Thought I'd take advantage of this continued warm weather we've been having and get another short session in on the Soar, so finished work at 3 o'clock and headed down to Kegworth.
Popped into the village for some maggots but I'd forgotten that Soar Tackle isn't open on a Monday, so I had to shoot down the A6 into Loughborough to Netbusters instead. Half an hour of wasted fishing time later I was back in Kegworth and yomping up to the top of the section. The pennywort had continued to proliferate in the mild conditions and the Deep Lock was full of the horrible stuff. Any attempt to control it this year appears to have failed. We could just do with a really good flush through to get rid of it now. Crossed over onto island and made my way to my usual spot downstream of the weir. Again, the river was low and gin clear - not surprising given that we only had 48% of the long term average rainfall in September, the rain at the start of the month being a distant memory.
Dropped into the margins and started running the float down towards the bush on the far bank. Had a bite on the second cast resulting in a nice, little chub. Unfortunately, as I went to lift him out he got "t-boned" by a pike that appeared out of nowhere and then just sat in front of me in the lillies with his prize.
Unsuccessfully attempted to scoop him up with the landing net but it at least caused him to let the unfortunate chub go, still alive but with a few new scars. Carried on with the float rod, adding more chub and some quality dace and roach.
What were notably conspicuous by their absence were the bleak as again everything was far too big to use as perch bait. Finally got one after about an hour and popped it straight out on the paternoster rod. Next trot down with the float rod resulted in a hand-sized perch and just as I was unhooking him the bite alarm sounded and I looked around to see the paternoster rod nodding away. The culprit turned out to be the target species, but no bigger than the one I'd just had on a single red maggot. To add insult to injury, as he sat in the net the greedy bugger coughed up a sizeable bullhead! Spent the next hour steadily building up a decent bag of chub, dace, roach and a few more small perch on the float rod, although I desperately wanted another bleak!
Eventually managed to snag one just as the light was fading. Had seen some disturbance to my right earlier, so moved downstream and dropped the paternoster next to a sunken tree. Response was almost immediate, the rod tip banging over and the line pulling out of the bobbin clip. Was another stripey and the best of the evening, but still nowhere near the size I was after. Packed up at this point and made my way back to the car. Time for a change of venue and tactics I think. Had enough of chasing ghosts!
