An odd day on the river

[Wandering_Angler]

These days I seem to always start my reports with the words, ‘it was a warm sunny day’, but the fact is that as I set out for the Dane river for my latest session, the sky was blue, the sun was shinning and the air was warm.

I had chosen to return to the ‘Sunken Tree’ where a few weeks ago I had twice bagged up on nice Silver Bream and so was hopeful of a few more. I elected to fish 2LB line straight through to an 18 hook baiting, as nearly always, with maggots dyed bronze with aniseed. My chosen ground bait was a Bream mix together with vanilla flavor corn, casters and crushed baked hemp.



It was easy to see from the first hour that this was not going to be my day where the sport was concerned as almost every fish that came to hand was a Bleak and some of those were very small.

The wildlife however was outstanding, again the Mink wandered the far bank (sorry the photo isn’t very good, it was a long way away and the light wasn’t good).



Then from no where a Crayfish scuttled into the margin and sat still long enough to let me pick it up.





The next visitor to the swim was a water scorpion (Ranatra), I decided not to pick this up though



As the session developed the bites became less frequent he water which had been barely moving seemed almost to stop altogether and for a while it was a little like fishing a still water.

Then rather curiously the water started to bolt through and almost straight away I was into a very nice Silver Bream followed on almost every cast by some good size Roach. I wasn’t fishing particularly well, I was missing far more bites than is usual for me and my problems were about to increase.

In the next couple of hours the water dropped around 2 inches and then slowed and with it the bites disappeared all together. I caught just 3 fish in the last hour and after snapping on a submerged snag, I decided to call it a day.

I finished up with 99 fish in a little over 4 hours but most of those came in the first 3 hours and at least half were either Bleak or small Roach. There were a few nice fish mixed in, the weather was fantastic and the surroundings, as always, stunningly beautiful so on the whole I am not complaining but it would have been nice to have had a few more of those nice Bream :)

[Noel]

I think I'm living in the wrong country!

Or do you only fish when it's sunny?

[Wandering_Angler]

Noel, it hasnt rained in this part of Lithuania (appart from the odd shower when I was sleeping and even then nothing very heavy) since March and that is not unusual. We tend to have hot dry summers and cold snowy winters with a very wet late March/early April and a very very wet October!

[Twiddler]

Another cracking bag WA....how do you do it?
I'd be glad to get a bag half the size when fishing our local river

[Norfolkboy]

Great report/pics.

Are those water scorpions harmful? (Guessing they are from the name)

[Wandering_Angler]

Norfolkboy, I have never taken a sting from one but have been told they hurt more than a wasp. I am not sure what variety of water scorpion is worse as there are several including one that looks a lot more like a real scorpion... we have those here too

Twiddler, thank you very much, to be honest I dont really do anything special, there are far better anglers than me so perhaps it is just down to the venue? I have been fishing since I was 4 so most of what I do is instinct. I am sure if you fished the venues I am fishing you would fill your bag :)