No! Don't Laugh! It's my first points!!!

[Catfish Virgin (Still!)]

First the good news...

I woke up at 6am full of enthusiasm, keen to try out some of my new club venues (a years subscription to Ringwood & DAA was one of the better Christmas presents I received!).

Sorted the gear the previous evening so after a cup of coffee and some Weetabix I poked my head out the door.....now the bad news! A very heavy and hard frost carpeted the lawn and the car. This was not in the script! Although I was expecting fairly high river levels, I was not bargaining on that level of frost. It stayed around all day with a lot of casual water remaining frozen.


No this isn't my garden! Thanks to Wessex Salmon & Rivers Trust for the image.

So, at least driving down the motorway enabled me to think about a plan of action. Plan 76(d) version 23(a) (updated as soon as I crossed the Avon at Ringwood) was the one I plumped for! Fish the sidestreams!

I love it when a plan comes together!

Well it sort of came together, eventually.

After much walking around on "crunchy" grass I finally decided on a likely swim. Two hours later I was fishless but had had a close encounter with a swan and a similar "head to head" with some very nervous heiffers. That finally persuaded me to up sticks and move.

That was a good move! At least in terms of points for The Forum Species Race. I got the scoreboard rolling with a little (tiny) Dace:



I had several more (but even smaller) and then a pretty little Grayling made a mistake:



That was an unexpected bonus but I continued to catch quite a number of Dace as well as the occassional Minnow:


Sorry about the fuzzy image...I was cold.

My final contribution for the day turned out to be a Chub. It put up one hell of a struggle but I got it in the end:


Honest! It is a Chub(let), but by this time I was shivering so badly, I was never going to get it in focus!

Now I reckon that's 4 species, all photographed (after a fashion) which should equate to SIX POINTS!!

Maybe I'll fair a bit better on Tuesday (at least with some "proper" fish").

[Twiddler]

Well done for sticking it out Partner and getting us some points. Fish great and small, we love them all
It was frozen when we set off this morning but the weather turned and we had a lovely warm day beach fishing.

[mithrandir]

Nice to see you doing some real fishing for the hunt, instead of catching namby pamby 3lb+ grayling.

Nice to have a result on the first attempt, you will soon use up all those coarse species and have to try some salty ones.

[Norfolkboy]

Well done Neil

[pingu]

nice one neil

well on the scoreboard now


dave

[cuckoo]

Great start neil , but you will have to come over to the light side for extra species , as young claudia is getting on a bit now and cant gather salt and fresh species on her own town quay for you matey

lee.

[BaggieRich]

Well done Neil. Excellent start!

[fishypaul]

well done neil,6 points in the first week ?

keep that up and you will 300 points at the end of the year

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Looks a cold one and well done on the points

[Banana Steve]

well done Neil