A Wet Morning on the River

After the recent rain I was hopeful that a bit of a flush through would bring the fish on the feed on the river so decided to get down there.

The journey comprised of dry periods then heavy showers, and with further rain forecast it looked like I was going to get a bit damp. I started fishing about 6.30am and it was obvious that the river had risen about 6" and was pushing through a bit. The colour was perfect but there was a lot of streamer weed coming down. In the first swim I made a couple of casts when a fish banged the lure but didn't hook up. The next cast it followed the weed covered lure up the shelf and made a huge splash on the surface.. but missed it! A few casts later though the fish hit it hard and the first of the day was in the net. I slid down the muddy bank to the water and unhooked her. At about 9lb a nice fish but no monster. As I was releasing her my foot slipped and I got a boot full and chucked my pliers in! Luckily it was shallow and I was already wet so reached for them.. then the other foot slipped off a rock and that foot got a soaking as well! On checking the lure the fish had almost destroyed it.. there was a split in the head about 2" long and the tail was hanging off! Bit of a bugger as I used half a tube of superglue the night before repairing the slashes in that one and it's spare. On went the spare.

 I squelched to the next few swims but all I could catch was weed but further along another fish hit the lure and came to hand.. bit smaller around 6-7lb.

On I went, slipping and sliding down steep banks, all the while removing handfuls of weed on almost every cast. Had another fish about 6lb then got to a swim I've not had a take from before.. couple of casts and a decent fish hit mid river. She came in quite sedately compared to most fish in this river and into the net. I had a quick look and she was very fat, but not that long, and on the scales she went 15.07lb. Lovely fat fish but her back end was very tatty for some reason..

I went to re-set the stingers on the softbait to find that she had bitten the tail clean off! Bugger! Out with the initial lure and a load of superglue later I was ready again. A few casts later another fish hit which was about 6lb. Whilst unhooking it I noticed that it didn't have any teeth at all on the right side of the lower jaw! No damage but they just had never grown by the looks of it.. you could run your finger along a smooth surface.. very strange, never seen that before.

I carried on and missed a couple of small ones but the rain and the weed got heavier. It was now almost impossible to get 6 turns of the reel handle before it was weeded up. I'd fished pretty much the whole stretch by now anyway so called it a day about 1.30pm after noticing the river had risen several more inches since I arrived. I went looking at potential stretches but neither looked very promising.. the search continues.