Alex Grice sent us this lovely piece on a recent dalliance with his local River Trent, thanks Alex!
‘It is the start of September, I’m currently sat by a lovely little lake in deepest Lincolnshire with the kettle on. The sun is gleaming across the overgrown pool as I begin to think about a recent session on my local stretch of river in Nottinghamshire.
A couple of weeks back now I managed to catch a lovely mirror from the river, a real dark, chestnut fish that had obviously in the stretch for years gone by. I’ve known about this particular stretch for a couple of years now, having always made the effort to fish on there for at least a few nights a year. It’s fairly local to me, only a short 15-minute drive down country back roads to the spot I have been fishing. It’s a beautiful little stretch, controlled by a small angling club, with some real lovely looking carp residing in the rich, flowing depths. It’s an anglers dream, with abundance of lilys, reed beds and moored canal boats.
The swim
I did a couple of nights right at the beginning of the year, on a spot I had been baiting regularly leading up to June the 16th. The spot itself was a deep, slow-moving dugout in the river, full of clay and shingly gravel at the base of the shelf. I had been making the trips over there twice a week to put a few buckets of particle and boilie over the area in an attempt to get the fish feeding. At the time, we had some heavy downpours, which badly affected the water clarity, causing huge amounts of sediment to build up in the river. As a result, it had a detrimental affect on the fishing and the first few nights of the season over the baited spot were a complete write-off.
I didn’t get another chance to get back down the river till around mid- August. I had spent most of June and July travelling, the whole time thinking about when I could get back down the river for another go. When I eventually did get back off my travels, I had a few weeks spare before starting my new job. This gave me a little time to prepare a few new spots on the river that I could drop in over the course of the following weeks to do a nights fishing. Again, I went about trying to find a couple of likely looking areas to apply some bait. I would often drop by the stretch on the way to visiting a few other lakes for a quick look. On one occasion I took my stalking rod down on the off chance, but I ended up having a lead around in a few areas to find some clean, presentable spots to pre- bait. After a few hours walking, I ended up finding a lovely shelf of the tip of some reeds on the corner of a bend. This area was smooth silt, which then went down onto a polished, firmer spot at the bottom of a ledge. Perfect for some bait! That night I spread a bucket of mixed particle and boilie over the area in the hope I could condition the fish to feed there. I repeated the process twice more before planning a night down in the new area.
Early morning light
I planned to get down on a Monday night, just after starting my first day on the new job. I had worked the day down in Milton Keynes and was desperate to get back home, pile all the kit into the motor and head off down the river. It was getting on, but I managed to arrive down the river early evening with enough time to get some rods ready for the night ahead.
The right tools for the job
I positioned one rod directly on the spot, a 3oz flat pear lead coupled with a short Tungsten link and sharp Cryogen classic was what I opted to fish. The other rod went 15 yards downstream to where I had also applied some bait. The Mrs came down for the evening and we enjoyed a good cup of tea while watching the sun drop over the trees in the horizon. It was getting dark, so she left to go home and I soon got my head down for some well-deserved rest.
‘I finally slipped the net under a lovely mirror’
I was awoken around first light by an absolute screaming take; I’m surprised the Neville head even registered the take at the speed it went off! When I finally managed to get to the rod, my old creaking Mk1 was bent double with the fish tearing line off downstream. I latched into it and followed it down, hoping it would stay clear in the snaggy river conditions. After a hard ten-minute scrap, I finally slipped the net under the lovely mirror. I called my brother to pop down and do some photos of the lovely fish in the early morning mist. I was over the moon and I’m sure now Autumn is nearly here, I will no doubt be down again soon in search of another river carp’.
Alex Grice