Although the weather has improved and the air temperature has remained above freezing for the last few days this has had very little effect on the temperature of the water and certainly not enough to induce the roach to feed.
This weekend we travelled to the Kings Lynn controlled stretch of the Little Ouse feeling confident of a few fish as this river is stuffed with roach and has enough flow to keep it free from ice. Clearly I am suffering from delusions as the Roach failed to give it up for us, different baits, methods and swims failed to deliver a single bite.
We started off in a couple of swims away from the hot pegs by the bridge as this would leave us the option to drop onto the more fancied pegs should we struggle and struggle we did. My peg had no real features to speak of but was not really any different to most of the pegs on the stretch with a uniform 6ft of water at 9 metres with the same depth at 11 metres down the middle.
I started on the pole with pinkie and maggot over some ground bait with a few loose offerings in it and tried running through with the flow, slowing it down and even holding it still but all to no avail.
Graham elected to sit in the peg above me and fished bread punch on the stick float and feeding some punch crumb but bites did not come his way.
Just before we upped sticks my float went under and the upwards movement of my pole was met with 4 ft of elastic coming out of the end hmm! I looked at Graham and we both mouthed the word BOTTOM, well mine was more like arseholes. I then looked back at the end of the pole with a view to extricating my end tackle from the river bed when it decided to swim off. A foul hooked pike no less which came off the hook about 10 seconds later, result and no loss of hook. This was a good time move and so move we did!
We arrived at the hot pegs by the bridge and got the tackle set up again and I think it fair to say that we both had renewed confidence as this stretch is by far the most popular especially the 5 or 6 pegs between the bridge and the peg above the derelict barges. We had stopped there a few weeks previously to enquire how the small club match had got on to be told everyone had caught double figure nets of mainly Roach. Well obviously a few Roach would be a piece of cake, F/FWD 1 hour and 20 minutes and not a sniff of a bite “B******S!
Anyway as I packed up my gear I had a few minutes to reflect and try and find something positive to take from the day’s experiences and after the usual range of expletives came up with this but not necessarily in this order.
- I had escaped the house for some fresh air
- It wasn’t as cold as the previous 2 weeks
- I had some more practise on both pole and running line.
- Still have enough bait for next weekend should I wish to venture out
- It has at least given me something to write about
- The venues I tend to fish don’t tend to freeze over so readily
Anyway with the weather showing no real signs of improvement in the near future I will have to devise an even more cunning plan to catch some fish next weekend.
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