Great Ouse, Danby Drove

Well this Sunday we decided to have a trip over to the Great Ouse, it was a bit of a late start as I had been out to a party the night before and so we didn't set off until 08.15 for the hour or so drive over into Norfolk. We arrived at Denver Sluice and had a look a few areas before deciding where to fish, we spoke to a few anglers and most had odd fish but nothing of any note.
We nearly fished the chapel section as Graham had had a good catch there on the Thursday but finally decided on Danby Drove as it was an area we had not fished before although we had spoken about it many times before.




The Great Ouse at Danby Drove



We parked the car right at the end of Kings Lynn's water and discover that there were 4 swims cut out and all of them nice and level so no real need for too much leg adjusting  to get comfortable. We had been told that this section was very deep and deep it was, I put a  2 gram rig onto my top 5 which is about 19ft long and put on a plummet and shipped out to 11m. I lowered the rig in until the pole tip touched the water and the plummet still hadn't touched the bottom so I came in to 9m and found the bottom with about 1ft of line left between the float and the pole tip. I continued with the plummet until I had a good idea of the bottom in front of me and found that from 7 to about 10 meters the bottom was flat  only sloping away again after 10m. The swim was 17ft deep and it was no real surprise that the bottom was clean with no weed growth, I mixed my groundbait with some binder in it to make sure it got down to the bottom and introduced 6 balls by hand. I dropped my rig in and within a few minutes had a 6oz Skimmer and then followed by a 3oz Roach. Graham had set up a feeder rod and had made a few casts 3/4 of the way across the river but was a little longer before he had his first bite. The pole line was a bit hit and miss and I couldn't keep the fish coming but the feeder line seemed to start slower but then provided a steady flow of bites. I tried cupping in small balls of groundbait on the little and often principle but this made no real difference so I re balled it with another 6 balls and got an immediate response of a decent Skimmer and a Roach and you guessed it nothing again for an hour and then a couple more fish.



Graham on the feeder

 The conditions on the day were not ideal with it being very hot and sunny and without much in the way of wind it was flat calm, add to this that the tide was in at Denver so the river was gently backing up.



Flat calm and bright conditions made it hard going on the day


I ended up with 8lb with 4 of my skimmers over 1lb each and raham had had a similar catch for 10lb. This area was a noted big Bream hot spot in days gone by but seems to be more of a Skimmer Roach and Hybrid venue these day although I am sure there are still big Bream there and some Tench. With the middle level not yet showing its best form this looks like a good bet for some quality Skimmers and I will probably return next weekend for another go.
 

Some nice Skimmers, just could have done with a few more though

http://www.klaa.co.uk/

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/River-Angler/169525093065200