Gold Mine.......

This is going to be a short one as off to this venue again later in the week to proper smash it! while out fishing today with the Portland Penetrator today we drove across some lovely countryside and stumbled across some amazing water..... i literally almost jumped out the moving car when we saw this stretch talk about mouth watering river! we parked up on the next passing point and scrambled down the country lane like bloody school kids! i took one look over the bridge and honest to god never seen anything like it! iv been lucky enough to fish some amazing water over the years but this was mind blowing the surface was littered in roach and rudd some well over a pound bellow that could only be described as a carpet of small roach baby chub and dace, iv never seen shoals like this.... the water was black with fish and under all that lot was the odd large chuch and a fair few decent perch! i was a jibbering wreck!

so after scrambling to the village to pick up the day tickets we tackled up with our Perch outfits mart opting to use the legendary Rapala F5 tricked out with Gama hooks to make sure any nips turn into fish on the bank! and i stuck on the trusty Kalin 3inch pepper pearl grub on the owner 4g jig, Mart being the smiper he is manages to winkle out the first Perch almost instantly and this little 1lber was in the net! you can just see the marks on this Perch it had obviously had a run in with a fairly large Pike in the winter so this spot seemed to be getting better and better :-) Mart manages to nail a few more simular size right in front of me! i didnt get a bloody sniff...... i managed to pester a chub of about 4inches long apart from that i couldnt catch a cold! Mart then rubs salt in my wound by nailing 3 pike to around 6-7lb and still i havent had a frigging take! then out of the blue while i was away with the fairys soaking up the sun i get smashed right under my feet by a beast of a pike must of been all of 14oz's :-) Pikie is Pike as they say mummy always told me its not how big it is........

then i really had to up my game because i was being shafted again by Mart and i stuck on a four inch Cannibal shad kind of hoping to nail a decent pike to even out the score and bang this plump beautifully coloured river perch nails the lure..... it must of been hungry as it totally ingulfed the shad 4inch shad.... you can just about see the jig head poking out the Perch's mouth! it folded the lure completely in half! from this same swim i managed to get a couple more all around the pound mark on the same shad. i was hoping for a proper unit of a perch as this swim looked mental perfect for perch and had 3lber written all over it! but it wasnt ment to be! at this point the swims in front of me were totally crawling with roach dace rudd and baby chub it was literally quite surreal seeing this many fish shoaled up in these gawjus stretches of river. especially this time of year i can only imagine this venue in the heights of summer as there was tons of lillies just breaking through the mud and there is no pace here already it has all the signs for a smashing summer light lure venue and cannot wait to get on it once the closed season ends and hopefully summer is well on the way!

Both me and Mart had a handfull more Jacks each none very big but all the same goo fun on our lighter outfits. its days like this which i love being out on the bank, brilliant weather and good company the venue came to life as the sun started to drop it was still fairly warm and it starts the brains ticking over thoughts of summer nights coming where i can head out and smash Pike on the surface lures! gotta be my favorite time of year late spring coming into summer, i have soooo much planned this season and times like this just fuel my passion for lure fishing! its not about big fish, far from it! its all about good times, good company and even better times ahead! we are heading back here friday with light lure and fly gear! fingers bloody crossed its going to be a gooden! :-)

Danny