YES – FOR ONCE IT WAS TOO WET TO FISH EVEN FOR ME!
I cancel a rain-soaked trip but can’t stay away long – and the Great Ouse perks me up
WHAT a week it’s been of rain, wind and generally awful weather!
Now, I could kid you and say I was fishing most days, fighting the elements and bagging up – a real angling hero.
Sorry to disappoint – I wasn’t! I have mainly been in my tackle den in the warm and dry, writing and preparing for next week when I am away for three days.
I had plenty to do: tying rigs, respooling reels, writing a chapter for my next book, sorting photos for some talks and preparing for Friday’s live show on Facebook. I’m still fully immersed in fishing even when I’m not on the bank…
MONDAY
My plan was to go to the River Severn, which was badly swollen. There’s a backwater that always produces but it was throwing it down, so I cancelled the trip.
Don’t get me wrong I have set up in the wet a thousand times in the past but do I really want to get soaked again for the chance of a 2lb perch if I’m lucky? No way!
I’m glad I didn’t go in the end because an old mate of mine from down south popped in on the off chance to see if I was in. We made arrangements for a trip together, something we had not done for a fair old while.
He said he was shocked to see my car on the drive, but when we got wet walking from my back door to the tackle den I think he understood why I had given fishing a miss!
WEDNESDAY
Finally got a rod in my hand and headed down to that backwater. It fished hard, to say the least, and aside from a foul-hooked roach which proved the fish were there I couldn’t buy a bite, despite conditions looking great.
That’s what I love about wild fishing. Even though those fish are rarely if ever caught, conditions are sock on and you know the water, sometimes you just cannot get a bite. That’s how it should be, because fishing was never meant to be easy. If it was, you wouldn’t go, or at least I wouldn’t!
FRIDAY
Went shopping first thing to get food for next week’s three-day trip – mostly in a can just so I only have to heat it up, along with plenty of three-in-one coffee sachets.
Oh, and a bottle of port to celebrate a big fish! I rarely take beer with me this time of year as it’s too cold, plus you have to keep getting up in the night to have a jimmy riddle – an age thing maybe!
There was a couple from down the road where I live in the supermarket and I could see them looking in my basket and thinking ‘he eats some crap!’. I explained I was shopping for a fishing trip but I think that just made it worse!
SUNDAY
My mate Kev Hewitt told me the Ouse near Milton Keynes had come down well and might be worth a shot, and so early this morning I was on my way.
I planned to fish cheese paste for chub but I took a few lobworms too, just in case. There’s always a chance of a few perch on this bait as well.
To cut a long story short, neither Kevin nor I had a rap from a chub but I did catch four very nice perch on lobworms.
So, with yellow and red leaves raining from the sky, a couple of wrens playing around in the foliage at my feet and the quivertip going around five times, it was a delightful day and well worth the 180-mile round trip.
On the way back, I promised myself a few more trips to this river because there are still are some very nice chub here. It’s not an easy water, but the chance of a 7lb chub is always on the cards.