Stepping outside to pack the car at 6am this morning i was quite surprised to find that wed had a fairly decent frost overnight. Its the first time ive had to scrape the car in months and although i welcome the first frosts as the start of my winter campaign i was a little concerned about what effect the sudden temperature drop would have on the fishing as its been quite mild of late.
I arrived at the river for first light and the thermometer in the car never registered above zero for the entire journey there. The grass in the fields was white over, the thick mist was rising off the river and the sheep were all huddled together, i love this time of year!
I headed for a proven spot and set up a float rig to lay-on with worms tight to a snag. After a good while with no bites the usual 'grass is greener' mentality began to set in as i started to wonder if id be better off in another spot. I neednt have worried though because the float bobbed a couple of times and then slid away decisively. A firm strike met with solid resistance and after a short but dogged scrap i had what looked to be a nice Chub in the net. It had the length and frame of a 5lb+ fish so i was little disappointed when the scales showed it to be hollow at 4lb4oz. Still, it was nice fish on a cold morning and i know it will be a definate 5 towards the backend of the season.
After that, other than some unwelcome Crayfish attention i had no more interest from that spot so i moved on. Again, in my next spot the Crays gave me more problems and i reasoned that if they were active there then the Chub and Perch certainly werent so off i moved again. Despite fishing hard for the rest of the morning i only managed one more good bite which i missed.
The sun was extremely bright due to the clear skies which didnt help matters but the sudden temperature drop was the main reason it was so slow i think. A few more frosts over the next few weeks will get the fish better acclimatised and moving to their winter quarters hopefully.
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