Throughout this long stormy winter I have found myself looking forward to March, and the first stirrings of Spring. It is a good month to be an angler but a bad month if you’re as indecisive as I am. Whilst nothing particularly large has come along these last few days, I have managed a mixed bag of fish by leaving a bit of kit in my car for an opportunistic hour here and there. Lack of planning has been to blame for that, but also thanked because I’ve enjoyed some sunny afternoons, largely in the company of my girlfriend Beth.
On Saturday night we left home at 5 and after a quick stop at Tesco in Ilminster, shared a rod and a catch of 34 roach, 2 rudd, a skimmer, and a roach/bream hybrid, from the canal, before it was too dark to see anything but the silhouettes of bats flitting amongst the trees. No goldfish brightened the gloom of that evening, though I did catch two of these on Friday morning before work:
The problem with this time of year is that there are so many venues which start to perk up and it becomes a difficult task choosing between them. With time running out to get on the rivers, which have finally become fishable again in the Westcountry, I stole an hour on the River Exe in Tiverton, trying to connect with those elusive dace, which I have not seen for about seven years. A salmon par was all that succumbed to an hour of feeding and fishing a waggler down the middle of the river, before a nearby beer garden began calling us, and we sat there sharing an ice cream sundae and hatching plans for a visit to Bude the next day.
On Tuesday, I treated my dad to an overdue birthday trip to the River Tone in Taunton. We picked up some maggots and day tickets to fish the fast stretch where dad could try out his new fourteen foot rod for the first time. I used a sixteen foot model to run a 7BB wire-stemmed avon through various pegs, but this became a 15’ 6” road by lunchtime when I snapped the tip section by catching it in a gate as I walked between swims. After a bit of a sulk, I managed the best I could by cutting the rod back to the next eye and rigging up again. I can’t say that I noticed too critical a difference for the rest of the day, and even landed my best chub from this stretch of river, weighing 3lb 8oz. The rod I use has two butt-sections though, to be used at twelve foot as well, and it is cracking at the shorter length for fishing a light waggler on the canals, so I will need to get it fixed pretty soon.
Meanwhile I found dad sat down by a small eddy catching gudgeon of all things, not to mention odd roach, dace and grayling, in amongst the minnows. He’d also had some nice 2-3lb chub trotting, and had several more later on too. It wasn’t the most productive day that I’ve known on the river myself, but a final tally of 15 chub, 9 brown trout, 6 roach, 4 dace, 4 grayling and a gudgeon, kept my arms and legs working throughout the afternoon.
Oh, and I also - somehow - managed to snare this padlock:
At Dillington Pond on Wednesday, I’d defeated myself before I started, having bought some prawns which I had absolutely no confidence in. I did manage some lovely roach to ten ounces or so on the whip, but became restless and packed up within a few hours. Worth a return visit though, with better prep.
The pick of my long weekend off was a visit to Bude on Monday. Although I didn’t get any fishing done, it was wonderful to be beside the sea in temperatures of sixteen degrees and for it not to feel like some sort of endurance test. Bude still seems to be on shutdown at the moment though; we couldn't get out on the canal in a pedalo or rowing boat, and even the bike hire place was closed. Meanwhile the chippies were in survival mode, with most offering special discounts for OAPs. I dare say they should avoid one particular establishment however, where the gherkins appeared to have been pickled for so long that the one I was presented with had become almost translucent. I left that one to the seagulls.
