After a awful evening Zander session on the local canal mid week where I had eight runs over three swims, of which I contacted with only two fish and only managed to get one small Zed witinh six feet of the bank before it shook out the hook. I needed to feel that wonderful sensation of something pulling back that we all crave so desperately. So to satisfy this I did what all self respecting anglers would do and went bleak fishing. Yes bleak fishing. The only place I knew contained them for sure was Lucy's mill on the Avon. So Sunday morning I met up with Andy to go and check it out. Unlike my target for the day Andy was more interested in the normally prolific bream sport that can be had in the large eddy near the big weir so I left him there whilst I headed off up to the smaller weir to tangle with my mighty foe Alburnus alburnus. Before beginning my bleak bashing I put out a lob worm under an old school perch float to roam around over the cabbages that I could see under the water all along my bank to try and tempt a good perch or two. Before I had even picked up my other rod the float was gone. After striking I got a rather dull thumping response but the rod had a serious bend in it. A moment or two of confusion was soon explained when I spotted what had happened trough the clear water. A small perch had in fact taken my worm only to be itself taken by a jack pike. Normally when this happens the pike let go of the fish just as you're about to net them, but this one was particularly determined to keep it's breakfast. It must have thought it had caught the hardest six ounce perch in the river as there was no way it was letting go. As soon as it was in the net the stupid thing let go leaving the little perch no worse for wear and me chuffed as I didn't know it was two for the price of one day at Lucy's mill today.
After this amusing catch I got down to the business of my bleak point. It all went surprisingly well and from the off I was getting bites, though at two to the ounce and half of them dropping off it could have gone south. After only half an hour I weighed in to get an idea of how many would be needed to make the 4oz needed. The first batch went 3oz and then after a move to follow the ever moving shoal the second lot with a couple of bigger ones weighed in at 4oz giving me a safe 7oz of bleak and another challenge point in the bag.
3oz
4oz
Not wanting to spend the rest of my session continuing to chasing tiddlers I decided to move down stream to fish near Andy. I would have stuck round to try for more perch but the pike attack had put a damper on that one. After arriving behind Andy he told me he had lost one bream but was being plagued by perch. So it seemed sense to try and add a few to my 12oz total so far. The perch never showed up but after a few casts with a feeder I picked up this mint condition bream
After this a couple of rather inconsiderate canoeists came down the weir and began doing Eskimo rolls right over where Andy had been casting all morning only to come under a hail comments along the line of "would you good gentlemen please have a little consideration for some fellow waterway users please" they duly moved on. But a little later a flotilla of young canoeists and their instructors turned up at the weir and totally ruined the morning.
Though I do not normally have a problem with canoeists I would like to say that of all the waterways users they are by far the most inconsiderate obviously unless they are also anglers where they then do show us some consideration.
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