Poking About

I made a rare trip south, down the dreaded A road to hell. Forty minutes of congested unpleasantness and I was on the outskirts of a grubby Essex town in search of dace on a tiny stream.

The stream itself was lovely. Clear, fast flowing, lots of riffles and just a handful of deeper pools.

For the most part it was only a few inches in depth, so it was obvious that the fish would be in the deeper pools. First trot down with the mini bobber and a bite straight away. A minnow. A roach next cast, then another.

Considering how clear it was I caught a large number of fish before they spooked and I had to move on to another spot. The little nine footer was perfect for the overgrown swims. In one place, it was so tight I couldn't even strike and had to wind quickly to set the hook.

One pool produced probably twenty roach and dace, plus a rogue chub that fooled me for a while, thinking that I had a monster dace. Some decent roach, several of which required the net.

Very few snags for a little brook and amazingly I didn't lose any gear, until the last swim when the wind ( my cast was of course perfect ) took my favourite bobber into a tree. It was tantalisingly just out of reach. I was very tempted to take my boots off and wade in and get it.  Old habits die hard.

No really big dace caught, which are rumoured to exist around here but an interesting little session and plenty of fish. Lovely.