The River Angler

More rain has fallen since my latest trip to Bury Hill in Dorking.  In fact we’ve had 65mm in around 72 hours in Sevenoaks!  The rivers must be over the banks again in a lot of areas but the good news is things look like they are going to settle down now, well for a while at least.

Due to the dire forecast, Geoff and I opted to try for some more roach.  Old Bury Hill has a reputation for good quality fish and has produced good numbers over 2lbs.  Our drive through the Kent and Surrey countryside highlighted the effects of the recent storms.  Most of the fields were like lakes and the occasional view of a river showed them to be high, coloured and very turbulent.  It wouldn’t take much to send the river levels up and cascading over the banks and back into fields, roads and houses.

Bonds lake in warmer times

It was a rather grey day and the forecast was predicting heavy winds gusting to around 30mph and heavy rain showers.  We managed to persuade the gentleman in the shop to rustle us up some toast and marmalade and a nice cup of tea, as the cafe was closed.  That was a very nice gesture and was very much appreciated.  As we walked along the banks we realised just how bad things were.  Most of the banks were sodden and there was large amounts of standing water.  In some areas water was actually flowing across the banks.  Thank goodness we had put our boots on.  We also discovered that a small bridge across the stream which runs adjacent to the lakes had been washed away in the floods.

We were soon at our chosen lake and after some plumbing around, both selected swims.  By now the wind had already picked up but the rain seemed to be holding off for the time being at least.  My set-up was very simple.  My Maver Reactolite 13ft float rod, Drennan fixed spool, 4lb mainline and a 3.6lb hooklink and 16 hook.  I like to use a swivel to connect the mainline and hooklink and then mould some tungsten putty around this to set the float.  By doing this and using float stops, I don’t pinch any shot on the line and therefore avoid any line damage whatsoever.   There are downsides to using this method of course, for instance if you want to fish a long drop between hook and shot.  Then you may need to revert back to split shot, bulking it up at the float and fish a very small dropper shot around 1/2 way between float and hook.  This may well be a better method for roach, as they often take on the drop after a prolonged period of feeding maggots.

After around 90 minutes without a bite, I decided to have a look around the lake.  By now the wind had picked up and it was blowing directly into my face.  This was causing a  few problems with presentation and I wasn’t happy with the results.  I found an area slightly sheltered from the strong wind and with a reasonable depth of around 3ft.  Feeding small golf ball size balls of Bloodworm and Maggot Crush and loose feeding maggots flavoured with Winter Almond overspray, I then fished single maggot over the top.  I lost a couple of fish early on and then managed to tempt a couple of pristine roach of around 8oz.  Despite looking good, the swim just didn’t seem to be producing many bites.

Pallatrax Winter Almond

By now Geoff had also moved and seemed to have found a few fish.  He had taken around 12 nice roach in the 8oz-1lb bracket.  He wandered over to see me and said that bronze maggots were producing more bites.  So I duly pinched a few of his and mixed them in with my flavoured reds and then out went the float again.  The float had barely settled when it disappeared.  After a very spirited fight a beautiful, pristine roach was netted.  I popped it on the scales and it registered 1lb 7oz and proved to be the best roach of the day.   The swim then produced a small bream and little else, so another move was in order.  By now the heavy rain showers had started and some were quite prolonged.  Due to the nature of the swims and the severity of the wind, an umbrella wasn’t really an option.  It was a case of hunkering down in our winter clothing and just trying to keep the rain out.

1lb 7oz

I moved across the lake and settled in next to Geoff.  He had found a deep swim of around 5ft of water close in and adjacent to some marginal reeds. He continued to catch steadily for the remainder of the day and ended up with around 20 nice roach to 1lb 1oz.  I seemed to elicit less bites with my set up than Geoff.  Geoff had opted to fish a long tail and an 18 hook.  This I suspect made the difference.  However I was treated to quite a mixed bag; I ended up with a tench of around 3lbs, a couple of bream, a couple of roach to around 10oz and just as the day was drawing to a close the float buried and something took off like a high speed train.  I had obviously hooked one of the resident carp.  It fought long and hard on the light tackle but with steady pressure I coaxed it into the waiting landing net.  I was fairly convinced it would go mid doubles but in fact it was smaller than I had at first thought.  It was a stunning common and weighed 9lb 13oz and was an exciting finish to a rather mucky, wet and windy day.

As Arnie would say in that heavy Austrian accent; “I’ll be back”!