On the bank with Dave Binns Angling

Follow my adventures as I travel around the Yorkshire area catching a variety of species from a wide range of different venues, from northern spate rivers to the clearer waters of the River Calder and a few lakes and forgotten ponds inbetween.
I hope you enjoy reading about them half as much as I do fishing them.
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Saturday 10 March 2012

Last chance saloon

Its that time of year again when we look forward (or not) to three months of pond fishing, and we make that one last trip of the season onto a river. Today was my last river trip and I headed up to the River Nidd at Pool bridge farm hoping for a bit of fun catching silvers on the float before switching tactics and hopefully bagging a few good chub later in the day. Things didn't go quite to plan (hey at least I'm getting to be consistent this year) as the wind was a night mare!
I arrived around 10.30 and was actually delighted that the rather annoying cows on this section of river were not in residence for once, however on stepping out of the car and wandering along the banks it was clear the wind was going to make trotting hard work. I found a likely looking spot and started to feed a few maggots while I rigged the rod up. More in hope that anticipation I waited for the float to disappear and waited and waited some more for around 30 minuets before I convinced my self that actually I didn't even like the look of the spot I was in and was only there to get out of the wind. I quickly shifted down stream and got settled into a nice looking peg on the outside of where a bend started, an hour quickly passed before I thought to my self that float fishing was just not going to work today and I was flogging a dead horse.
Away went the float gear and out came a tip rod and bag of bread. I filled the small cage feeder with mash bread and squeezed a lump of bread flake onto the size ten hook and dropped it along the crease, I sat back to roll a cig and pour a cup of tea when the tip started to knock then pull and drop back before a steady pull resulted in me connecting with thin air, bugger missed it. cast back out and after a few minuets it went again this time I left it a bit longer and connected with nothing! the fish were clearly playing games with me so I fought back, this time a nice lump of cheese paste went out and I sat patiently with my eyes glued to the tip, this time it was a proper pull although not exactly a '3ft twitch' but I connected and after a short fight a nice chub not quite 4lb graced my net. I chucked back out but the tip never mover for for 30 mins on both cheese and bread so I decided to wander up stream and try a few likely looking places. The wind was still a nightmare and each spot I tried resulted in the same motionless tip apart from the battering from the wind. I walked most of the length before deciding to settle back into the peg I had had the chub from earlier and stick it out till dusk. I dropped back in with a lump of flake on the hook and after not ten minuets the tip twitched a few times before pulling round and I was into another fish, a bit smaller this time just scraping 3lb but made a good account of its self in the water.
No more fish followed and I packed up a little disappointed with the lack of fish particularly on the float but also pleased with a couple of nice chub. So that's it for another season work next week so no chance of sneaking one in although I do have an early season tench fishing trip planned for next weekend so lets hope this warm weather keeps up.

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