River Severn - lots of mud, no roach 10-12 November 2021
I booked myself a couple of nights in a B&B in Bewdley in the hope of catching some Severn roach and maybe beating my river roach pb, a modest 1lb 2oz. Alas, things didn't go to plan, but as with all failed angling trips I'm hoping I can learn from the experience!
Wed: arrived at 2pm at a BAA water, Blackstone Farm where I'd been reliably informed I could drive along the bank, only to find BAA hadn't sent me the lock combination. Just past office hours so I couldn't phone them up. Grrr. Hung around for an hour till a friendly BAA angler let me in. Oh dear, I'd forgotten how high the banks of the Severn tend to be! In light rain the overall impression was 'mud, mud, (in)glorious (very slippery) mud!' With difficulty I somehow got down to a fishing point, but was at a loss how to approach the fishing. The river seemed to be belting through, even though the height was normal. Where on earth would the roach be? When dusk came I felt outclassed by the river, and had no idea how and where I would catch any roach.
Thurs: The fishing shop manager cheered me up with the assurance people were catching a lot of good roach, and put me onto a couple of swims where the flow wasn't too fast and where, despite my dodgy back, I could handle climbing down the bank without falling in - just! The first one, in the town centre, looked particularly promising. I fished feeder, trying both bread flake and pellets and started getting tentative bites, but never hooked a fish, despite fishing in this swim most of the day. One point of interest was that bites normally came after feeding liquidised bread, though, strangely, bread flake on the hook was ignored. In fact the best bites came on 6mm halibut pellet immediately after feeding liquidised bread! I was fishing an in-line feeder (is this the right term? I mean the line went through the swivel, not through the feeder itself.) I had sanded down the quiver tip so that it was, I thought, super sensitive. So the question for me is how I could have converted some of those, mostly tentative, bites into hook-ups. Then I spent an hour exploring the other peg I'd been given to no avail.
Friday: a partial answer that had come to me was that, as the pellets were attached by a hair, the roach were holding the pellets cautiously in their mouths without engulfing the hook. So I planned to spend the morning experimenting with sweetcorn. Alas, there had been heavy rain in the night, and I knew the banks would be more slippery than ever, so decided to call it a day.
2 questions - I'd appreciate any thoughts
1. How could I have converted some of those bites into hook-ups?
2. What footwear do you use when the banks are very slippery?
Thanks
John
Edited by The Flying Tench
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