Went back to Lithuania at half term to catch up with the lad. Had a pleasant few days wandering around sunny, snowy Vilnius, visiting galleries, indulging in their cafe culture and eating lots of nice food.
Even fitted in an impromptu cross-country skiing session that turned out to be great fun, if not hard on the arms and calf muscles. Temperatures had been below freezing every day, cold enough for round ice floes, looking like giant, frozen lily pads, to form on the River Neris that runs through the city centre. It was therefore a bit of a shock to arrive back at Luton Airport to find it was 16 degrees! Back in Nottingham my thoughts soon returned to fishing and how I could fit as many sessions on the rivers in the time left available. Looking in my work diary a meeting up at Ripley gave me another opportunity to drop in on the brook on the way home, so the tackle went in the car along with a new, "virgin" ball of cheesepaste, made at the weekend out of the Christmas leftovers from the freezer.
With the days getting longer I didn't have to rush and was on the bank for 1530 hrs. Baited up a few spots with some bits of paste before fishing them back to the start. The brook was running at a nice level, with a greenish tinge, so I was confident of a few fish. Proved to be case as first cast in swim number one resulted in a greedy chublet. Missed a couple of tentative knocks before moving swim number two. Again, first cast down the side of a tree stump resulted in another chublet that I retained in the net as the swim looked too good just to hold one fish.
Sure enough, his brother joined him in the net a couple of minutes later. Moved downstream of the tree stump and popped a bait over on the far bank crease. Again, within minutes, the rod tip nodded and pulled round resulting in another chub that, judging by the damage to his tail and gill plate, had survived a recent encounter with a feathered or furred predator. Things were looking good, so I was full of confidence as I moved into my "bogey swim" - one where I was yet to successfuly hook and land a fish despite getting several bites. However, weirdly I didn't have a single touch, althought the bait came back looking as if it had been attacked by something. Crayfish? My final swim was the pool downstream of the footbridge.
If I was to catch a better fish it was going to be here. Put a fresh lump of paste on the hook, gave it a blob of "lava" and then swung it out into the middle. Again, the bite was almost instantaneous. Struck into a much bigger fish that gave me a glimpse of a deep, brassy flank on the surface before it bored headfirst into some over-hanging brambles on the far bank. Felt everything go solid, so slackened off and felt the line between my fingers. As soon as it started to move again I gave it full welly. However, everything went limp and my rig came back minus hook. Bugger. Re-tackled and gave it a couple of minutes before casting out again. A couple of nods on the rod tip and my strike connected with another decent fish that splashed on the surface before making a bee-line for the near bank.
Tried to get an angle on it to stop it getting into the over-hanging vegetation but, sickeningly, everything suddenly went slack as the hook pulled out! Luckily any dog walkers had by now disappeared up the field, so they didn't have to listen to the string of expletives that coloured the air. Baited up again in the vain hope that it would be third time lucky, but as the light faded the rod tip stubbornly remained still. To add insult to injury it started raining, so I packed up and trudged back to the car feeling a bit crestfallen. Either of those fish would have easily been my best from the brook so far. Hopefully I'll have another opportunity to redeem myself, although I need the weather to behave itself for the next couple of weeks - not to rain like it's doing now!
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