Des Taylor’s Diary of a Countryman
I’ve had loads of ‘threes’ and the average size is still going up
I’VE had a lovely week’s fishing in the company of some very nice people. A bonus was getting my string pulled a good few times, which makes it even better. Of course, every day has been massively tarnished by the devastating news about my good friend John Wilson. I can still hardly believe it…
TUESDAY
Another blank on the Warwickshire Avon for barbel, but you have to be realistic about days like this.
I am well aware that these fish run between a couple of weir pools which are about two miles apart, so they could be having their dinner a mile away from where I am fishing.
I’ll tell you this, though. They will be back for my bed of pellets and boilies one of these fine winter evenings, that’s for sure!
WEDNESDAY
Out on the boat with Kev Lee and Bill Finch for another hard day. Although the River Severn looked good where we were fishing, something must have been wrong with the air pressure because through the course of the day I spoke to two other good anglers fishing different places and they, too, struggled for bites.
In the end we tried to catch perch on live bleak, and thankfully this worked. In fact Bill caught a new personal best on leger tackle which goes to prove again how many big perch there are in the river at the moment.
Over the past six years I have taken many 3lb-plus perch from the Severn Valley, indeed only a few years ago, when I was drop shotting almost every day, it was common, yes common, for me to take a couple of 3lb perch from the river.
In fact I remember writing many times in this column about catching 10 perch over 2lb from the Severn, to a best of 3lb 13oz.
I never did catch a ‘four’ but I’m sure that will come over the next few years, because these perch are still growing.
It was nice to see a few other anglers on the river, even though they were die-hard barbel anglers. I saw no-one I would class as a ‘pleasure’ angler, which is a great shame. Years ago the Severn was the place to be.
On lots of these lower Severn waters you can park your car behind the swim and there are fish to be caught, so why are anglers not going to these places?
Later I was talking to an angler who works on the river five days a week and he told me he sees up to three otters at a time up above Upton, which really is bad news for the area. Can you believe that I used to fish this area three evenings a week in the summer back in 1988 and only ever saw one otter? Now an angler sees that most days on the bank – it can’t be right...
THURSDAY
Popped down to a pike water I’ll be fishing in the coming weeks to feed some chopped fish and hopefully get the big girls in an area I fancy they live.
In the evening Paul Garner
popped over to appear on my Facebook Tackle Den Live. It went really well because Paul is a very good talker and very knowledgeable about his fish.
We talked about John Wilson and how he’d influenced angling though his TV programmes and Paul answered some great questions, hopefully helping the viewers to catch a few more fish.
It won’t be the last time I will invite Paul on to the show.