The Tiny River Alne - Dace & Discharges

8 minutes and 3.7 miles I can be bankside by the tiny river Alne which for someone who is struggling to get bankside of late, and needs to make use of those tiny windows of opportunity, it really is a perfect little piece of piscatorial plesentary especially when almost without question I've got the river to myself. 

The recent storms of late have boosted the local rivers beyond their banks and they haven't been fishable all this week and not even I fancy trudging the towpaths when the mercury has barely registered on the scale. 

Luckily the Alne goes up and down far faster than any of them so it was as a nice level to try and catch a fish in a couple of hours before I had to be back for the diary makers. I only had one swim in mind and that was the 2nd deepest on this stretch I fish and I fancied trying to catch a dace that seem to migrate here when the levels are up. 

It's a fish holding area and I've caught some of the biggest fish from the Alne from this usually productive swim. Chub to 4lb, dace to 12 ounces, trout to over 2lb and some decent sized gonks too. 

Now when it starts to get really cold dace often leave the currents entirely and move into slack, or very nearly slack water. Here is is generally best to fish a stationary bait and use laying-on or light ledger tactics.

 I've found the usual baits may bring results but at this time there is much to commend small pieces of bread or crust fished just an inch or so below the anchoring shot. 

This bait being buoyant, will rise clear of the bed and it seems that this fact is responsible for its success when the fish are somewhat eager to feed.  

Now at times of high water as I said expect the dace to have moved away from the main press of water. This move perhaps of no more than a few feet, will generally bring the dace bankwards so that they lie on the edge of the current, but where, as on a band, the main flow sweeps along the bank, the fish may have moved out towards the centre of the river.

There are not many occasions when one can confidently anticipate catching dace only, it is likely that they will come to the same baits and methods whatever other species are present and they will be considerably larger than the dace. 

One must therefore, decide beforehand whether to make any concession to this fact in the choice of tackle. 

It's made easier with the colour of the water however and when the river is as coloured as it was for this session then they certainly become less tackle shy. 

So for this session a 1oz tip to register some bites and a small cage feeder filled with liquidised bread and some small pieces of punched bread on a size 12 fine wire hook. 

A little crude for clear water, but this was like rivers in England after one of those frequent sewage discharges 😢

The Alen can be very moody indeed mind you because more often than not those fish just don't show and that's when it is beneficial to get on the move and get finding those fish. 

Now that's all very well but when you haven't much time anyway like this session I sadly was going to anchored to one spot. But you never know with the Alne, very much boom or bust !! 

The weather wasn't ideal with bright sun and clear skies but better than gale force winds and horizontal rain I suppose. A much needed vitamin D boost though and in the season of the S.A.D. that is most wecom

So anyway ? how did it go ?

Well errrrrrrrrrrrrr....

Despite wearing Buffalo Si's cap from River Masters (new Vlog coming soon) that I found and I'm keeping safe for him, it didn't bring me any of his luck. Don't get me wrong there were plenty of bites, but only nibbly twitchy bites that were non committal and certainly nothing you could strike at.

That was both on worm and bread. Minnows with eyes bigger than their bellies ? quite possibly but even when scaling down to a small piece of worm those fish had other ideas on seeing the world outside of theirs. Oh well hopefully next time, this is the Alne though, catch it on a rare good day it's great, catch it on an average day, it is pants ☺

The River Arrow - Maharajahs and Malversations

There is nothing more satisfying when the weather is cold than a good old curry. This one is a simple recipe that had ground pistachio nuts as one of the ingredients and me being a tight git, everyone of those pistachios that are eventually ground up were deshelled by your truly.

A labour of love most certainly but this is one of the richest tasting curries I have in my homemade curry armoury. I don't make it that often but the wife prefers mildier conconctions and this is right up her street. There is a small amount of Kashmiri chilli in there but I pep mine up with a couple of chopped up birds eye chillies and a sprinkling of coriander. 

Will it feature on the Newey's curry night we host a few days after Christmas ? probably not because it does take quite a long time to prep and make, but this rich and mildly spiced dish is fit for a maharajah. Now walking about Kings, the mighty chub is right up there for me out of all river fish.

A fish you can rely on when the conditions are tough and challenging, when many of the other species are just not up for feeding.

For this session at the river Arrow it was out with pungent cheesepaste on the balanced chub gear to try and winkle out a fish or two.

I started off in the weir where after missing 2 unmissable pull rounds of the 1oz quiver tip the 3rd bite I felt some resistance and the hook came back with a scale. Only a small scale at that so I can only assume using a large piece of paste on a hair set-up the fish was too small to get it in its gob and it was snatching at the bait. 

