Struggling to get out

As the title of this update suggests, ive really been struggling to get out on the bank over the last 2-3weeks. Things have gone a bit mental at work and ive been stuck there six days a week, i hope things calm down a bit soon because its killing my fishing! What fishing time i have managed to grab has been made up of a couple of very brief trips to the Soar and the Trent in pursuit of the ever reliable Chub.

A couple of weeks ago i found myself sat next to the Soar staring at a quivertip in some horrendous weather conditions. The wind was a howling upstreamer and was coupled with some squally showers and i really regretted not packing that brolly!
Despite the conditions the fish were really biting and i caught a string of small Chub between 1-3lb . Spotting bites was tricky in the wind and when it picked up even more i finally admitted defeat and headed for home.

 Theres certainly plenty of these in the Soar at the minute!

A couple of days later i headed down to a different stretch of Soar in a bid to find something a bit bigger but that trip coincided with an extremely heavy hailstorm which had me heading for home without even wetting a line . Im no fair weather angler, not by any means but i do have my limits!

My next trip was an afterwork trip to the Trent, it looked ok according to the EA river levels site but upon my arrival i found it very coloured and pulling through like a train, not great for Chub and after a biteless couple of hours id had enough.

I was getting really frustrated by now and felt that everything was conspiring to ruin my fishing prospects altogether . A bit of retail therapy was called for and i decided to treat myself to a shiny new lure rod for fishing ultralites aswell as some tasty looking Jerkbaits to go with my heavy setup . I plan to fish lures a lot more this year as i find it a very absorbing way of fishing and its also a style that requires very little preparation beforehand . To go lure fishing is just a case of chucking a rod and kit-bag in the car and going, no bait to source and prepare or anything.



New toy - Sweeeeeeet!

Back to to the fishing anyway, some really wintery weather has been forcast for February and as i write this heavy snow has been forcast for the next couple of days . With this in mind i managed to finish work early so that i could get a few hours in prior to things getting messy .

The Trent was finally looking right for a bite or two and, although it was very sunny and absolutely freezing i fancied my chances. I dropped  in on a couple of swims and couldnt raise so much as a twitch let alone a fish. It was getting late in the day and i was starting to get a little dispondent .

Just as i was thinking about a move i noticed a fish swirl in the next swim downstream so my mind was made up . Within minutes my bread-loaded feeder was cast into the new spot and awaiting some fishy attention. Within a couple of minutes the tip plucked before smoothly pulling around and i struck into a fish . It hung deep in the flow making me think it was bigger than it actually was but at 4.2 it was a nice way to save a blank.

I recast, hopeful that there might be a few fish tightly shoaled up down there due to the icy conditions and i wasnt disappointed . Another bite a few minutes later resulted in a another Trent standard Chub of 4.4 . That fish proved to be the last of the trip and all to soon the wintery darkness began to fall .

If we do get the snow theyve predicted then it could really mess the rivers up for the end of the season, i hope it doesnt as theres quite a lot i want to try and fit in before then - if i can get out in the first place!

A brace of Trent bruisers