes or "pockets". Pricked and lost another three before finally nailing first perfect little brownie of the morning. Had been checking the hook point and it had seemed fine, but then lost the next two fish as well before I was forced into changing the jig head after opening out the hook pulling it out of a snag.
Perhaps unsurprisingly I started hooking up properly after that - just shows, if in doubt change your flippin' hook! The action was pretty fast and furious and I was going through my worms at a rate of knots as they were getting shredded by tiny teeth on each drift.
Managed to avoid getting caught up too much on the various bits of urban debris, but it was still frustrating when a perfect cast ended up straight in a snag and I had to ruin the swim to go and free it. Was sad to see the number of disposable vapes appearing with all of the rest of the usual rubbish. The bloody things are everywhere and should be banned in my opinion. By the time I had reached the top of the section just two and a half hours after starting I'd had twenty uniquely spotted little, wild brownies and had lost half as many again, mainly due to my earlier laziness. Had really enjoyed myself after the relative struggles of the last few days and even felt inspired to try and fit in a session back home before the end of the trout season.
Said goodbye to my bit of Welsh trout fishing heaven for another year and headed home for some well-earned breakfast.
I didn't know that trout vaped ;o)
ReplyDeleteHa! No, but every other bugger seems to!
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