In The Bleak Mid Winter

C'mon, everyone sing along.

Dicky invited me to a winter hotspot on the river Waverney, a river I last fished over twenty five years ago and fifty miles from Loafer HQ.

He kindly drove me there and I used the trip as an opportunity to pick his brains about fishing various rivers in the Netherlands, as he goes every year with his mates and does very well.

We arrived to be greeted by bitterly cold gale force winds and temperatures that had plummeted overnight.

No matter. I've been fishing long enough to know that things rarely go to plan and was just looking to have a good poke round, learn lots and catch a few fish.

I sat on my seat trying to tackle up, hampered by fingers so cold they wouldn't move. I eventually tackled up a simple feeder rig baited with worm and cast out to the main channel. Half dozen feeder fulls of maggots and we were ready to go.

First cast and a lovely ruffe.

I'm not being ironic, I love ruffe. Second and third casts also resulted in more ruffe. OK, that's enough.

I then somehow missed four slack line bites. After changing to a finer wire hook I connected with the next bite, a bream around 2lb.

The conditions were bleedin' 'orrible but we were getting enough action to keep us interested. Dicky had a cracking hybrid just short of 3lb which fought like a barbel. Well, almost. Lovely fish in immaculate condition.

I had a good run of bream of various sizes with the best probably 3.5-4lb, plus a few perch.

The weather then got even worse. It started to rain and the wind veered round so it was now right in our faces.

"Give it another hour ?" Said Dicky

"Yep, that'll do"

Next cast I stupidly left some weed on the line which jammed in the tip ring and a loud crack rang out as I snapped off.

"Time to go" said Dicky.

I talked to some anglers fishing in the dyke on the way back, all of which were catching lots of roach on their poles. This place is stuffed with fish.

Really enjoyable morning which would have been much better with half decent weather.

I'll definitely have some more trips when conditions improve.