The last week of the season

Hi all, this is the first post of my new blog. I will be updating on a weekly basis and seeing as last week was the last one of the 2009/2010 season its seems as good a place to start as any.

After such a long and cold winter with few opportunities to get out with a realistic chance of a good days fishing i decided to book a few days off work to try and cram in a few last gasp river sessions before the season ended. Fortunately the weather was starting to take a turn for the better the previous week so things were looking promising for the week ahead. I planned to target some Perch and Chub as i had some good results at the end of previous seasons fishing for them.

Monday 8th March

Having met up with my mate Steve we both headed for a stretch on a local river which has been good to me in the past. Steve hadnt fished the area before and with the river running as clear as id ever seen it and a biting cold wind, prospects werent looking great. Still, youve got to be in it to win it and after a short walk upstream we set up on the outside of a sweeping bend about 50 yards apart.

I dropped a large worm around 10 yards downstream under the inside margin where it was quite rocky but quite deep at around 6-7ft. The flow was deceptively quick and I began trickling in a few maggots every couple of minutes to see if i could draw anything up from downstream. After 10minutes of this the quivertip slowly pulled around and i hit into a heavy fish, by the way it was jagging the rod tip and keeping deep i thought it was a good Perch but unfortunately i would never find out as the hook pulled.

A few minutes later after recasting, a repeat performance ensued only this time i saw the culprit and it turned out to be a small pike which promptly bit through the hooklink. At about this time a dog walker decided to start chucking things in the river for her mutt to retrieve about 5 yards from Steves swim so a move was most definately called for................

Once we got to the new spots we quickly settled in and began fishing in earnest as the Perch witching hour was fast approaching. After about half an hour i had a decisive pull on the tip and hit into a decent fish. After a short battle the net was slid under a stunning perch which took the scales round to 3lb6oz, a new personal best!

I recast to the same spot and had another bite almost imediately which resulted in another hook-up and another Perch on, that is until a Tench slid into the net!


After this there was a bit of a lull for an hour or so till a couple of bites in quick succession as it was getting dark resulted in two more Perch including a fish of 2lb1oz. Steve never had a bite despite trying spots either side of mine which shows just how localised the fish were on the day.