Summer 2018

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.