River Witham

River Witham
River Witham near Barkston, Lincolnshire

Thursday 29 September 2011

Sunday 25th Sept - A pleasant afternoon

Got time off on Sunday afternoon to have a few hours on the river. Pleasantly warm but overcast, the conditions looked good, however on arrival by the riverbank the wind, a warm southerly, was gusting strongly. I  walked downstream to a section that runs E-W, so I had have a cross wind rather than a head wind.  Nothing was rising at all but I set up with a small black foam beetle on the premise that the fish might expect windfall terrestrials with the wind.



 We'll I wasn't wrong about that, and first up a cast in a slow section resulted in the fly disappearing as if down a plughole.  My strike induced a rapid strong pull into the bankside reeds, the fish bore heavily down and was a struggle to bully to the surface. Eventually my net slid under a sizeable chub! An interesting start.



 






Casting up under a hawthorn bush produced a grayling, which was quickly followed by a lovely brownie, this was fun.





Another grayling and a couple more browns completed the tally allthough my lack of concentration cost me at least another large chub and several browns/grayling.  Then the heavens opened when I was waist deep in the middle of a pool with no coat just a light pullover.  Well I thought its warm enough I'll just press on but after 1/2 hour I was getting chilled and decided to call it a day.


What was really good was that after 5 hours and all those fish, I still had the same fly on, despite the wind tangling me in numerous trees (well that's my excuse).  Very durable made with a under body of shiny black straggle string and an overbody of black foam taken from a fly card, on a size 14 hook.

1 comment:

  1. Pleased you got onto beetles. I've been telling every one I meet on our river they are number one fish catcher. I only fish them when nothing is hatching however, pleased you took the hints.

    Looks like you fished the lower beat with all the chub? Have you seen the giants near the waterworks? They all look 5lb+. Yours looked nice what 16''. I took one on the lower beat of 23'' maybe 41/2lb. But have seen much bigger. Had two trout yesterday (Fri) 16'' and 14'' one little male with a kype coming. Hope we meet up soon.

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