The Tiny River Alne - Picketers and Pictography

Come on now Keith we need to keep up to date on your River Anker exploits was really enjoying them, I do like a small river, take the river Alne for example, 5 minutes I'm opening the gate in to a world of solitude, me, the sheep and the fish.

It's so handy and with the Wife at yoga later on this short trip to this small waterways the worlds ills, and work issues, go from big fish, little fish to inside that cardboard box.

After losing ANOTHER pair of polarised sunglasses I wanted to try this newly purchased pair in the Alne's clear waters. These over glasses by Fortis with an addition of a cord to hopefully minimise the risk of losing them.

I could never spend decent money on a pair of sunglasses because I dread to think how many pairs I've lost over the years. Fortis are pretty good for the money to be honest and the first look in to the slightly coloured up water from an elevated swim these seem a good purchase. 

I chose the wider and deeper area that hold the bigger fish and the first chuck of the Salmo Minnow lure I couldn't believe what I saw.

A decent size chub was following the lure literally an inch away its blunt head quite clear to see but it wasn't committed at all. Almost like a pike knowing at the back of its tiny mind that it wasn't a real fish it was looking at. 

The session got even more weirder from there, because I had fish after fish swim past the lure really fast, come up to it and then quickly do an about turn. Most were small trout but there was another chub in the mix as well.

Maybe we needed rain to stir them up a bit because they were completely noncommittal a little like the striking teachers actually teaching kids (7 strike days thus far), and not attacking the lure like they usually do here.

I switched between various lures but that didn't seem to make much difference. The weir eventually I caught a small trout but that was the only bite I had in there which is usually a hot spot.

The shallow downstream swim I had two trout in two casts that came off as soon as they were on, what the heck was going on. I retraced my steps and went to a completely new area of the river that is full of lily pads and this time switched to a small surface lure that makes a disturbance on the water when slowly retrieved.

Sadly it played out as before with a trout and a chub both coming up to snatch the lure but turned back at the last second leaving me with a wake on the surface and without a hook-up.

Curfew time had arrived and I left disappointed and very frustrated. I've never known it like that before and hopefully it won't happen again. The only saving grace was that despite the river looked devoid of fish at least there were plenty of fish lurking.