Old Course of the River Nene 16-01-11

With the main river carrying a little too much extra water I decided to have a look at the old course of the river Nene at Stanground, Peterborough. This section averages about 10 - 11 metres wide, about 4ft deep in the main channel and never usually suffers when the main river is up and running. In these conditions it normally colours up nicely but only ever maintains a gentle pull from left to right and because of today's high winds we dropped in on the section adjacent to Turnstone Way as it is well sheltered from the SW winds. The bank along this section is generally nice and flat and provides a comfortable sit down, I elected to sit about 20 metres below my fishing partner Graham with another angler 40 metres below me.

I decided to fish 2 lines with one at 7m and the other at 9m and this one put me to within a foot of the far bank reeds. Both rigs used Drennan Pinkie floats with the 7m line 4ft deep I used a 4x12 with a small bulk and 2 droppers and the 9m line was about 2ft deep and I used a 4x8 with 3 No 12 shot spread out. To both rigs I attached size 22 Mustard wide gape match hooks for fishing either Squatts or Pinkies. I also set up a stronger 3rd rig to fish over the 7m line for any bonus fish that may turn up over the groundbait as a Tench or Bream could not be ruled out. 
I started by cupping in 2 balls of groundbait containing a few Squats, Pinkies and a few Casters at 7m and cupped in 1/2 a cup of groundbait soup at 9m.
Graham sitting above me had decided to start on Punch and also set his main line at bout 7m with another rig for a section further across, he cupped in liquidised bread at 7m and flicked a few grains of Hemp at the far line.

It was a good 20 minutes before we got our first bite with me missing mine and Graham catching a small Roach. I soon got a few fish coming to double Squat with Graham struggling for bites, on about an hour I had had about 15 small fish and then it became apparent why Graham hadn't been getting bites as he hooked a small Bream of a couple of pounds. This was followed a few minutes later by another of about 3 1/2lb so with this I cupped in another ball of grounbait just in case they moved downstream towards me. I gave it 15 minutes and with Graham starting to catch small fish again I thought I would have a look and see if they had moved down to me and slipped a small red worm and a caster onto the stronger rig. Well ten minutes passed without a sniff so I put a couple of Red maggots on and gave it a few more minute unfortunately without success.
Any way I carried on at 7m for the next couple of hours catching a few then nothing for a while and loose feeding Squatts with the overspray dripping onto the 9m line until it tailed off to nothing. Looking at Graham he was experiencing a similar pattern although he did keep trying his far line and then dropping back to the nearer line.

 I finished the last hour at 9m and although the fish where  only small I did manage to up the catch rate and keep myself interested. I ended the session with 54 small Roach and Skimmers for about 1 1/2lb and Graham had a similar number of small fish plus his 2 bonus Bream which gave him about 6 1/2lb, the angler below me had struggled and caught less fish than me for about 1lb.

Not a great catch but one that I did have to work hard for




Graham with one of his bonus Bream and his biggest small fish

All in all a pleasant day out although I didn't expect it to be quite as hard going as it was but it is a venue that will normally give you a few bites when the main river is out of sort. In the past we have had double figure catches without any big fish showing up but hey you cant have it good all the time.