A Painful Day Down The River

 It had all started so well, a friendly wave from another driver with the same make and colour car as me en route and a nice chat to some walkers as I made my way from the car to the river, It was very cold with a brisk northerly wind and the river was low and clear but it was good to be out.

Then I got my rod out only to find the tip broken off, my heart sank, this has never happened before in all my years fishing but was bound to one day, today was that day. I always imagined cracking off a tip on one of the many tiny overgrown rivers I fish but not like this, it almost felt unfair. The drawbacks of being a one rod angler came to the fore as I threaded my sorry looking rod.

I set up in a likely looking area and caught nothing so moved to an old favourite swim to find trees down and overhanging making the whole spot unfishable, despondant I walked back only to see a Muntjac drinking at the water's edge, I must have just walked past it and we stared at each other until I carried on determined to just get a fish before sulking back home.

Another spot was found as I had the whole stretch to myself but fishing with a rod tip missing felt like drawing with a blunt pencil, painting with a frayed brush. We take for granted the art of fishing but if something's not right you sure can feel the difference. I was unable to spear my float under the overhang like normal, paying out line felt weird and every now and the the line would loop horribly round the bit of tip left protruding. 

I sat on the deck in the mud to get out of the wind when I finally got a bite it took me a bit unawares  as I hooked a chub and it snapped me, my float drifting off sorrily downstream, then I hooked another determined not to let this one head for the snags but it bent the hook back as it disappeared through the branches of a sunken tree. I now questioned my hook pattern as the new version of them seems to bend more, as well as wondering if the rod tip made a difference, I felt like crying.

I moved slightly downstream away from the tree, only a few feet, then I upped the line, put on a stronger hook and went for a bit of hit and hold, not usually my style but in the clear water these chub were going like beasts for the snags of which there were many in a swim the width of an unbroken rod.

My luck then turned somewhat as I powered the next chub away from the tree, then away from the rushes and slipped the net under a nice fish before noticing the strangest of hook holds. Somehow I had managed with my size 18 to bizarrely get through the eye of someone else's size 10, it was one of those days already.

With a flukey fish under my belt at last I was able to enjoy the scenery a bit more as the sun popped out for just ten minutes, I still had the place to myself but everything joined me as I hunkered down low to the ground. Goldfinches were swapped for long taileds and the odd blue tit, before an egret drifted across the flood meadow making a funny deep noise, a contrast to the pheasants behind me in the grass which were in full view and good voice, a kingfisher zoomed down the river before seeing me and aborting across the rushes and of course I was joined by two robins on the feed.

The robins were much better than I at navigating the mud as I continued, losing yet another chub as I scrambled across slipping and sliding before cursing once more, the fish were giving me a beating and it wasn't good. Some of it was down to my rod but also my arm which was now in agony, I think it's tennis elbow but it felt painful as a break and has been going on for a while, I popped another painkiller like last time and set up 6lb line to avoid another snap off.

This certainly gave my arm a rest as nothing happened on gear which felt like rope, no doubt it looked like rope to a shoal of chub in a swim that's heavily fished, In the clear water I didn't get a touch, the feeling also of fishing so heavy with a broken rod wasn't good. I went back to 4lb and got bites straight away, managing to bully in two more lovely chub, good ones too.

I should have packed up then as my arm was in serious pain, the pill I took having little to no effect, but I fished on losing two more, one of which I had beat before it found a snag under my feet, which left me with nothing to blame but myself. Credit to these fish they were twice as strong as those on the Severn a week ago, seeing that snag in the gin clear water there wasn't much stopping them getting into it. I finished with three good chub and saw a whole heap of wildlife which should be a good day but the lost fish ratio was far too high, the pain in my arm far too great and I packed up on a low with my trusty rod of the last ten years in four pieces not three.

If that was the last trip of the season it certainly wasn't dull I suppose.