Warwickshire Trout - River Alne Pt.12

Since Lanzarote back in February it seems an age to my next holiday but having booked the days off work yesterday August onwards I'm staking them up. Nothing too exciting I might add, with a week in Northumberland in the aforementioned month, then a week in Devon to see my brother and his family in October, soon after a lads 6 nights in Spain in a mates Villa, again in October, there is a light at the end of the daily drudgery. 

November brings the Fat Boy Slim weekender which is always a good do with the old ravers like me descending to Minehead for some repetitive beats. Hopefully I'll get some sea fishing in during those trips, we will see. I quite fancy trying to catch a smoothhound rather than the dogfish I usually catch.

This year there seems to be even more takers out of the social group with 12 going I believe which is great, because for me, do what you enjoy doing I say, and ignore the finger pointers, you've a weekend with the like-minded. It's a great bunch that go there and many older than Big Beat Basher Norm himself, and unlike the crowded Creamfields kidfest at least you won't stand out like a sore thumb and asked for a selfie every ten minutes with the coffin dodger. 

My love of repetitive beats is still there since the 90's and long may it continue, because very much like fishing it gets me in the right frame of mind.

Talking of the right frame of mind, I needed to install a sign down a the River Alne because a few times now the village frequenters have taken it up upon themselves to block access to the gate, when I needed to access it, so I could have a dangle whilst I was down here. 

At least this sign is nice and clear and hopefully it won't mean I'm having to knock on doors to try and find out who is preventing access. The last time was a guy in a brand new Range Rover who was at the pub for a wake (I think) and couldn't find anywhere to park his car (Errrr because it's mahoosive) so decided blocking a gate was perfectly acceptable. 

Anyway with the weather being rather nice indeed I decided to see how many trout I could catch in an hour and a half or so. Simple tactics with a Salmo minnow lure with polarised sunglasses to spot the fish on the frab. A couple of swims down nada, however the weir swim usually comes up trumps.

The river is obviously very low and clear but this is often a hotspot to get a few bites. With a tree that had fallen blocking much of the weir lucky the water could flow under it. When there is a metre and half of extra of water on it maybe a different story !!!

Anyway to cut a long story short, the fish didn't seem to be on it despite their being mayfly around. I only saw one rise from a baby trout about 2 inches long and in around 5 swims I fished I managed 4 trout, one that was foul hooked all of a similar stamp.

Nothing big showed at all really and with the grass almost waist deep in places it was hard going just to get to the swims. If we get some rain to oxygenate the water a bit I might give it another go, but we will see, at least I didn't blank.