My season always starts on the Dorset Stour. The summer campaign involves spending a lot of time crawling around in long grass and nettles trying to sneak up on her finned inhabitants. I love to fish some of our over grown lightly fished sections where I can fish in almost angler isolation with only a kingfisher as competition. A big silly hat and a pair of quality polarized glasses help me to view the fish through the mirrored rippling water. During the summer if possible I sight fish this allows me to view fish’s responses so that I can make small changes which can make all the difference to weather that monster picks up my hook bait or just drifts off back to its hiding place.
Most of my summer fishing is done early morning, short sessions before work, only 2 to 3 hours in duration. When I arrive on the stretch I walk to the last swim and on the way I throw a handful of chopped boilies into all the places I am expecting to fish on my way back. During a short session I may fish as many as 8 swims spending only 20 minutes in each. If after 20 minutes I have had no indications I move to the next.
The chub pictured left (5lb 15oz) fell to a Tails Up boilie while sight fishing. She was one of three fish which wouldn’t stop feeding so that I could lower my bait into the water. I had learnt that this particular group of chub completely freak if you try to lower bait on top of them and disappear for days. I had to therefore try something a bit different so I slowly stood up and watched them drift out of the swim. I did this because I was fishing from a high bank from a field that contains cattle; I have watch these chub drift out of the swim when a cow wonders along the bank in full view. The chub don’t bolt but they are naturally wary of a larger animal and they just drift out of view. My cow impression worked so I then lowered my baited rig into the gap in the weed and ten minuets later my pin screams.
This season an old school friend has just started fishing. He kindly helped me out with a problem with my van so I said that I would pay for a guess ticket and take him fishing on some our club waters. Our first trip we went and fished one of our smaller carp fisheries and we had a great day. I showed him how to float fish with a waggler and how to floater fish off the surface. The smile on his face when he landed his first carp said it all; I think we may have a new member in the near future.
The second trip we went pike fishing on the Avon and again we had a really enjoyable day. We sat side by side and set up basic free line rigs with powerful rods and bait runners. I had 2 pike and Mike had 3 his biggest went 11lb 2oz and was the biggest fish that he had ever caught. I showed him how to handle a pike and again he has some great pictures so show his kids. We had two very different days on club waters and showedhim just how different our venues are.
The summer as always fly’s by, those warm sleepy mornings become damp, dark and less appealing but I keep going. The end of October after our first heavy rain for what seemed like years the Stour started to fish well. The temperature was still high and the river was just thinning down with a bit of colour. In the 2 weeks before the temperature dropped, I had 4 barbel to well over double figures and 12 chub to 7lb 6oz (pictured below). All these fish fell to my favoured boilie over a few hand fulls of chopped boilies and pellet freebies. In December the temperature dropped sharply and my boilies stopped working so I changed over to paste baits. I continued to catch a few chub even in the coldest weather but at a greatly reduced rate.
Last winter inspired by Terry Lampard’s book ‘First Cast’ I decided that I would target grayling. I had a few nice fish to 1lb 14oz but my target of 2lb eluded me. This year I was determined to do it so I set off with my trotting rod and pin loaded with 4lb line to catch one. Fishing was hard with only a handful of bites in 4 trips, two of which were blank with only 2 decent fish lost. The other 2 trips only produced 3 fish to 1lb 13oz.The 5th session proved different; in the first swim I had a fish of 1lb 8oz a good start. I tried a couple more swims before I started getting the odd bite. I had a small fish of 1lb then the very next cast the float buried and there was the distinctive thud, thud of a large grayling on the other end. Now a 2lb grayling is a very impressive looking fish and I was reduced to a trembling wreck when I saw it for the first time. The angling gods were kind to me as I safely netted it a few minuets later despite its best efforts to throw the hook.
January like the rest of the winter was odd (the result of global warming perhaps) one week was warm and then we would have a few days of normal cold weather. One day in the second week of the year I had arranged to meet up with a good fishing buddy of mine for an afternoon on the Avon barbel fishing. I was sat at home eating my lunch, gear loaded into the van ready to go when I received a phone call. I was off to photograph a cracking 12lb 1oz barbel. This was Alec’s first session fishing since the birth of his daughter and what a come back. The river was well up and I had to wade across a field to get to the swims great fun if you know what you are doing. That day I failed to add to the tally of fish but I was still dreaming of the Avon for the next week.
Another target of mine was a big Roach. I started by flicking through the members book the help me to identify stretches of both the Stour and the Avon that could produce a real big one. I tried a few stretches and management only a handful of fish to 1lb 8oz, nice fish but well short of my target. The 3rd week of February I tried a stretch on the Avon that I had never been to before and fell in love. The stretch looked perfect for Roach and it looked lightly fished. Every trot down I expected the float to burry but it only did twice in the 3 hours I was fishing. One 10oz Roach on my first visit, nothing to write home about but the fire had been lit. The return visit never happened (got side tracked with chub and barbel) but I have my first target for next season.
Richard Trim