Latest ventures out on the river....

[chesters1]

Can't you just catch a stunted trout and lose your favourite float in a snag like normal people? Grrr

PS nicely done

[Tigger]

I spent yesterday trying to hunt down a stunted trout, I couldn't find one!

I must have walked about 6 miles yesterday, through long grass and nettles, balsam, stick bob bushes etc etc and was propper nackered at the end of it.  I visited two stretches catching fish on both, first tott on the first length and I had a roach that I reckon (without weighing it) would be a good 2lb, then another exactly the same! After that I had a few decent chub, chublets and dace, and a single small barbel.

You wouldn't believe it, on the next length I had another of those roach, virtualy identicle, they must have followed me .  I also had a good few decent chub, chublets and lots of dace with a few being quite large, as far as dace go.

Not a hint of a barbel on the second stretch, strange as it used to be lifting with barbel on that stretch. Only a few years back I had 43 barbel, some large chub, chublets, dace, and trout on one swim, and yesterday not one barbel and only a couple of decent chub and some dace, quite depressing to be honest.

 

 

[chesters1]

3 hours ago, Tigger said:

I spent yesterday trying to hunt down a stunted trout, I couldn't find one!

I must have walked about 6 miles yesterday, through long grass and nettles, balsam, stick bob bushes etc etc and was propper nackered at the end of it.  I visited two stretches catching fish on both, first tott on the first length and I had a roach that I reckon (without weighing it) would be a good 2lb, then another exactly the same! After that I had a few decent chub, chublets and dace, and a single small barbel.

You wouldn't believe it, on the next length I had another of those roach, virtualy identicle, they must have followed me .  I also had a good few decent chub, chublets and lots of dace with a few being quite large, as far as dace go.

Not a hint of a barbel on the second stretch, strange as it used to be lifting with barbel on that stretch. Only a few years back I had 43 barbel, some large chub, chublets, dace, and trout on one swim, and yesterday not one barbel and only a couple of decent chub and some dace, quite depressing to be honest.

 

 

At least on the stunted trout side I beat you ,the rest you win hands down ! Not sure the EA have left any fish in my stretches

[Tigger]

 

Fishing a fishless river can't be much fun Chesters, you'll have to travel a bit further maybe?

Is there no other rivers than that one within a decent radius of you?

[chesters1]

Unfortunately due to medical problems I am restricted to nearby, places with lots of cover (colostomy arranged for Wednesday hopefully that spots the cause) so stuck with fishless river .But think about it I go through the motions () and blank more than most .Fishing to me is being outside ,catching fish is far down the list .

[Tigger]

I have to try and catch a fish when I go fishing.  I often spend more time walking and crashing through undergrowth than I do fishing.  I never have a relaxing fishing session!

 

 

[Tigger]

 

I managed to get a couple of hours trotting on saturday afternoon (just gone).  The river was a little up on my previous session and had a colour of peat to it.  I think the peat colour comes in from one of the tributaries a few miles upstream, thankfully it wasn't that horrible brown sawdust looking mess which is obviously particles of sewage!

I only fished two swims that day, in the first swim if I fished more central in the river I would get a bite a cast, either a dace or roach, if I cast closer to the opposite bank I would normally have a much better chance of catching chub and barbel.  Anyhow, I caught lots of roach and dace, but not a hint of a chub or barbel which were my target species so I moved downstream to another swim.  I had to wade out about 45 yards across seriously slippy rocks and then cast about another 30yds to reach the sweet spot of this swim, which was close to the opposite bank and was quite fast in comparison to the swim i'd just fished previously. I had a decent chub first trott through, maybe about 3 pounds, then I had a number of chublets and a few dace.  After about half an hour I struck into a more solid critter which turned out to be a small barble of about 3lb.  Shortly after that I had another barbel which was about the same size as the forst one.

I remembered I had no food left in the freezer for my Manueli piranha and decided to catch a few small roach and dace to take home for it.  I really don't like doing it but the piranha has to eat.  What was unusual was when I gutted the dace they were full of roe !

Possibly this warm spell has kicked them off but I do think they will have been spawning throughout the summer.

If conditions are right I don't see why they wouldn't just keep breeding, as fish do in aquariums.

I didn't bother taking any pic's, it was a long wade back to the bank on those awfully slippy rocks and for such small fish it wasn't worth the trouble.

[Tigger]

 

I had to abort my trotting for barbel today due to conditions of the river, but rather than miss out on a days fishing I visited another venue and targeted chub instead.  These chub fight really hard and are difficult to stop from getting into the bankside vegetation. Because of this I used a hardy marksman supero 11ft avon rod and it was perfect for the job.

Here's a couple of pic's from some of the swims I dropped into....

 

 

[chesters1]

First glance I thought the first fish was pouting wearing lipstick ,how about instructing the scores you catch to swim down to Tilford so I can try and catch them

[Tigger]

28 minutes ago, chesters1 said:

First glance I thought the first fish was pouting wearing lipstick ,how about instructing the scores you catch to swim down to Tilford so I can try and catch them

 

Too posh for them down your end .