Spent a few days over in Lithuania at the end of October, visiting our lad in Vilnius. The city is spilt by two rivers, the Vilnia and the much larger Neris, which are home to a wide variety of fish species, including salmon, trout, grayling, asp and nase, so couldn't help peering over the many bridges on our various walks.
Only a short distance out of the city the surrounding forests are full of secluded lakes and we saw quite a few lure anglers fishing for the resident pike, perch and zander. Perhaps I'll be allowed to sneak a travel rod in next trip! Back home this mild and overcast weather hasn't been good for replensihment of the old vitamin D but has felt distinctly "perchy", so after a rare visit to the office in Nottingham I stopped off at Matchman Supplies in West Bridgford for a pint of red maggots and a tub of dendrabaenas.
A few minutes later I was parked up on the Trent embankment and walking over the suspension bridge to a spot that I'd last fished a couple of years ago. I knew that I only had about an hour and a half of daylight, but with my Drennan medium feeder rod already set up I was soon settled in at the bottom of the steps. Put the biggest dendra I could find on my size 10 widegape, filled my 30g black cap feeder 50/50 with chopped worm and red maggot and then flicked it downstream towards the bridge support. Felt the feeder hit the gravel with a nice "donk" and started watching the tip like a hawk as based on previous visits I was expecting bites to start pretty much straight away.
However, half an hour later and despite keeping the feed going in all this time I was biteless, the only distraction the endless procession of university rowers and canoeists. Stuck it out for a bit longer with still no interest, so decided to gamble and move downstream of the bridge. Here the bridge support had created a little slack about the size of a snooker table. Therefore swung the feeder out a bit further hoping it settled somewhere near the far crease between the main current and the slack. After a couple of re-casts the glass quiver tip suddenly jagged round violently and I struck into a decent fish. There was quite a bit of head banging going on, so I thought I'd eventually achieved my target.
However, that idea was put to rest when a bronze dinner plate appeared on the surface and a Trent snotty rolled into the net. Quickly sorted him out and put a fresh worm out as the light was fading rapidly now, although the diffuse light from the bridge and embankment were just enough for me to make out my quiver tip in the gloom. A couple of minutes later I had another, more tentative bite that I decided to hit. Felt another fish on the end and from the fight was fully expecting this to be another bream. However, when it came up to the surface I saw it was indeed a decent perch that I couldn't get my landing net under quick enough. Got him unhooked and gave him a quick weigh and at 2lb 2oz he was my first 2lb+ perch for a very long time, so was well pleased with that. By now it was getting on for 5 o'clock and pitch black, so packed up and headed back over the bridge to the car.
Spent the next hour negotiating the rush hour traffic back home! However, if this mild weather continues I'll definitely be thinking about a return.
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