Either I am very frugal with my loose feed or the chap at the local tackle shop is very generous with his measures because I had over half a pint of maggots left over after my session on the Soar last week. Either way, he certainly looks after his bait as they were still top quality after a few days in the fridge.
With the weather forecast to be unsettled for the rest of the week I therefore headed back there this evening to finish them off. Walked up to the island past the rapidly establishing beds of floating pennywort to find - shock, horror! - another member sat in the peg immediately downstream of my usual spot. He'd already got one rod out for barbel and another for pike. However, after a quick chat he was perfectly amenable to me dropping in upstream of him. As it was the river level had dropped since last time and I had to wade a bit further up the bank to be able to reach out into the main flow with my 11 ft Ultralite. Had also brought the perch rod again but, unlike last time, I struggled intially to catch anything big enough for bait as I was immediately pestered by masses of this year's chublets,.
Slowly the loose feed started to attract some better fish, including some nice dace and roach, and I was faced with the opposite problem - too big. Not that I was in a rush and I didn't want to play my cards too soon given the close proximity of a fellow angler. The river was also gin clear, with the bottom visible at least half-way across the channel, so I doubted that there would be much predator action before the light levels started dropping off anyway. Eventually got a couple of suitable baits in the bucket, positioning one of them just upstream of a trailing willow. The rest of the session was virtually a carbon copy of last week's with dace and small perch dominating affairs, although it was nice to see a few gonks turn up this time.
I've had a total of ten different species from the river on the float now after the Essex Scribbler identified a silver bream from a picture on a previous post, the only ones left now really being barbel and carp. It's a shame that such diversity doesn't seem to breed specimens, although the presence of so many prey fish along with signal crayfish must mean that there is a monster perch, pike or zed lurking down there somewhere. Not on this occasion though. Heard the bite alarm on the perch rod beep a couple of times before the line came out of the clip and started tumbling off the reel. Wound down into a lean, feisty jack that charged around a bit before throwing itself in the net. He was cleanly hooked in the scissors, so I easily unhooked with my fingers and sent him on his way.
Put another bait on and re-positioned the paternoster at the tail of the swim. A couple of tentative knocks a bit later signalled some more interest although, having quickly pulled the line out of the clip, there didn't seem to be any subsequent movement on the other end. However, after a few seconds I saw the line start twitching across the surface, so wound down to briefly feel a fish that banged its head a couple of times and was then off. Perch. Possibly. Hopefully not a big one. Not long afterwards a couple of pipistrelles appeared in the fading light, twisting and turning over the river. This signalled the end of my session as I was now struggling to make out the tip of the float in the gloom.
Had fished for two and a half hours and had had a fish about every two minutes including bleak, roach, dace, chub, perch, skimmers and gudgeon. Packed up to find my companion was doing the same having had a chub and a jack. And yes, I had some maggots left over, so turns out that I am actually a scrooge! Not sure what's next - I would like to catch a decent perch, but we're off the France next week and not long after that my thoughts will be turning back to pike, zander and grayling. Where's the year gone?
We know the Essex Scribbler for what he really is. The Loafer! He did find me my first silver bream for many many years though.
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