Just had a fantastic ten days in rural France. Autumn is definitely my favourite time over there - warm, clear days spent walking and foraging for chestnuts, walnuts and fungi. Wildlife was also amazing this time. We saw deer every day, as well as coypu and red squirrels. Also saw kestrels, buzzards, a black-winged kite, a marsh harrier, little egrets, great white egrets and on our last two days, migrating common cranes - very impressive birds.
Unfortunately our journey back home took an unexpected turn when we docked in Newhaven to find that they couldn't lower the front car ramp. After five hours of them trying to rectify the issue we had to sail back to Dieppe, get unloaded off the back and then drive up to Calais to get an alternative ferry to Dover. Eventually got back to Nottingham 33 hours after we left the house in France having had very little sleep. However, by yesterday the wife had sufficiently recovered enough to drive down to see her folks in Wales.
This left me to my own devices for a couple of days, so with some two week old maggots still in the fridge I naturally took stock of what the weather and the local rivers were doing. Made a snap decision to head down to the Soar again and was out the door as soon as work would allow. Walked upstream to find that the Canal & River Trust had moved in materials and equipment to start renovation work on the "Deep Lock" at the top of the section. Not before time as the old, wooden gates leak like a sieve but it did mean that access over the lock to the island was soon going to be out of bounds, so this looked to be be my last chance for a while. By the time I had got to the swim and got everything set up it was 1530 hrs so I guessed that I had about an hour and a half before dark.
Quickly got to work with the float rod and whilst bites were initially hard to come by, the usual suspects started to show up, including chub, dace, roach, gudgeon and bleak. The paternoster rod had been deployed as quickly as possible and it wasn't long before the rod tip banged a couple of times and the line pulled out of the bobbin clip. Wound down into what I thought might have been a perch but turned out to be a micro-jack pinned by the size 6 single through the end of his schnozzle. A bit later I unhooked and dropped a small bleak back into the river to see it shoot across the surface but then disappear into a vortex. Quickly wound the paternoster rod in and cast it out onto the same spot.
Hadn't even got the line clipped up before it was snatched from my fingers. Wound down into something a bit more substantial this time, but still not a perch. Carried on with the float rod until I could no longer see properly and then gave the paternoster rod an extra ten minutes. Was just about to pack up when the rod tip thumped over just the once. Waited to see if the agressor would return but then wound in to find a very dead roach with several puncture wounds - zander possibly? Packed up and walked back to the car, my breath coming out in clouds in the cold air, setting off the alarm in the Canal & River Trust site compound in the process! Will have to see about doing some sessions into dark now for an elusive River Trent zed.
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