Britford, my first day back on the rivers this season

[mithrandir]

With a long hard week finished at work, and Claudia of to Kent for the weekend hunting catfish, I had a weekend to myself, having been turned down for a wild weekend of passion by the girls at work, it meant all I had left to do was go fishing, what a drag!!!

I had a bit of a lay in as it was raining first thing but by 9am it looked good so off I went, two boxes of maggots in hand, a couple of pasties and some fizzy pop I travelled the 10 miles down to Britford to have a dabble on the rivers for the first time since the season re-opened.

I only took my Greys rod and a small Wychwood bait runner, some small feeders and size 16 and 18 hooks, I was travelling really light.

When i arrived there was only one other car in the carpark, so I kitted up and set off for the swim I ad been in on the last weekend of last season, when I got there I found an angler in it!! I stopped and had a chat, seems we were the only two on the river at 10 in the morning, so leaving him to trot a float downstream of the area I wanted to fish I strolled further downstream to find a likely looking spot, after about a 5 minute walk I came upon this swim





I catapulted a few red maggots out into the swim whilst I set up the rod and attrached a small (20g) feeder and a size 18 hook to nylon, I usually leave these at the preformed length of about 15 inches and use the light feeder so the river "trundles" the feeder along the bottom with the baited hook flowing in the current.

I cast out into the area just next to the overhanging tree and let the feeder bounce along the bottom, almost instantly the tip began to give the telltale twitches of a take, I struck into in and felt no resistance, I reeled in to find the maggots had been attacked, at least I knew there were fish in the swim.

Second cast I saw the telltale twitch and this time I connected with a small chub



My river season was off to a start within 10 minutes of starting, so the day was not a blank at least.

I continued to explore this swim and was getting a fish about 1 in 2 casts, mainly small chub and the odd small dace.



small chub and dace are hard to tell apart, but if you look closely you will see the dace has a pointy head and is a lot thinner in the body, tends to have a flatter back and the scales are subtly different.

After about an hour the swim was slowing down so I started casting further to my right toward the fallen tree, as the feeder hit the faster water where it flowed around the tree, here I got a cracking take and had a real rod bender, as I reeled it in I saw it was a lovely large grayling, as I manoeuvred it past the weed bed to my left the rod almost doubled and the water started to boil, a very large pike, 15 to 20lb at a guess, had grabbed the grayling as it went past.
the pike had caught the grayling mid body from above and was swimming out from the weeds, I slacked the line off to see what would happen, I was only on a 3lb 6oz hookling so did not want to get into a fight with 15+ lb of pike! i watched as the grayling went motionless and the pike relaxed its grip on it's back, when i reeled in like fury and lifted the grayling out of the water as the pike tried to pounce again, I grabbed My net and slammed it into the water to hit the pike on the head so it swam away at a rate of knots to the other bank, I rapidly unhooked the poor fish, it was probably the largest grayling I had ever caught but I did not stop to weigh or photograph it as the wounds on its back looked deep and nasty, not loads of blood so I took the descision to get it back to the river as quickly as I could so as not to stress it any further, I expected it to belly up, but it swam away well considering the ordeal it had just suffered.

Well that was that swim blown so I moved around a bit after that, caught some reasonable grayling



and loads more chub but nothing over a pound, some more small dace and a minnow or two







I finally worked my way back to my first choice of swim As the other angler had moved on and set about catching the perch I knew lived there, and first cast I was rewarded with this lovely 1lb 8oz specimen



I fished on for another hour but had nothing of significance so as the wind picked up I decided to call it a day.

I had a great day on the river, the weather was fine and dry but a bit blowy, the river itself was clear and flowing well and I spoke to the bailiff ( Stuart, a really helpful guy), who said that there were only 7 people there, which considering there are 15 miles of fishable bank on an £8 day ticket ( £42 for a year for all LAA waters, or £64 for a "partners" ticket which I got for Claudia and I), was very quiet.

It is a lovely stretch and I look forward to getting my £32 worth this year fishing it on the odd evening on the way home from work.

[Noel]

Lovely report. Horrific down here in Devon. Gales and rain. Didn't dare leave the house, let alone go fishing!

[fullcreel]

Nice one, tussles with pike often end with the pike winning. Could you post details of this fiehery to us? I'm somwhat commited to getting my monies worth out of Bathampton, but the odd day somehwere else is alway fun. Perhaps a forum meet there?

[fishypaul]

nice venue mike,what river is it ?

[mithrandir]

the river is the Hampshire Avon at Salisbury, the section I fished was the london Anglers Association stretch, all details are on their website,

here is a link

It is cracking value for just that stretch of the avon let alone all the other venues.

[pingu]

nice one mike, think our rivers are out for at least a week with our weather this weekend

dave

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Wonderful read and pictures mate . God that must have made you jump out of your skin when that Pike hit the fish !!

[Banana Steve]

Nice One Mike, Great looking Perch, I must give the venue another go some time, weldone

[BoldBear]

Great report Mike, Lovely river, would love to have a go at that Pike though

[Norfolkboy]

Well done Mike, great variety of species there mate