The River Arrow - Widgets and Witenagemots

Well after breaking a couple of landing net handles recently due to my abuse basically I've managed to get my Drennan twistlock handles back up and running again. I've tried and failed a few ways to get hold of the little widgets that are a key component of the locking mechanism after they broke again. Thankfully a WhatsApp message to Martyn from the Stratford-Upon-Avon Angling association at the start of the week to see if he could ask the Drennan rep, came up trumps !!! (Oh and thanks James for trying !! But sorted now)

"The spares have arrived you needed, 👍 No Charge"

Top man is Martyn, another couple of beers at Christmas coming your way !!!

Now Romney Marsh is one of the loneliest, most windswept regions of Britain. Here sheep have grazed for more than a thousand years and along the many drainage channels, creeks and inlets smugglers once brought their contraband ashore. 

But Romney Marsh is also an excellent place for the pike fisher. Here miles of water are home to some of the best pike in Britain. They grow fat on the teeming roach and rudd that breed prolifically throughout the waterways.

One bright winter's morning two friends cast their pike baits into a deep channel at the extreme end of the freshwater section just a few hundred yards from the more brackish water where there was a good chance of catching a flounder or a mullet. For the first hour the two big, bright pike floats bobbed about with not a sign of a fish. 

The two men lost interest as the icy wind gradually numbed them. They left their baits fishing and wandered off with their dogs at heel to try to warm up. 

Returning some ten minutes later they discovered that one rod had disappeared. At first they thought it might have been stolen, but that seemed unlikely in such a remote spot.

Then one of the fishermen spotted the missing pike float far away down the river. They gave chase, and having caught up with the float realised that somewhere down in the water beneath it was a pike that had hooked itself. But this was a wide river and there was no way to reach the float. 

Then, twenty yards upstream of the float, they saw the rod. There was only one thing to do. They shouted 'Fetch!' to the best of the two dogs and in an instant the big Labrador was powering through the water. 

When it reached the rod,the dog grabbed the cork handle and turned for the shore. It swam a few feet but was then unceremoniously tugged in the opposite direction. The pike was being played by the Labrador.

Now this was a dog that did not like to give up. It had swum much bigger, colder rivers than this and having been told to bring this curiously lively stick to its master it was intent on doing so, come what may. Thus began a twenty-minute battle between a determined Labrador and an equally determined pike. At the end of that time the Labrador managed to reach the bank. 

Luckily it was a bank that shelved gradually away and the Labrador, having backed out of the water, kept hold of the rod and continued to back up until the pike came bouncing on to the shore. The fish probably the only fish ever to be played and landed by a Labrador weighed eleven pounds.

The one slightly unfortunate result of the whole affair was that the dog developed a taste for fishing. Whenever its owner hooked a fish from then on, the Labrador would bark and howl until the fish had been landed or until he had been given the rod so he could land the fish. 

On quiet, expensive fisheries the noise of the fish-mad dog became such an embarrassment that the fisherman often had to leave his faithful friend at home. But in the remaining six years of its life the fishing Labrador managed to land several more pike as well as a number of trout, two eels and a three-pound chub.

Anyway not much to write home about on the fishing front when Sam and I went to the river Arrow. The only highlight was seeing a snake at close quarters that was actually chilling out on the first peg we fished. We spooked it and and it swam upstream but I've never seen one that close before. 

It was low and clear and the chub were just not interested, slow sinking bread, off the top, on the bottom, nada. In one swim 4 or 5 decent sized chub came up to look at the bread but were resistant to take it and then disappeared altogether. Even the banker swim didn't produce sadly and the weir, well it looked good for a bite, but sadly no takers. You cannot win them all !!!