Tuesday 19th February 2013

Weather -3c Start Brightening up later

I've managed to temp my son Dean out today for a rare midweek trip.
As usual we start the day with a full cooked breakfast on the way at the local Greasy Spoon. I find it easier to do it this way during the week as we don't have to worry about cooking lunch. Its just about Nine am as we tie up in the middle of the "Match length" in the centre of Norwich. We don't get to fish this area much at weekends because there are normally matches on Saturdays and Sundays during the winter. The fish tend to shoal up along here from November right through to the seasons end in March and large nets of Bream and Roach are needed to win the matches. Weights of Thirty to Fifty pounds are not un common when it fishes here. The Pike obviously realize the potential of an easy feast and anglers often curse a large Pike for splitting up their feeding fish. Many a time you can see a bright coloured pole elastic stretching out right across the river. They are rarely landed though.
Anyway, we set up a dead bait rod each plus one for trotting a live bait downstream in what is now almost a normal flow.
We have been fishing an hour and both of us have run the float through at various depths and distances from the boat. 
On my next trot, i keep the bait fairly close to the bank we are moored on which brings an instant take. We can clearly see the float a foot under the surface and as it starts to move off again,i hit it. As its so clear and the sun is now shining we get a full view of the fish twisting and turning under water as it tries its best to shake the hooks out. We almost get a "Tail walk" but it decides to throw the towel in and surrender. It goes 11lb 2oz on the scales, a nice start to the day.

 Dean is next on the live bait rod. Once again, running the float down the shelf produces another take just Fifteen minutes since i had  mine. Unfortunately for Dean, This one one does shake the hooks. It looked a similar size to the one i had. 
We then move down to the next swim on this section, about 100 meters from the last one and try get the same response. We both miss another run each on the live bait rod so i set up one of the dead bait rods to fish lives as well. 
We fish this new swim for about an hour with no more interest. Our next move will be into the turning basin Bush swim, another 100 meters upstream.
As Dean had yet to catch i put him in this swim and sure enough after about Thirty Five mins, his Smelt is picked up and the floats away. He picks up, winds down and strikes. Briefly the rod bends over but again after a few seconds it pulls off. 
That proved to be the last action of the day and in full sunshine we head back at around half Two. If the weather stays settled for Sunday im very optimistic we will catch more than of late. Fingers crossed........