Down to the river...................

After the hustle and bustle of Christmas my need to retreat to the river to soothe the mind and the soul was becoming to much to bear so I hurried of down there this morning to grab a few hours of solitude. I am not too sure when it was that Christmas became such a busy time!

A snaggy perch swim?

I managed to get to the river sometime mid-morning and I was soon set up and fishing a lovely looking snag for a perch or perhaps two. I had a large bucket of maggots and a large handful of lobworms as hook baits, a quiver tip rod and a flask of hot coffee and in my mind I could see a large perch falling foul of my bait……………. The last bit nearly happened.

My first cast to the snag resulted in the rod tip being ripped round and my reflexes leaving a lot to be desired. A quiet half hour followed and while having a coffee the rod tip slowly pulled round and I lifted into a good fish, it came to the surface and I immediately saw it was a good sized perch, quite a good sized perch to be honest and that was as much of it as I saw, it rolled over and threw the hook!

Not a bad chub.

I fished on hoping that that was not to be my only chance of a perch but it was, I landed a couple of half decent chub but the perch never came back.

I will be on the Kennet tomorrow to try my luck with the Ladies.

Have a happy New Year, lets see what 2012 bring us.