The Tiny River Alne - Pigs Breakfasts and Pigmentocracy

If I look back at my blog some of the biggest dace I have caught has been when targeting the small streams and tiny rivers. The little streams especially when the water has been chocolate brown and nearly over their banks really do throw up some nice fish and the Alne well, it's a bigger version of those really.

These are relatively untapped waters and ok it would be nice to trot a float in clearer waters but for some reason, when it's coloured the fish start to show up all of a sudden and the bigger fish make an appearance and often a ledger set-up is the way to go. Trust me a decent dace can pull a 1 ounce tip like a chub can. They don't mess around. 

So whilst the waters were good enough for Augustus Gloop I was back to see if the 12 ounce dace was a lucky capture. Now it was the missed bites on the last session and sessions before that got me scaling down the rig where the culprit revealed itself. I wanted to fish similar conditions albeit the river had dropped slightly and the wind was non existent. 

So for this trip out 48 hours later I changed to a 14 hook with a 2.5 lb hook length because there are still chub here after all and also bigger trout fight like nothing I've ever experienced really. They really turn in the Tasmanian Devil where just hanging on for dear life is the only option at the proceeding seconds following the hook-up. 

A brown trout's heartbeat is slow and regular, approaching its maximum rate only 1 per cent of the time. Because x square metre of river bottom contains enough food to keep a trout for a week, the fish spends most of the time stationary. How they go from idlers to full on Chuck Norris is something to behold. 

Apparently from what I have read if a trout is removed from its regular swim and put back in the strange part of the river, it gets into a state of anxiety and its heart races until it finds way 'home' again. Sometimes a trout's heart will miss a beat when a shadow passes over the water or when a fly is cast above it. 

I had bread, maggots and a few casters and would concentrate on this one swim. Very unusual for me but I've always had bites in this swim, had a dace drop off, and it just so happens chatting to the other angler that was down there last time one of the rare matches was won of this peg, an yes, he had some nice dace ironically.

Dace Utopia ? or Pigs Breakfast ?

Well what a difference a couple of days made, because the water had changed colour dramatically no longer was it Taylor Hot Java Lava Coffee coloured (strength 6 btw) but a washed out teal colour. There was literally no big fish showing whatsoever. Minnow were on to the maggots straight away and after 5 or so hooked themselves I switched to bread which was the downfall of the specimen dace.

But nothing strikable where assume the mass of minnows were trying to nibble their way through it. I changed swims after an hour and a half rather frustrated but to the same result sadly, so I was quite thankful when the church bells sounded end of play. I'll be back !!!