The Tiny River Alne - Red Breasts and Rigmaroles

To be honest I did wonder what the heck I was doing when I left a lovely warm bed to a completely frozen combination lock on the entrance to the fishery. Hmmm, I did think about parking up and hoofing ones gear over the gate which is strewn in barbed wire, but no the flask of Yorskhire's finest came to the rescue.

There was a hard frost overnight and the mercury wouldn't rise above freezing throughout this short morning session.

Simple tactics again, my little 9ft quiver rod with a 0.25 tip and I'd fish worm and maggot and occasionally bread to try and get a fish to bite. 

The water was still chocolate brown so in my experience here the chub are difficult to temp but I'd pre-bait a couple of areas at the end of the club water and try and winkle a fish out. The beam of battlement was negotiated tentatively and the swims primed with liquidised bread and some roach black coriander flavoured groundbait.  

Half an hour in to the sessions the minnows were certainly biting and the tip sensitive enough to amplify the bites from this tiny feeders that certainly have eyes bigger than their bellies.

The rod eyes kept on freezing up though, so just to try and cast was becoming a pain the backside. 

The hook look massive doesn't it, but that's a size 14 hook I can assure you. To be fair this was the smallest out of the jam jar full amount that I caught whilst I was bankside. 

I tried bread a few times without any joy so moved swims a couple of times to the same outcome. The maggot were as lethargic as the bigger fish, the water temperature couldn't have been more than 4 degrees or so, so who could blame them.

Each and every one had to be revived with ones warm breath, lucky from appearing dead within a couple of minutes or so, wriggling like a wide eyed dancer in in Ibiza. 

After appearing to catch every minnow in the stretch I'd had enough of this and decided to up sticks and go downstream to where I'd primed some swims.

When the water is clear or green I don't think I've ever blanked here for Chub, but when it's turbid like this, it can be tough going. 

I tried bread first to try and get a quick bite but after 15 minutes without even a nibble, it was back to worm and maggot again. After 5 or 6 minutes the first proper bite came and I struck in to a fish, sadly the overly sensitive tip masking what really was biting.

Hmmmmmm, not going well is it, in-fact after catching a few more small fish, where I doubt the biggest would register an ounce on the Class A weighing Salters. 

It didn't get an better either because the minnows were following me, the rod tip frozen again. Still the sun rose nicely and two robins were rather active and were welcome to feed on the wriggleless maggots, the fishless flake.

The last forty five minutes or so I decided to change the hook for a size 10 and put on half a chunky lobworm to try and tempt something worthy enough to put a decent bend in the rod.

Sadly it appeared for this session the fish were just not up for a feed. The Alne rarely does me over on me, but it did today, the water is clearing though, I'll be back.