Drawing A Line Under It

There's still a few days left of the season yet I've put my gear away and shall not be fishing the river again for over three months. I've drawn a line under the worst season for many years and shall not be sorry to see it pass. Bad weather has been the biggest problem but other things have conspired to reduce the amount of time I've spent on the bank, its just been a lousy year.

On a brighter note I fished a small pool last week with a few guys from one of the forums I look in on. It was bitterly cold and the fish were reluctant to move very much but a few small carp were caught along with plenty of silver fish. We had plenty of laughs along the way and I'm sure I'll be fishing with some of then again in the new season.

I did drop in on my consistent chub swim on Saturday. I don't like fishing the same old swim again and again but the nine or ten anglers staying at the pub had recorded no chub or barbel all week, just a few trout and grayling on maggots so I was keen to demonstrate my prowess to the Three Amigo's Tim, Nick and The Prof. They were fishing the beat where my swim is located and when I rolled up at 1pm nobody was fishing it - game on.

I started to bait it with some maggots but after a single feeder full went in I heard a strangled cry from Nick who had fluked a pike on his lure rod. I ambled over to watch him slip and slide along the treacherous bank as he retrieved his landing net from some distance away, then netted a low double figured pike. It could have gone bigger but he had taken one of the ugliest fish from the river which had a stunted tale and a large dent in its back. I told him in no uncertain terms just what a miserable little fish it was and how he should be ashamed of disturbing the poor creature - well, he had been rather unkind about the fortunes of my football team in mid-week. 

I went on the catch a small chub of a couple of pounds before I lost interest and trudged home. They were all without action apart from The Prof who'd taken another trout albeit only a few ounces. 

Nick was further humiliated when his beloved Everton capitulated to Wigan in the FA Cup. Now I'm not the type of person to gloat but after his mid-week comments I was very happy to swap text messages during and after the game - I believe its called kismet :-)