20/09/2019 - First river session for a while.

My river season doesn't really get going until late summer, but this year it was in danger of being pushed back to October, so this week I made a conscious decision to make the best of the fantastic weather we were having and get down my local River Soar. About 3 o'clock I stopped off at Soar Tackle and got my club book and a pint of "mixed" off Scott. A quick chat about my chosen venue revealed that the top of the section had hardly been fished this year - just what I wanted to hear! Fifteen minutes later I was heading upstream across the meadow and into the wood. Soon became apparent from the shoulder high nettles that what Scott had said was true, but I managed to battle through the vegetation in my waders relatively unscathed. 

Got to my familiar spot and found the river low and clear, but still with enough flow from left to right to create a nice crease over to the far side. Looked quite promising from the top of the bank as I could see lots of small fish knocking about, so set up the rods and got down into the water. Started off by trotting maggot under the stick and had a fish on, a small chub, first cast. Was soon obvious that it was like fish soup out there! Most casts the float barely managed to travel six feet before the maggot was snatched by a chublet, dace, or bleak. 























I was therefore able to get some baits in the bucket and the rod with the perch paternoster out into the slack to my right in double quick time. Carried on with the float, building up the swim and letting the paternoster rod work away by itself. Didn't have to wait long before a slack line bite indicated some interest from a predator. However, before I could get on the rod the bait was dropped, its scaleless flanks indicating the likely culprit. Popped it back into the slack to be taken again a few minutes later. Unfortunately, thoughts of a decent perch were dashed when a green, spotty torpedo immediately went airborne. Carried on in this vein for the next 3 hours, adding a few roach and a single skimmer that somehow managed to get to the bait before the ravenous hordes of little chub! Obviously, with this much food about, there were also a few more predators in attendance.


However, six more hits on the paternoster just resulted in more pike or stolen baits. Hung on for as long as I could, straining to see the float in the gloom before packing up. For the record I had 94 chublets, 35 bleak, 12 dace, 8 roach and 1 skimmer on the float and 3 pike on the paternoster......but not a single perch on either! 

Still, it had been a very hectic and enjoyable session and I as I headed back to the car through the nettles the river was absolutely alive with topping fish. Made me think that there must be a big perch there somewhere, but that will have to wait until next time.......