Although I had a cracking day at the weekend getting barbel and chub I was mindful of how low the rivers have been for this time of year so the next trip was a stretch of the River Ivel which is run by a consortium of clubs, which had more depth and I hoped would have more flow.
I parked in the Dan Albone car park, named after the character in The Godfather Part II* and made my way across to the river, which also looked low and clear. I and many others can only hope for some prolonged rainfall in the next few weeks.
*I'm only joking of course Dan Albone was an inventor of the first light tractor and I could have done with one of his inventions to get through the long yellowing grass in places.
Before I even got started I saw two paddleboarders come down, then a few moments later got chatting to a disgruntled angler who had them crash noisily through his swim, he argued that we have to abide by many rules and also have to to pay for the privilege yet others don't, I could totally see his point.
I set up under a tree opposite yet more new flats and managed a sole dace before the first of many minnow were drawn in, I could see them everywhere dancing about in the shallows, even mid stream rising like demons for my maggots, If there's one thing minnow like it's low clear water, this one had a fantastic fire red underbelly.
The river here is seriously weedy which I don't mind and I caught a few silvers in various holes some of which looked totally gorgeous. Lush ranunculus swaying in what current there was, a reminder of the days when the river produced barbel over 20lb before otters were introduced.
I saw no barbel today as they are very rare now, perhaps endangered would be the right word and most the chub I saw were small, when a decent one came into view it quickly ghosted out just as quick, they were very cagey in the bright low conditions so I had to make do with roach and dace.
