Today

At last

After weeks of intending to go fishing and finding excuses not to, today was the day I did it.

I have to say part of my reason, well most of it, was to have some time to myself to think over what occurred in the last year or so, since my Mum,died and today being the anniversary of my Dad's death in 2004.
Just before Christmas also we got some bad news concerning my cousin Joyce, the eldest of my Aunt Maggie's children, she had a brain bleed and is still not yet regained consciousness since the 20th December.

3rd May 1947 my Mum and Dads wedding. Joyce is the little'un at the front with Maggie holding her shoulder. They are the only two left from that photo.

So my day by the river, well afternoon, an hours drive to the Upper Witham found me on the bank at around noon. I walked upstream to "Ben's Weir" and chose a swim just below it. The intention to give it an hour and move down stream.The river was shifting through, with a nice colour and was back within the banks, as can be seen.

At around the hour, just as I was fiddling with my bag and putting the bait away for the move, I had a take on Stilton, having failed to encourage a bite on worm and flake, and missed it. So I decided to stay put in the hope that my crumb had encouraged fish into the swim.

Back out again and within minutes another big tug which I connected with and produced a chub of exactly 4lb which I returned and got back to the job. A couple more tugs and switches of bait found me moving down stream 

My walk took me not to the next swim, but down to the other end of the fishery looking for a likely spot not needing me to be resting in sludgy mud and with good access to land any fish I may be fortunate to attract.

I decided to back track, a swim by the foot bridge looked good, it was opposite some willows that had been hacked away by the EA, but the duck feeders were on the bridge so I dropped below the next bend.

upstream

downstream 

I tried all the baits again and got a few tugs on the flake but no connections, so straight on to Stilton which produced an almost immediate take. 

I had the fish on but the hook slipped, by this time I was fishing  in the downstream swim under the tree and decided to stay put until sunset, the off time.

Once again readying myself for the home journey, another take and this time another chub of 4lb12ozs graced my net.

All in all I was pretty happy with my afternoon fishing, getting used to a lighter set up from the Trent, and use of a quiver tip.

. I felt very change of direction the chub were giving, unlike when I've accidentally caught them on my Trent barbel kit.

My day was made even better on returning home to find a message to say that Joyce, although still in a coma had squeezed her daughters hand , the first sign of direct movement since her admission and operations to remove the pressure then the main 4 hour plus operation within the brain.

So all in all, plenty of time to think and to enjoy a day by the river and some positive news.