stevetheangler

I haven’t recently done much fishing on the Severn, probably just half a dozen sessions in all over the past 3-4 years but intending to do more this year. In fact, I haven’t done much river work at all – my main venue for the river for that past time has been the Warwickshire Avon after bream with a few sessions on the River Sow around Stafford, the River Tern at Waters Upton, Telford and the Worcester Stour near Kidderminster.

So with the river close season looming I decided on Thursday February 28th to set off at 0700 for a club controlled stretch of the middle reaches River Severn near Bridgnorth (KF-S/HL/M). There are two sections to this stretch – the upstream meadows where day tickets issued by the club are obtainable on the bank and the lower meadows which are reserved for club members only – and I headed to the members’ stretch, arriving a little after 0800…

I chose a swim close to the start of the section – in fact, the second swim upstream from the lower boundary and car park…

A nice looking swim and it looked very promising…

I set up two rods – one a 12’ Ron Thompson Feeder rod with quiver tip and a 20g cage feeder with 8lb line straight through to a size 8 Kamasan Animal Eyed Barbless hook, the other a 12’ TFG ‘Classic Barbel’ rod of 2lb TC with 10lb line straight through to a size 4 Kamasan B981 Barbless Eyed hook – as an aside I prefer the ‘Animal’ hook pattern to all others from size 20 down to size 8 BUT size 8 is the largest hook in range and so by necessity I have to use another pattern and the B981 is a good second choice hook IMHO – and a 3/4oz ‘pennyweight’ lead.

I started with the feeder rod firstly (although I can fish two rods easily in stillwater I find that on a flowing water I am totally incapable of doing so and so stick to one-at-a-time) casting in at 0830 and used worm, maggot, prawn and bread on the hook at various times. The feeder was loaded with crumb, bread mash, maggot and hemp. I fished to mainly place the bait under branches of that bush in the photo and sometimes just short of to try to draw the fish slightly upstream. Initially I was getting attention with small nudges and tweaks of the tip on all baits on all casts but nothing that developed or was worthy of a strike … and around 1000 all action completely, 100%, disappeared on all baits … and despite casting around nothing was forthcoming. I don’t know why that happend – fish just lost their appetite? Pike possibly moved into the area although there was no real evidence of that in the form of scatters, swirls or bow waves, etc.

So, 1130, I put out my heavier rod baited with a meaty/garlic homemade boilie wrapped in the paste they were made from fishing out into the current more … but by 1300 I still had not had a single tweak – and since 1200 it had drizzled non-stop, quite heavily at times too… and I’d not taken by brolly as when I’d looked at the weather forecast 3 days or so previously it seemed it was to be a dry and sunny day [Note to self: check forecasts at least 24 hours before going out] … Anyway, I was now soaked to the skin and decided to call it a day at that point. I was only going to be able to fish until 1430 at the latest anyway so didn’t lose much time… and a hot bath and hot choc was very enticing at that time.

SO … another fruitless day ….

It seems I chose a good swim though as these are a few comments from the club’s Facebook page when I reported in…

• “That’s the swim I took 5 out of last October and all during the day.
  Just let my bait roll into the overhanging branch.”
• “I had 3 from there Sunday morning”
• “Best swim on the members section and certainly the most popular :)The only swim that’s given me a 5lb chub this winter……”
• “Big chub swim that is”

• “Had some decent barbel and chub there in summer”

So probably the wrong day for that swim … and I do know the bailiff of the stretch was with a friend and that they were fishing just upstream of me and that a good fish had been lost by them but several others had landed…

Plans ahead … fishing on Monday 4th March … several possible venues in mind but I’m in need a morale booster so that may influence the decision … but then again with the river close season looming, and revenge in mind, it may be a return to the Severn … or somewhere else … :)