23/10/2011 - River Derwent

A rare weekend outing, but thought I'd make the best of the mild weather and got a pass out for the afternoon. Headed for Borrowash, the scene of my  recent perch brace. Had a bit of suprise when I got there. The carpark was unlocked, but completely devoid of any other anglers. Was therefore able to stroll down at leisure knowing that the area I wanted to fish would be free. Had changed a lot in appearance since last time. All of the Himalyan Balsam had either died down or been eaten by the sheep, so the banks seemed very open, but could still see the weed beds in the margins. Set up in the usual spot, which turned out to be a good thing in one respect. Saw something glinting in the silt and pulled out a pair of my glasses that I must have dropped last session! Bit brown with algae, but otherwise fine.

Result!

The strong, gusty (but warm) upstream wind played hell with the float rod, but luckily the bleak didn't seem to mind my rubbish presentation and I soon had a few in the bucket. Expecting things to be a bit slower, I forced myself to put the float rod away and set up two paternosters. Had two finnicky, dropped takes on each rod before I had my first proper take. Turned out to be a perch of 1lb 15oz, possibly a recapture as I've had three near this weight out of the same swim.

Familiar?

Went a bit quiet after this, so the next take came out of the blue and made me jump! Wound down to feel something solid on the end that took off at a rate of knots downstream. After a bit of tussle (during which I was praying for the other rod not to go off!), I had a long, lean pike of 11lb 8oz in the net. 

Lean and mean

Two greedy little perch of about 3/4 lb followed before it got dark. Suspect it won't be too long now before the weed dies down and the big perch go off to their winter haunts.