stevetheangler

Tuesday, August 9th 2016, I headed off to a local stretch of the River Stour at Stourton Castle, Staffs – a small river and the stretch in question is controlled by the Birmingham Angling Association (BAA)…

A nice looking stretch of water it was the first time I’d fished there in 3 years not having held a BAA card for those years but I decided I’d get one for the current season as they also have a lot of other small rivers and a stretch of canal, further afield, that I intend to fish over the autumn/winter.

So I arrived at the water at around 0715 – and was the first arrival (as usual) until another fellow arrived a couple of hours later – and had a look at the water as I walked the banks towards my one-of-two possible swims for the day in case anything appealed. I arrived at the first of the two possibles – a swim directly below a weir – but that was immediately discounted due the vegetation of the far bank being a bit denuded and the water level being quite low and clear… and so I proceeded to the other selection, a swim immediately above the weir  that I’ve found to hold perch and roach in previous visits.

Tackle was set up – 9′ quiver tip rod, 4lb mainline straight through to a size 10 worm baited hook and a 5g flat pear lead. I used a light line as although this river stretch is reputed as having given up roach to 1.5lb and nets of 50lb of roach (former possible, but I take the latter with a large pinch of salt – 50 roach of any size in a session would be ‘good’ but the equivalent of 50 x 1lb roach?? Ummmm…) generally an 8oz fish is a good one – and, I think, the best I’ve ever had has been a chub just over the pound from below the weir…

So I started off, as I say, with worm  and catapulting out small but frequent quantities of maggots both down the far bank and along the near bank….but after an hour or so without a single touch I decided to scout further upstream and decided to try a swim 2 up from my current location as it had some far bank vegetation inc a bit of a partially immersed tree…

Here there was little to no far bank flow with the flow all on the near bank side… so again I fed maggot on the far bank and near bank too…. and it was while I was in this swim that the other angler arrived and he’d been intending to fish it as he said he’d been there the day previously and had had a few roach but had returned with his pole to try tight under the fallen tree … and he then settled in the next swim upstream… so again I fished on for a couple of hours near and far banks and centre stream too, all without any sign of interest whatsoever… However I had also been casting further and further downstream and I started to pick up a few taps from by a bed of fallen reed almost opposite the swim that lay between my original location and my current one … so I moved down to that intermediate position so as to be able to fish the area more efficiently… and as I did so the guy moved into my newly vacated swim with his pole… :)

Anyway, first three casts or so into the new swim produced a quick tap on the tip but with no follow ups… and subsequent casts produced nothing at all… and so it remained until 1330 when I decided I could better be employed doing some tackle fixing and other jobs that were needed at home…. and I had a word with the guy in my vacated swim … he’d managed 10 small (1oz) roach on his pole from directly below the ‘hoop’ of the tree but also said he’d not be back again and that he’d gone really ‘for a change of scenery’ and to get his pole out that he’d not used in years – and in fact he’d had to change his elastic on it before he used it as it had rotted!

I also noted, as you can see from the two pics above, that the water colour had changed from a clearish greeny/brown tinge to a mucky grey which is never a good colour for a water and from my experience its time to be at home (or on another water) in those cases……