Bad Mood

Something is up with the rivers......and I'm not sure what it is.

Had a flexi day to use, so decided to head off to one of my favourite Fen rivers for a spot of tip fishing for the shoals of river bream and roach that dominate it

I woke up nice and early, did the usual jobs and left the hours after loading the final bits into the car.
Driving along listen to the tunes on the radio, I had the feeling that something was missing from the outside world, but I couldn't put a finger on it, but all was not well with the outside world.

I arrived in good time and laid the gear over the fence before trying to find the stile as it was overgrown with nettles and long grass. Seems like no one has been near this stretch all year.

After clambering over the fencing minding not to cut myself in half on the barbed wire, I viewed the river for the first time this season and it looked majestic. The sight as always was breath taking, but in  something was missing for the picture.

The gear was soon in the swim, the ground bait mixed and ten balls were feed into the depths before I tackled up the quiver rod. I decided to concentrate on one rod to start with and if the fish did move in a second rod could be put into action.

The rig was straight forward a simple paternoster with a open end feeder, mainline was 4lb with a 3lb hooklink and a size 16 hook baited with the trusty red maggot.

With the first cast done and dusted, I sat back in the chair with a cuppa and admired the river, it was then it struck me. The missing ingredient was the usual bountiful wildlife, that was what was missing.

The place was usually a hive of bird and insect life, but apart from the sheep, for the most part the river was quiet.

Its strange when you realised something is missing, a sort of puzzled feeling seems to surround you and a feeling of unease spreads through you body.

The tip then goes round and I'm into a fish, not a big but a fish, and soon a small perch is unhooked and returned, blank avoided!!

And that was the pattern of the day. Nothing for hours then the tip wraps around and a perch hangs its self on a maggot or worm bait.
In fact the perch were the only fish that seemed to be feeding on the whole river, I could seem them chasing the fry into the reed on the surface and the perch would chase them in picking off one or two at a time.

I did break out the new Drennan Avon Specialist rod and rigged it up on a shallow float with a review of catching one or two of them, but alas they weren't interested in my wiggly worm as they had an abundance of fry to feed on.

By 2pm, with only three bites all day and two small perch landed I head for home dejected.

TL