River Nene Up And Running But The Bites Keep On Coming

It was half term week and I had promised my son that I would take him fishing as he hadn't been since September, it had rained a little so I thought we could have a look at the Nene at Stibbington. When we arrived I was a little surprised to see the river was up and running quite hard, this presented me with a couple of problems. The first problem was because I wasn't expecting this I didn't really have suitable tackle with me to deal with the flow, no big Floats or even feeders or feeder rod capable of fishing this. Second problem is my son would have struggled as he has never faced conditions like this even though given the correct tackle I am sure he would have coped, anyway there was a plan B. There is a cut that comes off the river here and looked like the best option for him to catch a few fish so he dropped on the end nearest the mouth and I elected not to bother fishing and to concentrate on coaching him.

With the main river clanking through cut saved the day

We set up 4x14 float and had a quick plumb around the swim found 3 1/2 feet of water most of the way across and so 7m down the middle was the chosen line of attack. To start the swim off he cupped 2 balls of Dynamite Baits Roach Groundbait containing a few pinkies followed by a few loose fed pinkies every put in.
It wasn't long to wait before the first bite and he manages to miss it and the next couple before he connected with the first fish which was a small Roach, he soon got into the swing of it and was catching a steady run of small fish including Roach, Dace, Chub, and Bleak. 
After 40 minutes or so he struck into something more substantial and 5 feet of elastic came out of the pole tip but within a few seconds came off the hook, now I cant say what it was but I do know that there are some good sized skimmers and few bream around the mouth of the cut so it could well have been one of those, who knows?
Anyway he carried on and although small fish he was catching quite regularly so was happy enough as it was good practice for him.



Still on the small side but this was actually one of the better ones on the day

After a couple of hours we called time on what had been quite a busy little session and although he had not caught anything of any size he was more than pleased with the number of fish he had caught. The good news for me was that he doesn't need my help unhooking every fish these days which is just a well given the amount of fish he had.

A busy little catch for about 2lb, well done!