YEY its river time

 First session of the season today on my local river, albeit only a short one. I headed onto the Calder with my mate Martin unsure of what to expect, it looked good if not a little low but word from the guys fishing yesterday was it was hard going.

 I arrived a while before Martin and jumped into a favourite spot, a nice deep glide off the point of an island. Trotting maggots I expected some quick action but I was rather surprised when after 15 minutes I had not had a bite, clearly for some reason the fish were not in residence so I waded out across the shallows to trot another couple of deeper runs between gravel beds for the same result.

 Martin arrived and we headed up into the weir pool run off to trot the pools and runs that are dotted about. With a couple of anglers already fishing the largest of the pools we were forced to explore some of the smaller ones, Martin dropped into one he has had good results from before and I settled for what is probably the smallest not expecting a deal from it. However I was soon into a procession of small chub and the odd dace. I had soon caught most of its residents and possibly spooked the rest so I moved onto the next pool, by this time Martin was catching quite a few fish in his pool. My next choice turned out to be a lot shallower and just a few minnows fell to my trotted maggots.

 As I waded towards Martin I came across a long run that was much deeper, 4ft deep in fact and ran for quite a way so I stopped short of his position and set about feeding some maggots. Soon enough a steady stream of small chub plus odd dace and roach came before I hooked my first decent fish of the day, a chub of just over a pound. I then had a hand full of cracking Calder roach up to around 12oz before the rod hooped over, the fish put up a good scrap diving back into the fast water at the head of the pool before gliding into my hand. Trout number one was soon released and I was back into the smaller chub and roach.

 After what was probably an hour or so the fish got bigger, roach to almost a pound, chub and trout to two or a good sized dace came on just about every trot. Each time I looked over my shoulder Martin was into a fish too and from what I could see his were of equal size. But alas, as expected fishing such short runs sport dried up so we did a lap of the entire weir pool picking the odd small fish up here and there before Martin had to head off home.

 I made my way back to the cars with him for some refreshments before heading back into the pools, the only one I had not fished so far was the one Martin had been in so I decided to give it a go now that it had had a rest. A few small fish came right away but lots of missed bites prompted me to try a caster Martin had left me. First run through the float buried and the rod hooped over, the biggest chub of the day at around 2lb slid into my waiting hand.  I had 6 or 7 of these better sized fish mixed in with a few smaller ones over the next half hour before it died.

 Almost time to head home my self  I decided to drop back into the run I had caught well from, the fish were there but now very cagey with bits coming well down the run. I moved down a little way to make controlling the float easier but I was now almost on top of the fish.  A few more small chub and dace were landed but bites were rapid and hard to hit, Each time I fed some bait I watched the fish drift back down the pool and onto the shallows below as if spooked by it so with that I called it a day. I recon I had well over 30lb of prime silver fish with 3 trout chucked in for good measure, and all in less than four hours. Cracking fishing, although I'll be happier when the fish spread out a bit and move out of the weir allowing chance to stay in one swim and build it up.