The Tiny River Alne - Bullheads and Buckminsterfullerene

With some skinny worms from ones wormey and some 6 week old maggots it was down to the river Alne forthwith. The Alne was at a nice level and catch it right when the water is coloured you can often get a few bites, and three blanks in a row isn't exactly confidence building for any angler now is it.

The Alne was on the rise again after a some more rain but for this morning session I looked to have caught it just about right. The problem with the Alne is that even now when I think I've worked this moody river out, it kicks me right in the balls.

I opted for one of the wider downstream pegs where the tree to my right often hold chub, but also most of the other species. For a small river it has some depth too which is an advantage in these winter conditions. I would usually float fish it because it's easier to register bites than watching a quiver but with the extra water on, the distance from float to hook would be very long and cumbersome. 

So a small cage feeder with Black Roach groundbait and worm and maggot on the size 16 hook. It was clear within a few minutes there were fish in the swim and a nice sized minnow rattled the tip quite confidently for the first bite. 

So at least that 4th possible blank was out the window so it was now all about catching something a little bigger. It didn't take long either when a fantastic looking big dace darted all about the swim before it was in the landing net. Lovely jubbly !!!

It went 10oz's on the scales which considering this looked like a really young fish what else could be lurking in these local turbid waters. The 12 ounce dace I caught here not long back wasn't from this swim either, so there must be some biggers ones milling around elsewhere too.

Anyway as the session went on, plenty of bites where most of the fish were dace apart from a few minnows and also a chublet. I lost a bigger fish and also missed a few clonking bites too so maybe a few rig adjustments are needed. Maybe a helicopter set-up is worth ago maybe, then again I find the short hook length always ends up slipping down the line no matter how I set it up.

So a couple of hours were quite enjoyable despite me taking a dunking where I slipped down the bank and my right wellie ended up full to the brim with water, with my sock acting like a sponge !!!

 A surprise bullhead ended up gatecrashing the dace party, and who doesn't like to see a bullhead on the end of their line. Such characterful fish it's just a shame these are mini species, imagine one the same size as a barbel !!!

A short and sweet session but with the Alne fishing well I may well end up coming back in the morning to try and catch some even bigger dace !!! I'm sure there are some more surprises to be had, and I want in !!