The Tiny River Alne - Gazebos and Gastrophilanthropists (PB Content)

Yesterday afternoon somehow we were roped in to helping my father-in-law and his friends erect a couple of gazebos for a 'lodge do' the following day where hopefully it was going to be dry, because as soon as the first poles came together the heavens opened and it lashed it down, sods law and all that. 

The main gazebo is something like 35-40 foot long or maybe more, a huge great thing nothing like the ones Argos peddle anyway. 

Still some brownie points earned I suppose, but it took good while to put together with a couple of ladders, lump hammers and some long nose plyers, because the springy metal buttons kept on getting stuck in the end of the tubes and wouldn't budge even with a good whack.

I sort of lost some enthusiasm to go fishing when I got back where as the evening went on the rain eased and it wouldn't have been that bad to had been on the bank. In the end a trip to the pub instead 😀

So I decided to go to the Alne in the morning to fish bread only to try a catch a chub or two. The water had risen nicely after all that rain however not as much as I thought but still some nice clear fresh water where hopefully the fish would be up for a feed.

It didn't take long to get the first bite either when a chub must have hooked itself because after a drop back bite when I struck the fish was already halfway in the next swim !!!

A near 3lber was the next culprit and then a trout took the flake on the drop and went on one of the fastest and maddest fights I've even experienced I think.

It took me all round the swim taking line and eventually the hook pulled as it was nearing the net leaving me with a tangled mess and having to set-up again. Damn it !! not the biggest I've hooked on the Alne but it would have been the biggest I'd landed for sure. So probably heading towards the 3lb mark I'd imagine. 

In one of the swims I returned to I scaled down a nadger after getting loads of fast bites I couldn't hit. They came from a deeper swim near some cover and I had suspicion they were dace mullering the bread.

The first fish was a small trout, they like bread too because it's a visual bait and when fluttering down the water column or suspended just off the bottom it can often trigger their predatory reaction. Anyway what I didn't expect was the next bite I'd was hooked in to the biggest dace I'd ever seen 😎and after a spirited fight was safely in the landing net.

It had hovered the thumbnail piece of bread no problem at all. My previous best dace was 8 ounces from a small Warwickshire Brook - 31.01.21. this was a scale above though, and really plump so was amazed to see the scales indicating 12 ounces !!.

A cracking dace from this small river, but then it's no surprise to me really, they often can hold fish of this statue. Got me thinking of a new challenge though, would a 1lb dace be achievable ? it would need me changing my approach a little and scaling down from my crude norm but definitely with a go me thinks.

"A 12 once fish doesn't sound big" (The Wife) but having caught plenty of dace over the years to me it was massive !!

There was another angler on the stretch today which is rare, but with fish of this stamp showing up down there and only 5 minutes down the road, the quiet banks of solitude will certainly see me more I know that for a fact. So 3 chub in the end fishing 6 or 7 swims, one trout, one lost trout and this dace. Not exactly prolific but when these gems turn up certainly worth the often slim returns.