First river session of 2016

With the temperatures plummeting and the majority of the lakes freezing I decided to hang up the perching gear and get out the river gear! With a week of cold weather dropping down to -6 and no rain I knew the river would be prime for a grayling or two! Maybe even a roach or two! Like normal I set my rods up the evening before. My first set up consisted of my 13ft Drennan acolyte plus coupled with a JW YOUNGS BJ centrepin loaded with 3lb Drennan mono. I know the river was a bit pacey and up so I opted to use a 3BB stick float not to heavy and not to light. Perfect for the long trot on the spots I had in mind! I always fish 3lb straight through due to the number of trout in there and snapping up numerous times gets very iterating and expensive. And I don't like the thought of a trout swimming about with a hook in his gob. I use a size 16 Drennan whisker barbed super specialist hook to obtain a good hook hold. For my second rod and set up I use a 12ft Drennan medium match pro feeder rod with a small reel loaded with 4lb Drennan feeder mono. I use a small 1oz maggot feeder tied on a double not system so it acts as a bolt rig system so the grayling in particular don't gut hook. I use a 3lb hooklink with a size 18 spade end hook. With both rods set up and my maggot lightly dusted in some pure liver powder I was ready for the days fishing ahead. It wasn't long before I was on walking the river bank. I stopped off at my first spot where I like to use the feeder fishing in a nice slack In about 6ft of water where the grayling usually like to hold up in this particular swim. The water was higher than normal and slightly coloured so I knew it wasn't going to be easy! After a few casts around the swim I finally started getting a few line bites. And soon enough the tip hooped over and I was into my first grayling of 2016. And it was a lovely one at that!

After a few shots in the mist she was realeased back to her home. The swim went on to produce a few more grayling around the same size. I moved onto the next swim where I knew there were usually some roach about and of course some grayling. This swim was ideal for trotting. I baited the swim for a little while with a pinch of maggot encouraging the fish to feed without any angling pressure. After baiting for half and hour I trotted through the swim and immediately started getting finicky bites which to me looked like roach bites! After every trot I baited and left the swim for five or ten mins getting the fishes confidence up, on the next trot I struck into a finicky bite and I was into a good fish! Yup it was a roach! Which half way in decided to drop off! Classic roach! I left the swim for a while and began baiting again. And it didn't take me long to hook into another fish and loose it! These fish were being very finicky! I went on to catch a few grayling before the swim dried up and the fish moved on or just stopped feeding.

I spent the rest of the morning into the afternoon trotting through various swims catching lots and lots of different sized grayling but nothing massive but brilliant fun all the same! I ended up catching some nicer sized grayling whilst trotting which brought the tally to twenty plus grayling landed! 

I ended up in the swim I first feeder fished and started again by using the feeder and wasn't long before I had another nice sized grayling in the net. The bites were longer between and much more finicky. But I stuck at it and caught a further more three grayling. 

Eventually that swim dried up to! And by this time it was getting late into the afternoon.. Time for some roach! I spent a good few hours trotting some swims but no luck. Eventually I found some roach and was lucky enough to catch and land one before calling it a day. 

It was a enjoyable first session on the river with conditions not being the best and the river flowing very high and coloured but I caught some lovely fish and had a lovely days fishing. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog I hope you enjoyed it.