Brown

Sunday 1^st December 2019. River Weaver.

Brown

Well what a day that was. Arrived 1330, decided to take 2 rods (thereby totally contradicting myself from yesterday) if only so that I could fish on after dark, and tbh, after a recce in the a.m. I had decided to stay put in one swim as it looked spot on, despite a more severe frost than the previous day.

Bright sunlight on arrival, I fed the centre of the river, hoping to pull fish away from far bank trees and snags. Mashed bread and hemp were plopped in regularly, with the float doing its thing, except that is, actually going under.

1515 often signals the first bite when float fishing in winter, but today was one of those exceptions. I had a drop with the leger rod, to see if they wanted it still, but couldn’t get a bite there either. I took the faithful Fuji out for a few dusk shots, but the battery was dead, hasn’t been the same since I got back from ‘Nam, literally, so a new camera is now on the list.

Back onto the float for dusk, and during the half-light everything seemed to slow down, it was one of those weird dusks, where everything turned to be monochrome brown, not light but not dark, just eerie brown. Still, the float was running through perfectly, so surely it was just a matter of time?

Sadly not.

With the light ‘gone’ it was time to touch leger for the last half hour or so. Pointing my rod skywards enabled me to also pick out the silhouette of the tip against the darkening sky, but still it refused to budge.

1700 hours and I was wishing I’d put the Skeetex boots on, my feet were very cold. I fumbled around looking for the head torch, nope. Double checked all pockets, still couldn’t find it. Something else to go on the list, I usually have a spare, not tonight.

Wrapping up 2 rods in sub-zero temps using my phone for light was a laugh, but the job got done and back at the car I found my head torch, in one of the pockets I’d checked twice. So, that's saved me the cost of a new head torch.

This river hasn't fished well for me, so far, this winter. Perhaps the frosts were too sudden? Perhaps the recent floods have moved the fish? Maybe I'm just crap? Probably a combination of all three and more besides. Whatever, the sessions in previous seasons whereby consistent weather brought consistent fishing with chub queuing up at last light seem a long time ago. But then the weather hasn't really been consistent, so I've probably answered my own question. Perhaps the question should be 'what should I do when the weather is inconsistent?'