Short Evening Session

Well didnt think I would get out for a couple of weeks with work load but managed to do a short after work session . Now this session was to have 2 aims neither of which happened . Firstly the YSG clothing was supposed to have been delivered and Jon Preen was meeting me to hand mine over , unfortunately despite him waiting til lunchtime there was no sign and when he contacted home late evening still no sign , secondly while people have been struggling with the hot weather some have been having some good catches on maggot and float , now didnt have time to pick any maggots up so went with hemp and pigeon conditioner as loose feed intending to fish corn , hemp and wheat over the top .

As a back up I also took some liquidised bread and a light feeder rod . To be honest I picked the wrong swim as I had 12 feet of water a rod length out and little flow , I gave it a couple of hours without any success , there were roach starting to swirl at my loose feed and so decided to make a change , my plan was to remove the heavy avon float and bulk weight and switch to an ordinary stick float and fish shirt button style to try and catch a roach . Rather than waste valuable fishing time I mixed the liquidised bread with some hemp and pigeon conditioner and added some of the water from the sweetcorn and set up a 30 gram gripmesh feeder and attached a 6 foot hooklink of 4lb line with size 14 carbon feeder hook . 

The feeder was filled and a grain of corn put on the hook and cast 3 rod lengths out into a deep hole . now I hadnt taken any alarms so set the baitrunner fairly loose . I picked up the float rod and stripped off the rig and had just attached the other float when the baitrunner sprang into life , lifting into what was obviously a barbel , after a few minutes of careful playing on the light tackle the fish rolled into the net . On the scales it went 5lb 12oz not massive but more than welcome .

I rebaited and recast and continued with setting the float back up , all the while feeding a little hemp and pigeon conditioner . As I completed the set up a couple of knocks on the feeder rod signaled a roach of around 10oz . I took the opportunity to try the new float set up but after half an hour of battling the wind which had now increased a little and was pushing down stream and into my bank control was out of the question so was put back in van and went back on the feeder . Another roach of similar size to the first one was soon on its way to my net . It then went very quiet , my attention was taken by the site of a grey heron flying over my head to the far side of the river where it was met by 2 large black birds which mobbed it and sent it flying back to my side of the river . Around the same time 2 swans appeared on the far bank and then proceeded to get down to mating , now I have never witnessed this despite fishing for 45 years but the noise they made were incredible , it sounded like someone been throttled !!!!!!.

I noticed my rod tip just not once and then drop back , I dont know why but decided to hit it ans was soon connected to a very angry fish , the fight was totally different to the first a more plodding fight than the tearing runs which is usually the signal of a big fish however when the fish finally rolled into the net it didnt look much bigger than the first and on the scales this was confirmed as it went 6lb 10oz .

I managed to take a bream of around 2lb the next cast .

Now as the light faded fish began sowing all over the river and I fancied I might just nick a couple more but as this pic shows that would prove difficult as I had forgot my isotopes for the tip of the rod and though I could see the odd knock on the tip there werent clear enough to hit and was getting shredded corn .

At 11pm and having been up since 4.30am for work I called it a night and to be honest was more than happy given the way the river was fishing .