It has been
a long hot summer and I have largely left the Trout and Grayling alone. The
weed growth this year has been phenomenal and coupled with the high
temperatures this did leave me a little concerned about fish welfare. One trip
out to the Avon towards the end of August resulted in a single Brown Trout and
a handful of small Grayling.
However I
have been out fishing. In July I did something that I had not done for an
awfully long time and went coarse fishing. Fishing a sweetcorn on a whip it was
almost ‘fish a chuck’ on a small Shropshire stillwater and I had great fun
catching Roach, Bream and hybrids. Highlight of that trip was targeting the
head of Carp in the lake next door. Some pre-soaked dog mixers were catapulted
between a pair of feature islands and after a few minutes one or two of the
Carp began to feed in the surface. In went an imitation dog biscuit, a corkball
glued to a hook, on a controller float and I was soon into my first ever Carp.
What a dogged and determined fight, plenty of low range grunt and torque…
I also
determined that it was about time that I got around to actually catching a Bass
on the spinning rod that I bought a couple of years ago. I had all the gear and
thanks to the power of the internet a little bit of an idea and I made my way
down to Hayling Island for a couple of early morning sorties. The first visit
was, unsurprisingly, a blank but I was able to get to grips with working the
lure and having a least an idea of what I was trying to achieve. I was making
my way up the learning curve. With confidence rising my second trip was successful
with a nice Bass bought to hand.
I also got
myself set up with a light lure outfit for Chub in the Wey. I have to be honest
I struggled with the casting, given the overgrown nature of the river at the
end of the summer. I never thought I would struggle more with ‘simple’ overhead
casting than with fly casting! It may well be that I am now too late to catch a
summer Chub – there is always next year.
