WENSUM CAN STILL SPRING A SURPRISE!
Want to fish in Wilson’s footsteps?
MANY of you will have grown up watching Britain’s best-loved TV angler, John Wilson, fishing stretches of the River Wensum in his ‘Go Fishing’ series.
Although the river is a very different animal today, you can still enjoy some fantastic sport on certain reaches.
Many of these prolific areas are free to fish, bar the expense of some pay and display parking.
My best mate, Calum, and I decided to spend a day roving around these free stretches, sussing out any likely-looking areas on our travels…
This was a perfect approach to the middle reaches on the outskirts of Norwich where our adventure was to begin. Waking up soon after the crack of dawn, we were on the banks of the Wensum at Hellesdon Mill before much of the world was awake.
The morning sun glistened beautifully on the brickwork surrounding the weir, lighting up a spot of very welcome oxygenated water in this current scorching heatwave.
This was an area I instantly wanted to target. However, it was only accessible with the use of waders, so I donned the rubber clobber before going for a gentle wade across the shallows at the tail of the pool.
Mind you, with temperatures already rocketing, being cooked in waders was a far from pleasant experience!
FLAKEY CHUB SHOALS
As I stepped carefully towards an area of overhanging trees, thousands of tiny fry, minnows and gudgeon surrounded my feet as I scanned the water for any signs of greedy chub.
There must be some very large perch gorging themselves on prey somewhere in the dark depths of the mill pool, but targeting them would have to wait until another time.
As I approached the overhangs, I spotted several small chub snaking in and out from the cover. Doing a good impression of a heron in a garden pond, I was certain a capture was well on the cards… wrong!
Just one micro-catapult full of maggots fired over the shoal saw them scatter back into their hide-outs, proving that the chub here were very spooky indeed – typical of wild fish in small rivers.
I beat a retreat with the intention of fishing downstream. Scrambling out of the river, I was met by a chap who was rather disappointed to find me fishing in ‘his swim’.
I had a little chuckle to myself, thinking about telling him to get out of bed sooner – after all, the early bird catches the worm. Then he told me why.
A few days earliers an angler had landed a barbel of 8lb, certainly a rare prize for the Wensum today.
Downstream we tried my favourite trotted maggot approach between the vast beds of streamer weed, and although the odd smaller chub could be spotted helping itself to freebies, we only managed good-sized dace and roach for our efforts.
INTO THE CITY CENTRE
I’m not ashamed to say we struggled, and as a result decided to up sticks and move into the areas around Norwich city centre, starting at New Mills Yard. This is a famous area among the locals, and usually a spot full of fish. Unfortunately, it was to be us that was too late to arrive this
time round. A chap already had several large chub picking away at his loosefed maggots – perhaps I hadn’t been fair to the envious bloke from Hellesdon!
Ever the optimists, though, all was not lost for us. A short walk up and downstream located a few decent-sized bream, the largest concentration of which was at the tail of the main pool.
Thankfully, we had a bird’s eye view from the railings above, enabling us to peer down into the gin-clear depths to see exactly what was happening.
Five or six grains of sweetcorn were swiftly delivered above the black shadows below, each one fluttering nicely into a clear spot amid the dense cabbages.
Within a few moments we’d introduced more pinches of corn, little and often as not to spook the by now ravenous bream, which were feeding in numbers on our freebies.
It didn’t take long to lower in our double corn hookbait among the bream troughing away, watching intensely as it settled in anticipation of a lovely river slab making a mistake…
Suddenly the hookbait disappeared from sight, followed by a sliding waggler signalling that the corn had been hoovered up from the riverbed. A firm strike resulted in a big bronze flash from the depths.
The curve in my waggler rod told me I was attached to something ponderous but unathletic. The short and wallowing resistance of a bream in the flow was a tad disappointing.
Soon I’d scooped my prize up in the net, and another cast later it was side by side in the net with a slightly larger sibling.
I held both fish up in the bright sunshine as my best mate snapped away with the camera, before sending the bream on their way, just in time for us to escape without copping a parking fine – time flies when you’re having fun!
Although the fishing was far from easy, mainly due to the heat, I really enjoyed my trip and certainly can’t wait for a repeat performance later in the year once it’s cooled down.
LOCATION: Hellesdon Mill, NR6 5BA. New Mills Yard, NR3 3AH CONTACT: Wensum Valley Angling, 01603 929090 PRICE: Free fishing. Rod licence required