The River Welland Shows its Hand - Sunday 14th August

We had decided to give the Welland another try this week because a mid week trip had shown that most of the river had a tinge of colour in it and we had also been told of a few fish being caught.
Now although I wasn't overly confident of a good catch I was quite looking forward to having another go and to be honest I didn't fancy the 2 hours travelling over to Norfolk and back to the Middle level or river Ouse. A look at the weather suggested that we would have a favourable wind to fish the float which would make a welcome change from the feeder.
When we joined the river at Crowland Bridge we could see that there were already quite a few anglers on the river on some of the better Bream pegs and so we went downstream a little way below Four Mile Bar footbridge. When we arrived at the pegs there was a reasonable colour to the water and a moderate breeze coming over our left shoulder and causing a nice ripple on the surface.



The River Welland between Spalding and Crowland 



I set up my Drennan Floatmaster 13/15 ft rod at 13 ft and selected a  2 swan bodied waggler which would be plenty heavy enough and give me something in reserve should the wind change.
I then set about plumbing up and deciding how far out to fish, after a few casts I decided to fish 1/3 of the way across into about 8 ft of water which would allow me to feed balls of groundbait by hand. I then mixed my groundbait which consisted of 50% Brown Crumb and 50% Dynamite Baits Silver X Bream (original) and added a few dead Pinkies and Red maggot along with some Casters and Sweet Corn. I then cast the float out to the desired spot to use as a marker and then introduced 6 medium balls of groundbait into the swim. I then baited the hook with 2 Red maggots and recast just to the right of the feed as the river was gently pulling to the Left, I had initially set the float over depth by 6 inches but soon changed this to 10 inches to slow the float down a little more. On my second cast the float slipped away and I hooked the first small Skimmer and I followed this with a number of small skimmers for the next hour before hooking something a little more lively which turned out to be a Hybrid of about 1lb. Up until this point I had not introduced any more groundbait but I had been feeding Casters every put in. I had however used up quite a few Casters and certainly wouldn't have enough to last the session at this rate and so decided to introduce a small ball of groundbait every 4 fish.
Graham who was on the next peg upstream had set up to fish in a very similar manner but after a couple of small fish had caught 5 proper Bream in the first hour along with a couple of 1lb Hybrids. All I could do was watch helplessly and hope that the Bream would move into my swim at some point during the session but until then I would have to settle for what was in front of me.
I carried on catching well although most of the fish were skimmers in the 2 to 4 oz range with the odd bigger Hybrid every now and then. Graham was still catching Bream and continued for the next hour and a half before they shut up shop on him. It was about 30 minutes later when I struck into my first proper Bream and I was well pleased to have finally got one of about 3lb.
I eagerly re-baited and cast out in anticipation of another and within minutes the float slid away and I was into another small Skimmer and then another and another. After catching the Bream I had stopped the groundbait and resumed the loose feeding of Casters not wanting to throw balls of groundbait on there heads but it was all to no avail as neither of us had another Bream.
I did however continue to catch steadily until the end of the session with a bite most chucks, Graham on the other hand only caght a couple of odd small fish making us think that the Bream were still in his swim but unwilling to feed.


16lb of mainly Skimmers taken on the float

Anyway we decided to call it a day and although I hadn't had anything like the catch of my friend I was more than happy with 16lb of fish taken on the waggler, when Graham pulled out his net he had ended up with 12 Bream a few decent Hybrids and a few small skimmers for 52lb.

52lb for Graham, I am sure he pre baited his swim though

 Not a bad catch from a natural venue by any standards and it just goes to prove that the river Welland still has a lot to offer us anglers even if it does destroy your soul more often than not.