A new season... A new mystery

That magical date that all of us river angler look forward had finally arrived, and I was itching to get on my local river, the Sussex Ouse. In my first 2 seasons of fishing rivers I had learnt so much and caught many memorable catches such as chub to 3lb 12oz, barbel at 2-3lb (of course it would be the day I didn’t have any scales on me or anybody to photograph me holding it), many other chub well over 3lb, along with the usual catches of perch, dace, gudgeon etc.

I had recently been invited to join another club, the Ouse Wanderers, where I had only seen the water once and wasn’t at all sure what I should expect. I had heard of 9lb+ barbel and chub over 4lb, but there is a large weir pool where it isn’t really known what it contains, creating a whole new mystery as to what the river holds… I have now made it my challenge this season to try and discover what it holds! Because of this, my approach was very simple—Spend about 15-20minutes in each swim trotting to discover the fish holding spots, snags and the depths. I had a feeling this would be a session where I would lose a lot of floats, split shots and hooks…

My gear I had packed and partially set up was a 10foot Daiwa float rod, in my eyes the perfect rod for the job, just enough length to get the float out to floating rafts and tree lines, but not so long that I would be getting snagged in trees every cast! The soft tip would also be perfect playing all species, but the progressive action would provide enough strength to enable me to land a big chub, or even a barbel if I was lucky enough to hook one. Reel wise, my choice was a centerpin, perfect for trotting, therefore searching the fish holding swims and deep runs. The sensitivity and control over the float you get with a centerpin over a fixed spool reel, makes them far more suitable for trotting. It is important not to load your centerpin with too much line as otherwise the line will not peel off the drum properly with the pull of the flow. I load mine with roughly 40 yards of 5lb line. 6lb mainline is the maximum I would go with when trotting with a centerpin as then your presentation will start to fall, so as a rule of thumb, the lighter the line, the better presentation, however I knew there were big carp and barbel about so I didn’t want to go too light! At first, casting with a centerpin is very difficult, but once you master the technique you will realise the benefits of using a centerpin.

The first swim I came to was a small weir pool with an old bridge (which was rather dodgy looking, but it was safe) that looked likely to hold a few fish. I put the rod together with the already set up small chubber float, which I had slightly over shotted to improve its sensitivity. Adamant that trotting down along the brick walls would produce a fish I flicked out the float then again flicked out a few maggots over the top. 4 runs went by down both sides of the weir, but not even a nibble. I slid the float up the line, meaning the maggots on the size 16 hook would be just bouncing along the bottom. First trot down and the float slowly, but surely slid under. I struck into the fish, then it was off! Not a good start, but I didn’t let it get me down, just flicked out the float again and let the float go with the flow (excuse the pun) where it buried again, resulting in a very acrobatic brown trout.

I moved down a few swims until I found another swim lined with overhanging and partially submerged trees, which had to hold fish. I caught 4 baby chub along with a greedy deep-hooked perch that needed the disgorger. After getting snagged and snapping up twice on underwater features and missing a lot of delicate bites I decided a change to a maggot feeder might pick up a better fish with a worm hookbait. The tip constantly knocked, had to be perch, but nothing would take the bait confidently, so back to the float it was. This time my choice of float was a stick float, which was definitely the right decision as I was able to hit all the bites due to the sensitivity of it.

As the day went on I had caught a lot of small chub, the biggest being roughly half a pound, a handful of roach, perch and the odd gudgeon. I noticed that the fish only seemed to take the red maggots, but ignored the other coloured maggots on the hook. When the bites got slow, I found that 1 caster and 1 maggot seemed to get more bites. By hooking the caster at the tail end and the maggot at the head end it helps to reduce line twist when reeling in.

I decided to head upstream, further up from where I started to see If I could find any more nice looking swims, but I was met by a herd of desperately mooing cows… I knew something was up, so I went over the other side of the field to the other side river to find a cow stuck, with water up to its neck! ‘This is the weirdest ending to a session I’ve ever had before’ I thought to myself, so I set off back up to the farm to find the farmer.

‘Excuse me mate?’ I said to the farmer, but no answer. A little louder this time ‘excuse me,’ but still no answer. He was quite clearly a little hard of hearing, So this time I made sure I was almost standing next to him and said ‘there’s a cow stuck in the river’ to which he replied in a very strong Sussex accent ‘ohh, you’re ‘ere to load the chalk lorry!’ Eventually I managed to get my message across and he was very grateful.

Overall, not a bad session at all, I had certainly enjoyed the peace of the river and not seeing another angler! I had found the good swims, and caught a few fish, despite them being small. On my next visit, I shall use a slightly different approach, where I will sit and wait with bigger baits such as bread flake, worms, pellets and luncheon meat to hopefully pick up a more decent fish.

 I wish you all luck this season… Tight lines!