River Alne - 25.01.13

Just downstream of Wotton Hall weir is a farm where you can fish a small stretch of the Alne, it's 3 quid if the farmer turns up, and today he did. The river was low and you can see the bottom on the majority of it, it contains most coarse fish, even trout apparently so with lobworms and bread as bait and never having fished it before it was going to be interesting.

The first cast I had a bite on the drop, one of the fastest bites I've had whilst fishing, missed it though sadly, so I re-baited and again a fish took it on the drop. It was obviously a chub as it was trying to get in to every snag possible, a decent fight, not massive but a nice fish in cold conditions.

I've a new rod to replace the one I broke last week and it's first outing I was eager to try a new rig out, it's a new MAP in-line cage feeder filled with liquidised bread and a 15" method feeder hooklink, fitted with a Korum quickstop which makes hair rigging bread discs a piece of cake. 4 or 5, 12mm bread discs are compressed and secured on the hair and a single AAA shot an inch from the hook keeps the bait just off the bottom.

A bite every chuck on the bread I couldn't get passed the small dace, switching to lobworms I quickly caught a small Perch and another small Chub

For my first trip to the river I enjoyed it, certainly plenty of fish, a healthy river and handy as it's a minute away. Could do with a bit more water in it, as was quite low but I suspect the snow melt may help with that. I stayed for a couple of hours and made the most of the remaining snow and took the kids sledging. I'll be back.