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ROB KAVANAGH.
The inside line on fishing.
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I'm Rob Kavanagh, your Artful Angler artist and dedicated angler.
My fishing blog is here to share my fishing adventures, ideas, stories, tips, anecdotes, techniques etc.. tight lines!
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19/02/2010
Freezing Frome
January 7th 2010
The roads had cleared a little so off I went to the Frampton stretch of the Frome on a cold icy day. I hoped that a chub or two would be willing to have a go and intended to trot maggots under one of the stick floats I'd made whilst laid up in bed a few weeks earlier. I had a quivertip rod set up too with cheesepaste and bread as baits, with liquidised bread for the feeder.
The river looked good with just a hint of greenish colour and was flowing steadily as I trudged forth, plopping small balls of groundbait into several chubby looking spots as I went. I intended to spend most of my time float-fishing at the top end of the stretch where a faster flow creates a nice crease with a nearside slack, but it wouldn't hurt to prime a few alternative spots for later.
It was so cold that I suspected I'd be heading for the car sooner rather than later, but the novelty of fishing in nearly a foot of snow had a certain appeal. The bright sunshine splintered as I crumped through the copse, sounds muted until a startled wood-pigeon clattered through the branches in alarm at my presence, winning its revenge as snow dislodged from its perch and burst on my head, cascading between collar and neck.
Calm today, but the icy winds betrayed their recent direction and ferocity with compacted snow blasted up the same side of each tree, contrasting starkly with the black trunks.
Exiting the copse into the sunshine I primed a couple more spots under weedy rafts and tangled branches before heading to my chosen swim. Not surprisingly I had the river to myself and considered the wisdom of staying at home in a nice warm house on a day like today. As I approached something rolled in the slack close to the bank. Was that a fish? A dabchick perhaps? I stopped to wait, eyes on the lookout for a resurfacing bird.... Nothing appeared and I reasoned that if it was a dabchick it was attempting some sort of free-diving record. Unlikely, so my optimism surged that a fish or two may be active despite the cold.
Feeding just a few maggots at a time I let the float trot the crease and drift around the slack. I got into a steady rhythm but as the sun weakened the temperature dropped noticably and the line began freezing in the rod rings. Trotting became lurching and jerky, and I'd clear the rings only for them to refreeze as I cast, sending the tackle into a tangle too great for numb fingers to challenge. Frustration mounted as a good fish rolled right under my feet in a reedy raft and over-eager casting led to an argument with bankside brambles.
Scratched and bloodied I opted to fish the feeder.
Heading downstream I dropped in for ten minutes or so at each primed spot but the only interest in my bait was from marauding labradors and a grumpy looking robin scoffing maggots, worms and bread with relish. The dogs put up a pair of little egrets, invisible against the snow, but strikingly bright against the blue sky. A couple of tentative plucks on the line may have been gentle bites or vegetation drifting down. The chub can take very gently here and I'd usually touch-leger, but it was far too chilly for exposed fingertips, and with the coffee flask dry as the dusk began to descend I made my way home.
15th January 2010
A return to the Frome after few days of thaw and all was very different. The banks were slippery and brown now the white blanket had gone and the river itself was speeding high and chocolatey. Halfway through he copse an angler sat hunched on his bucket touch-legering for chub. We chatted a short while, he was eager to catch another chub like the one he'd had a week earlier in the snow. Fair play to him.
Travelling light I opted to head further upstream to check out a nice bend and a partially sunken tree, priming several spots along the way with liquidised bread. A sparrowhawk alighted in a tree and watched as I progressed downstream from my starting place. No interest in the breadflake or cheesepaste I offered in the first few spots so I moved into one of my favourite swims in the copse which is generally good for a pull or two. The light was failing as I sat intently watching the tip, line hooked over my forefinger. My rod hand was getting painfully numb so I reached for the flask to warm me up a bit. As I was mid-pour the tip rapped twice in an unmissable bite. Flask spiralled and coffee splattered as I made a pathetically bungled grab for the rod, missing the fish and dropping the half full cup of coffee in my lap.
Typical.
Rob, 19/02/2010
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| 1. On 07/04/2010 22:03:45, nick-1208 wrote: |
the angler sitting on bucket sounds like it mite be me and i did catch
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