The River Angler

What a shocker of a closed season!  The weather was pathetic; cold, windy and wet oh and cold.  Did I mention cold and the wind by the way?!  Only kidding, but it was tough going.  At times it was difficult to find the enthusiasm to get out on the bank to be honest.

Still at last the weather did improve.  Temperatures picked up to mid to upper teens although the nights were still a little chilly.  Between Geoff, Kevin, Dan and myself we did manage to do maybe 3 or 4 sessions over the last 4 or 5 weeks.  I decided to have a little bit of a bash at Johnsons with Geoff.  Only two sessions but very enjoyable.

I decided to give the method feeder a go.  Fishing two rods out around 30-40yds.  This produced some reasonable action, although far from spectacular.  I think I ended up with about 7 or 8 tench and lost a few unfortunately.  It seemed the crucians were preoccupied  with spawning and then recovering, as few seemed to get caught by anyone whilst we were there.

Then we had our last pre-season session on Harris and we were joined by Kev’s brother Steve.  The weather was pleasant and the fishing pretty good but frustrating.  Kevin and Steve got off to a roaring start, catching almost from the off, although their catch rate severely dropped off later.  I started slowly and then improved later on, however I lost several crucians throughout the evening and missed countless bites.  I think I ended up with 7 or 8 tench and a couple of crucians to just on the 2lb mark.

Geoff also started off badly but then had a hectic spell and I think ended up with 6 tench and 4 crucians.  Steve and Kev were also around those sorts of figures, taking some stunning crucians up to 2lb 13oz.  Dan had a few tench including one decent one pushing 6.  All in all a pleasant enough end to the traditional closed season.

Kev and Steve

Now of course its time to start thinking about the rivers once more.  I have managed to go through all of the gear, sorting out the bits and bobs and accessories, rods, reels, floats and leads etc etc and I think I’m just about ready to rock and roll.  So I will be out on the 17th on a very small and quiet river in search of one of its elusive barbel.  Its incredibly wild and overgrown on this stretch, so I’m looking forward to a very peaceful session, well except for lots of rod creaking, water thrashing barbel action that is.

Good luck to all of my river fishing brothers and sisters.  May your rods creak and your lines sing. 🙂