River Ekete 14-06-08

[Wandering_Angler]

The sky was illuminated in a glorious orange, the dawn chorus loud and tuneful. A deer wandered down the far bank, pausing a moment to drink. Then I became aware of a strange and yet familiar noise, electronic, high pitch, a sort of beeping sound completely out of character with my surroundings. A moment later I was awake, the alarm clock relentless in its task and unwilling to stop without my intervention.

The reality of the day was somewhat removed from my dream, it was still dark and the only sound to be heard was of rain hammering against the skylight on the landing… rain, how could that be?

So on June 14th 2008, the day that Marius and I chose to rise at 3.15am and go fishing, it rained for the first time in almost 3 months! This was no gentle pitter patter either, this was relentless, drenching, bone chilling drops of icy, penetrating, morale sapping water.

I dressed and wandered outside to meet Marius, we loaded the car and made our way to the river Ekete at Radailai. Neither of us have brollies so were already soaked through before the first cast. The water boiled with the bubbles of feeding fish while Pike, as usual for this swim, splashed and rolled as if to taunt us. My tactics for the day, a waggler (big surprise) with single maggot on a size 18 hook fished on the deck accompanied by a simple feeder rig baited with sweet corn.



Despite the weather the bites came on the waggler from the off and within a few casts I had a Skimmer of maybe 12oz as well as Roach and Rudd to 6oz… this looked promising.



Sadly the worse the weather got the worse the fishing got and as the bites slowed my will began to buckle. Marius had also started the session well, catching at around the same rate as me, sometimes even faster but for him also, the action now tailed off to an odd bite here or there.



The feeder was a huge disappointment, just one bite all morning and that not good enough to strike. The conditions were awful and for the first time in a long time I was actually glad when it was finally time for breakfast and we could go home at least knowing we gave it our best shot!



In around 4 hours and 30 minutes I managed 74 fish made up entirely of Roach, Rudd and Skimmers. Marius managed, on only his second session using an English approach and in really quite atrocious conditions, a highly creditable 50.



Of course as I write this report the sky is blue and the sun is shinning, I think they call that sods law!

[BaggieRich]

Another great report WA. Unlucky about the weather, but if you're not out there, you'll never get that PB.

Top marks for effort.

[Wandering_Angler]

Thanks for that... you wouldn't believe the weather now, the sun is out and there isn't a cloud in the sky... typical!!!

[Norfolkboy]

Sods law with the weather. Nice catch anyway

[Wandering_Angler]

Yes, the weather was very odd. Today, as yesterday, the sky is blue and the sun shinning. It rained for just a few hours but it happened to be the few hours we chose to go fishing

[the_ bandit]

novice question again whats a "skimmer" ?

nice bag of fish there !!

[Wandering_Angler]

Its a actually a good question. Most people call Common Bream under a certain size Skimmers... some call all Common Bream skimmers, just to be the odd one out, I call all Bream that are silver (so that means juvenile Common Bream and Silver Bream) Skimmers as it used to save arguments on fish ID. That said, I am more experienced with Silver Bream now and no longer find identification quite such a problem so tend more and more to call a spade a spade... or a Bream a Bream Hope this helped?