Small Brook Fishing Pt.13 - Abdication and Abysinnia

A 35 year old moving out of the safety of his Mother's apron strings to 'apparently' stand on his own two feet hit the press this week. A big surprise to his family, maybe one last lie in the huge copper bath filled to the brim in the eleven bedroom 'cottage', one last shake of hands with the chauffeur, one last look at the 40 grand hedge, pockets in mourning....?

Every little helps from now on, welcome to our world !!!! cap in hand springs to mind.

Now two sessions planned leading up to this weekend, blog posts penned, tackle sorted. The first session was to be at the River Leam at the WBAS stretch for Dace and Chub, the second with Sam in tow, an inaugural visit to the Warwickshire Avon a new to us stretch, for bits on the maggot feeder and Pike.

Sadly Kiboshed !!!!

Yeap the water table that was full to the brim, being topped up in the week yet again so much so, the already sodden and saturated ground being squeezed like a sponge seemingly under someone that has just been to Turkey and undergone a BBL.

So those couple of days of mediocre rain in the week putting many of the local rivers over the banks again. The Leam not a chance, the Avon possibly for Barbel come Sunday, so plans were changed, rods were made up. The local river levels checked, checked again and checked once more.

The Alne appeared fishable though, I've said it on here before, it rises and falls like a stone like many of these smaller tributaries do, so at least these small waterways give the angler and option to fish running water rather than have to visit a stillwater, which to be honest, just ain't my bag.

There are some half decent Chub on the Alne to be caught, well nothing like it's bigger brother that it eventually joins, but big enough to give a bend in the rod.

But then, hang on a minute, the little vein of the Alne, the little stream I fish from time to time, has some big Dace to be caught, some points to be had, more of that later. The silver darts you see, seek sanctuary in the calmer waters away from the main river when it is in flood, and they should be there as I type this, well that's what I was hoping for anyway, the Alne Chub could wait another couple of weeks.

Now having been found to be poaching on Sam's favourite small stream not far from here, 'hands up, bang to rights '(a sign would help ) there was another stretch that I could fish without fear of a having a tap on the shoulder, a look of disdain.

My PB dace of 8 ounces came from a diminutive waterway like this and the near 5 ounce dace I've registered thus far for the Blogger Challenge easily beatable with the stamp of fish that reside here. They should well be fat this time of the year as well, so any fish caught should have bulging bellies and looking for their next meal.

That's where I come in....

Without the like-minded in tow it gave me free rein to drop in to a few swims try and winkle out something worthy of switching on the scales.

There are also bullheads here you see and ok, I've registered one for the score chart, but nothing like I've caught before here, twice the statue, double the girth. The are proper greedy fish the bullhead and when in a feeding mode, can be quite aggressive too.

Anyway enough of the blurb....

It was a very windy day indeed and to be honest bites were harder to come by than I thought. The stream much lower than I thought it would be so more roving than expected. I still caught fish though the first being a trout which really did make a mess of the first swim.

Then a minnow, then a few small roach came to maggot....

....the dace though preferred the bread, the bites were bold and confident. I only caught three, two going over 5 ounces, but I missed quite a few bites as well, really sharp bites that I didn't connect to.

 I also lost one that may well have been a PB but stupidly when I went to net the fish my new'ish landing net was snagged in some brambles. I didn't want to rip it like I did the last one so decided to hand it in.

Yeap you guessed, it fell off on the swing towards me as it wriggled around like they do and the hook pulled. My own fault sadly I couldn't do anything about it. I explored more of it though and I will be back when there is a little more water on. The Dace were there this morning, but not in the numbers they usually are.

I'll be back !!!!