At least I knew the fish were up for a feed though so it gave me a bit of a spring in my step.

The beginnings of storm Bert could be felt throughout the session and the rod was being blown all over the shop which to be honest didn't really help in trying to register those bites.

Chub can be funny buggers from messing around with the bait to full on barbel'esk three foot twitches. 

The next swim I fished is pretty deep for a small river it being over 6 foot I know that and the next bite was no denying it was a chub.

The tip after a couple of plucks had a full on meltdown and I struck in to a solid lump that was putting up one hell of a fight.

I thought I was going to lose it at one point because it was trying to get right under the staging I was stood on and there was scaffolding and all manner of bad stuff under there.

Thankfully with the rod showing just how much of a battle this chub was putting up eventually I managed to tease it in the net.

Certainly a good fish and judging my the length of it when rested in the net I thought it would go bigger than the 4lb 4oz it weighed. 

It certainly didn't have its winter belly on it just yet but wow what a scrap that was. I rested it in the landing net to allow it to recover and fished for another bite in the same swim but sadly it never came.

 A battle scarred warrior this fish definitely has seen some action over its lifetime that's for sure. With a bite in the first two swims I was fully expecting to catch some more but swim after swim apart from the odd rattle it was oddly quiet.

I returned to the weir but again nothing doing there and also a swim above which is much slower and deeper. There wasn't any other anglers on the opposite side of the river which is on another club book, so I had the river to myself again so I'm not complaining. 

As I type this Storm Bert is in full force with rain lashing against the window and the wind making a right racket. The local rivers are motoring up with I suspect a few of those going to be over their banks. I watching the Avon though because with that milder rain and temperatures I'm hoping to try for a barbel possibly if I can get to the river that is. 

I'm just hoping Barbara got the memo this time !!

The Tiny River Alne - Bert and Bedswervers

I must admit it was quite a surprise when on Tuesday we woke up to a decent amount of snow on the ground. I was all for working from home but stupidly I'd left my laptop's power supply in the office so I had to go in, not before dropping Sam at the bus stop mind you. Sadly that warm bed had to be vacated because of my own stupidity !!

The roads to be honest were not that bad so the Jimny which is excellent in the snow didn't really get a decent workout. Only the road out of the estate was snow covered the main roads apart from being slushy were pretty clear.

I did have plans to go fishing after work for an hour or two but I just didn't get round to it. It had been proper barassic and with the snow melt going in I doubt the fish would be in a feeding mood anyway.

Well that was the excuse anyway, I just wasn't feeling it to be honest so fish at the end of the week would have to do. I finish early on a Friday so I had 2 and a bit hours to try and winkle out a fish or two from the Alne which is just down the road.

Simple tactics this one with a small cage feeder full of liquidised bread and the either a thumbnail piece of bread on the size 12 hook or a few maggots. I did have some worm for backup but it did look a bread colour to be honest. 

A quick check of the water temperature the water was rather chilly, but even though I fancied a big dace with my best on this river and my overall PB is 12 ounces, I'm sure the chub would be biting. 

I wasn't wrong because the first cast I literally got a bite as it was falling through the water, sadly I missed that bite and the next one after that, when the hook came back with a fish scale. It didn't take long mind you when the 3rd bite was a classic chub bite and I struck in to a decent chub.

It was giving me the run around too and I was surprised it was a fish of just under 3lb because it gave a right good scrap, and I thought it would go much bigger.

These fish don't see much anglers bait but this one had a right old belly on it. A lovely chub indeed and only fifteen or so minutes in to the session, I enjoyed that !!

Now what I didn't expect was two more chub from the same swim within the space of around 20 minutes or so. They were certainly up for a feed. !!

Anyway that swim went dead so I went on the rove. I fished another few swims and managed a chub on maggots and then another one when I went back to the first swim. Only the chub showed for this session the dace were suspicious in their absence. 

It was a nice colour and maybe a foot of visibility which may have been the issue. Some of the bigger dace I've caught here have been when the river has been chocolate brown believe it or not. 

Oh well 5 chub in around 2 hours I wasn't complaining and you know how much I love to catch chub as they are up there with my favorite species. Once the sun started to set it was rather nippy I must admit and my hands after making some mash bread to bait up a couple of sadly unproductive swims were as cold as some of the pensioners under Keir Starmer.

I fished until I couldn't see the quiver tip and vowed to come back again to try for the dace. There is storm Bert on the way apparently with some rain on the way so that will no doubt turn to the river to chocolate again, lets just hope it isn't too much.