Oh I do like to be beside the.....

Bit of water on!

Before!

I decided to get out of the house again and took a trip down to the Barbel Society stretch at Sutton on Trent, mainly as a reci, for a " celebrity" visit to the fishery, but because I fancied a dabble on the big river.

High tide, where's the cattle drink ???

Well, I arrived just about high tide,which was the idea, so that levels could be checked and also to see if the marsh could take vehicles.

The river was the highest I've seen it on my visits to Sutton, but this was also probably due to the seasonally high tide. The marsh was sopping, I wouldn't have trusted it in a 4x4 let alone the old Octavia!

I walked down to a popular area called the beach just to see if anybody else was out, they weren't, but the beach was knowhere to be seen!

The beach

So I wandered off back to the cattle drink swim at the top of the lane from the entrance gate, to have a go.

Do you think I could find it, the cattle drink that is?
No!
I leaded around, but think with hindsite I should have been another 20 feet downstream!
Funny how your geography fails you when the scenery changes!
I set up two rods, one to fish just off the torrent with my Shimano 6000RA, and the other, my old Mark IV, and Purist II sleeping down the inside with the quarter tin of garlic spam.
All in all my trip lasted 6 hours, one or two taps on the meat, but no movement on the other rod, despite numerous smelly bait changes. Often snagging on the return hooking into the flood banks sunken vegetation and retrieving, grass or nettle stems. A shortening of the hook length overcame that problem.

I met a few people, Bernard the baliff turned up and we had a nice long chat putting the world to rights. I'm enjoying these fishing trips!!
Two others, locals, at different times, asking how they could get to fish the stretch, hopefully two new members.

Met a few of the regulars, one of whom apart from trying to lick the paint off the car, took a fancy to me....I think!

I'm coming!

The only boats around today were,   two of these barges, both empty, heading up to Hoveringham, the other one of the two came back  later, laden down to deck level with gravel.

See you later when I'm full!!

Oh what a perfect day!

I have to say that this fishery has a certain pull to it, not certain what that is, I even enjoyed and put some heart into my fishing.
Bird of the day oyster catchers.

Great tits


Our second family slipped out unnoticed yesterday morning, they had at least six eggs, but I didn't check them after that.
In think I mentioned on an earlier blog, that I was  not at all certain it was the same pair as our first brood. The male seemed to have narrower chest bib and they were certainly quieter than the first lot, so perhaps they were a different pair?