Martyn White | Thursday, 9 February 2023
The good weather continues here, there's hardly been a cloud in the sky since the storms a few weeks ago. So I've been psychologically unable to start fishing for smallmouth, or even take a night on the seabass. The sight fishing conditions have just been too good.
I've had a couple of days on a couple of rivers this last week, one went exactly as expected with clear water and easily spotted fish and few problems to solve. Monday was different, and more rewarding. I just walked up the river near my flat, full of confidence as it was much warmer than it had been. I was even hubristically deciding where I expected to be picking up fish. Weirdly though the river was both low and dirty which made it difficult to spot fish unless they were super shallow or near the surface in deeper water. They also weren't where they should have been. Difficult, but that's not a bad thing.
The first half mile or so was a real struggle with only a few shots to carp which either flatly refused the worm fly or didn't see it. After the 4th knockback I decided to switch to a beaded glo-bug which was easier for both the fish and I to see. I still struggled to find approachable fish, but eventually found a stretch that seemed full of fish in incredibly skinny water. I normally might expect a couple of fish in this part of the river, but it seemed like they were all there, and feeding like it was early summer. My feeling is that it was probably to do with the water clarity being better in most of this area, but it's hard to know, it could just hve been that the skinny water was heating up quicker. The last hour or so really turned the day around. I finished with ten fish but could have had more as there were quite a few fish I mistimed the hookset on, I didn't really mind at the time, but I think it's an area for improvement.
Anyway, maybe it'll get cloudy this week and I'll actually do a bit of bassing..