Relaxation after work

Twiddler · #1 07-16-2008, 06:58 PM

Boring day at work, lovely weather so I decided to have a couple of hours at my local River the Hampshire Avon.

4.30pm clock out and straight of to Britford to explore a little more of the 'old river'....rather then fishing the navigation stretch, which I usually do.

Arriving at 5pm, loaded with a rod, reel, small bag with some terminal tackle, pint of maggots, small unhooking mat, landing net and a digi cam I bought second hand and off I went to take a stroll.

I walked downstream for a while to a part of the river I haven't seen nor fished before, eventually I found a swim I liked the look of, a lot of overhanging trees and bushes.

Water levels still high, lots of colour in the water and flow still turbid.
Truth to be spoken, I was more looking forward to the peace and tranquillity on the river bank for a couple of hours and I wasn't too bothered about catching huge amount of fish, so I set up my quiver tip with a small 12g maggot feeder, 4lb mainline, 3lb hook length size 18” hook.

I cast the feeder on the edge of the fast flow to gently let the current roll it downstream until it settled.
I knew it would have been better to trott a float but I wanted to sit down and relax for a bit plus the overhanging trees would have made it a little difficult to cast a float without risking to get caught up in them.

I didn't have to wait too long before my first twitch in the rod tip.....a minnow, soon to be followed by another dozen of those pesky little fellas.

After an hour or so I managed to feed the little rascals off and soon after the dace, chublets, grayling and perch took over.

Nothing bigger than 8-10oz but still a pleasant couple of hours fishing and relaxing.

Here are a few pics of some of my catch
To be honest , I have no idea what species this is..when I saw it first I thought it was a small grayling with a deformed mouth...but not so sure now

And here a couple of scenery pics

Around 9pm it was time to pack up and take a slow walk back to the car whilst enjoying such a beautiful stretch of the Hampshire Avon.