Over the last few years, I haven’t been fishing as often I as used to. Last season I only went six times and all of these were pike fishing trips between the months of October and February. I can’t even remember the last time I went float fishing for the usual coarse species. So today, I decided I would have a couple of hours in the afternoon come evening just to have a trip out, and opted to float fish a local stretch of river. I decided to travel light and not take loads of gear, not that I have loads anyway, but for bait I only took maggots and corn.
After I set up, it wasn’t long before I had a fish. The first fish I had was a roach. I ended up with a few roach, some bleak, one small bream and a bootlace eel. I could honestly say that there were no great fish amongst my catch, they were basically all tiddlers.
However, I have to say it was such a pleasure just to be there. Being away from my work, which is often in a noisy environment, to being sat beside the river with the surrounding sounds of the birds singing was unique and awesome. Another thing that was great to watch (apart from my float going under) was what I believe to be small chub chasing bleak. The speed that both predator and prey moved through the water was amazing.