Urban Trout - River Arrow Pt.2

An Abu Garcia Trout Spinner kit for £6.50 off of Ebay contains 4 spinners and costs less than one single Salmo Hornet these days. Production cost increases who knows but when you lose two Salmo Hornets like I did the other day something more palatable to lose was worth a go.

I've not used a spinner for a good while because the Salmo Hornet is such a versatile lure and is a proven fish banker why would I need to change something if it isn't broken ?

Well it was worth giving them a go wasn't it !!! Anyway I fancied trying some more urban trout spots for this early morning short session. The rain was going to be with us for most of the day, so not exactly pleasant conditions to throw a spinner around but I'm sure the trout would be biting.

The first spot was a weir I'd been put on to, but I couldn't for the life of me work out how to get there the first time so some time spent on Google Street Maps I found a gap in some fencing after parking in an industrial estate. 

Bing Maps OS tab showed that it was public access so after parking the car I managed to get through the gap largely unscathed, well apart from a barbed-wire cut to my trousers, and headed down to the weir to get fishing.

The river is still pretty low to be honest but literally the first cast I decent hit a trout was on !!! It was leaping out the water and wriggling like a belly dancer on speed and almost at the net, one of those flicks it dislodged the hook(s)

It didn't take long to get another hit though because 6 or 7 casts later a proper jolt felt through the braid another trout was on.

This one staying much lower without the acrobatics and after a decent scrap it was in the landing net. A nice fish was well, one of the biggest small river trout I've caught in a while. I thought the spinner would get snagged up in the shallow river but no, it worked perfectly.

What didn't work perfectly was my own skill or the way the fish were getting hooked, because in the two hour session I must have lost 5 trout I reckon, where after been hooked a short time after they managed to lose the hooks.  

Still I stuck with it though and managed a smaller fish caught in deeper sluggish water not far from this bridge. A successful mission and with the rain become heavier and the world waking up I decided to head home early, treat myself to a bacon sarnie and got back to bed with much annoyance from the Wife. 

Anyway I've been given the go ahead to fish the River Alne small syndicate I'm a member of for its trout and to be honest as it's just down the road and in lovely peaceful countryside it has much more appeal than fishing in the outskirts of a town.

It shows what can be achieved in mostly overlooked waters but these rivers are hardly fished in my experience, but then there may well be a good reason for that.