Well, I tried...

After being stuck in doors for the last couple of weeks due to not feeling too good, I decided that I would at least have a go on our local river. Sue and I had found a good sheltered spot where we had seen lots of chublet and perch patrolling, a few week ago.

As the area is very overgrown in places and surrounded with trees, the visit was in some doubt, due to the prospect of high winds causing trees to be in danger of falling or at the very least, dropping the odd branch. As it turned out, at first, the wind was not as bad as it had been forecast. We had some work to do this morning, so an afternoon session seemed to be the most convenient. It nearly didn't happen at all, as just as we were about to leave the heavens opened. I am not that bothered about rain, but it would have made it less pleasurable, especially for Sue, who is just a spectator (and maggot thrower!) in all this. Luckily the downpour only lasted a few minutes and the sun came out again.

Fishing the river is all about going light, super light. This particular spot is really close to us, less than a mile walk from our front door, through the streets of South East London. I don't like attracting attention by carrying obvious fishing gear around, so we have developed a compact and stealthy kit for such excursions. This comprises of a shoulder bag that contains everything we need including the rod, reel and even a rolled up unhooking mat. The only additional item is a small landing net, borrowed from our light lure fishing tackle.

Going light. Even the rod goes in the bag

Ready to go

When we got to the river, it was fairly obvious that the fishing was not going to be good. The wind had brought a few small branches down into the river and these were drifting down stream and collecting in various locations along the bank.

A Fuzzy rat!

The rats were in evidence, inspecting all these free offerings. I managed to get a shot, albeit a bit fuzzy, of one of the little beggars scurrying around as bold as you like.

Rats are not uncommon along the river, but today there were plenty of them to see. We continued on to our chosen location and had a walk along the bank, as far as is possible without getting involved in a jungle clearance scheme, and chose a swim that looked the best of what was a very poor bunch.

I had pre-rigged my little telescopic rod with a small float and a size 16 hook, baited with a single white maggot. Sue had been baiting upstream from the chosen start of my attempted trot down the river. I had plumbed the depth in a few places and it ranged from almost zero to 15-18 inches at best. There was a narrow channel about a foot from the far bank that was the deepest point, almost everywhere else the water was only about 6 inches deep.

The river was littered with small twigs and leaves. I was not feeling very confident about this. To add insult to injury, we had not seen a single fish or even any evidence of them. Although I knew in my heart I was on a hiding to nothing, I made a few casts. If I wasn't getting snagged on floating debris, my nine-inch deep rig was getting hung up on the bottom.

Not much point really, but I had to give it a go!

After half an hour or so, we decided that standing under a lot of trees that were swaying around in the now increasing wind, catching leaves was not as much fun as it would seem. Time to call it a day and maybe come back when the conditions are a bit more favourable. Still, we gave it a go and I did get on the bank for the first time in a couple of weeks.

Ralph.