The weather has still been pretty cold over the last week and today was no exception . I had a few hours spare this morning and planned to spend them on a local brook in pursuit of its Roach and large Dace. The brook in question is the same one i visited about this time last year when everything was covered in snow so i reasoned that it should be good for a few bites given the conditions. There had been an extremely hard frost overnight and upon arriving at the bankside i was a little disappointed to see that it was running very low, very clear and there wasnt a fish in sight which was unusual, this was going to be tougher than i thought.
I couldnt raise so much as a sniff in the first couple of spots i tried but after heading to some slightly deeper water upstream i began to find a few fish. The fish werent exactly crawling up the line and i was having to work for every bite but i had some nice Dace and a couple of small Chub . Before i knew it id been there nearly 4 hours and it was time to head back.
As i got to the shallower runs downstream near the car i spotted some fish dimpling the surface near a bridge so i put some bits of bread in and they began swirling at it straight away. I made a cast and caught one imediately, a nice Dace, the biggest of the day at 10oz . As i walked past the spot id just caught from i spotted the rest of the shoal and was amazed at how well the fish were hidden considering the water was only about 6inches deep!Below are some pics from the day and hopefully they give some idea of just how small and shallow the place is . Its incredible how the fish seem to thrive in there despite living in what must be a very tough environment . The place becomes a torrent when it floods and when its low the fish are sitting ducks for predators . I could get in there and walk along it for miles and it wouldnt come above my knees yet it wouldnt surprise me in the slightest if it threw up a real monster of a Dace one day . Anyway thatll have to wait till next time ..........
Youve probably noticed one or two changes to the look of my blog of late . This is because, apart from freshening things up, i want to make room for bigger pictures and stuff . There may be one or two more tweaks still to come but i intend to have it all sorted for the new year so please bear with me!
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ReplyDeletePerfect rod for the job eh kidda! ;)
ReplyDeleteTailor made bud, and very old skool, every bite was a proper wrap around!;)
ReplyDeleteTo those not blessed with Robs hawk-like vision, the rod is an 8ft Silstar GT matchpicker circa 1990ish, an awesome bit of kit for magnifying those shy bites.
Very similar to the rod I use for the small stream fishing, Leo - an 8ft Dam Chevron winklepicker. Perfect types of rod for the purpose, just lay them on the ground and watch that little tip for shy bites. I learn more about bites with this kind of fishing than any other being so close up to things. My stream has no dace though but ten-ouncers are massive fish for such a small brook . Well done, great post.
ReplyDeleteCheers Jeff, for some reason modern quivertips dont seem to quite 'come alive' like the old-uns do when a fish mouths the bait.
ReplyDelete