With two unsuccessful trips on the bounce I was hoping today that things would change, not so. Although I did actually manage to sneak a few fish to avoid three blanks on the bounce. The idea had been to spend the morning trotting some fast water on the Calder in the hope of picking up a few dace with the chance of the odd grayling before dropping into the deeper swims to try for some chub later. However the river had other ideas, I was halfway there when I received a message from my mate JD who was already there that it was virtually un fishable due to the amount of leaves in the river.
Unperturbed I decide to chance it and hope that I could find us both some clearer water, we headed off upstream and found a nice looking stretch of water neither of us had fished before and decided to give it a go. It became apparent almost instantaneously that he was right, it was unfishable and the water resembled something which can only be described as soup with plenty of bits in it! Jon did manage to loose a fish and i had two burst maggots before we headed off back towards the cars pretty quickly. We exchanged ideas but with limited gear and bait between us we some how had to come up with a makeshift plan. I muttered a few words about perch as I did have some big trotting type floats that could make do, and a bag of lobbies. Before I had chance to say another word JD said he knew a spot on the canal and before I had chance to think it through we were off.
Once there I rigged a make shift float rig up out of the gear I had with me that was intended for chub and a bulbous trotting float, out went a full lobbie on a size ten hook followed by some pieces of broken worm and a few maggots right by the wall of a lock entrance. JD was float fishing maggots and right away was into a few small perch and roach, I didn't have to wait long either before my float started to bob around and ducked under only for the strike to meet thin air. Clearly the worm was a bit big as I missed another before I landed a perch almost as long as the worm. I resorted to using bits of worm but still kept missing more than I hit so I scaled down and swapped to maggots, this brought a few more small fish before I managed one around 10 ounces. This however seemed to spook them and it went very quiet.
As a last chuck of the dice we decided to give the river another go just below the lock we were fishing by as there seemed to be a lot less leaves. JD chucked a maggot feeder out and I trotted for half an hour or so without success before we called it a day. I think its clear that the majority of fish in that part of the river move into the canal to keep warm in the city centre during the colder months, but the part we first fished this morning is well worth another look once the dreaded leaves have been flushed through. Not sure whats next, I,v a couple of options to consider so I'll see what the weather and river conditions bring.
