Ouse sorry now

 

You'd have to go a long, long way to beat today on the weather front. Shame the fishing was pants.

I ended up on a bit of river I must have driven past 1,000 times but had never got round to fishing before.

So when the drain I fancied turned out to be covered in blanket weed, I decided to give it a go. Sometimes, when you have a feeling about a certain swim or piece of water, you end up catching.

No-one had told the fish this today, and as the afternoon wore on towards dusk, the only activity had been an eel shredding one of the baits and a crab trying to sneak off with the other one.

Blanking when the weather's dire sometimes has a kind of inevitability about it. I genuinely thought I was going to bag a couple today, the swim just had everything going for it.

For some reason, the river's a good bit shallower than it is a few hundred yards upstream by the telegraph poles. Instead of plunging into 20ft or more of water down the middle, there's a gentler drop into 15ft. 

That means the sluggish flow picks up a bit. I thought that might mean the roach would be there, meaning there'd be a few pike about.

As the sun dropped behind the floodbank, the river came alive with silvers topping. Of maybe they were rudd. When the sky turned blood red, I reached for my phone and took a picture. 

Tick, tick, ticka-ticka-ticka. A run at last, or a crab strong enough to pull a 10" joey along and take line off the Baitrunner.

It's still going like a good 'un as I pick the rod up, wind down and miss it.