Beauty & the Beast

With the lakes firmly frozen my first fishing trip of 2017 was to be the River Wey at Eashing targetting the Grayling, the Beauty of the river. I was hoping for a clear frosty day but arrived on an gloomy overcast day. My method was to be light and mobile with just a float rod, centerpin and a pint of maggots I started trotting down every swim. The water was very cloudy due to the rain we had the previous two days and finding bites was going to be harder than I had encountered during the summer.

The first four swims provided me without a single bite and the fifth was doing no better. In this particular swim was a nice slack area where I had put my underwater camera in during the summer. I decided to change my tactics and put a light ledger into the slack with a fair amount of maggots. Fifteen minutes later and not even a touch from a gudgeon. I decided to check my phone for any updates regarding my beloved Nottingham Forest's failed takeover. With my concentration on my phone I suddenly felt my arm pull round. Thankfully I still had a firm grip on my rod as I felt a decent fish take me downstream. 

After a frantic couple of minutes I glided the fish into my landing net, my first fish of 2017, a 3lb 8oz Chub! I was delighted with that especially as it had been a few years since I last caught a Chub worthy of a mention. As I unhooked the fish it was evident that it had been devouring my loose fed maggots. 

Being a narrow stretch of river I guess that any other fish would have been spooked so decided to move dowstream to an area I hadn't fished before. Standing on the bend of the river and using my centrepin I was able to trot my float for a considerable length however not once did it register a bite. What I lacked in fish I gained in knowledge of the river as I had found a few slack areas where I was sure pike would be hanging out. I decided to call it a day to beat the M25 traffic and come back in a few days time armed with my deadbaits. 

So a few days later I was up at 5am on a frosty morning, the dashboard read -6'c and off I went back to the River Wey in Eashing. Perhaps in hindsight I would have been better off having another go for the Grayling as they like to feed in sub zero conditions but as I was intentionally fishing light and mobile I only had the one rod with me. At 07:30 there was just about enough light for me to start fishing. Despite not raining for the last few days the water was still brown but with the added scent gel I put on my deadbait I was sure that any nearby pike would find it. 

I started off at the swim where I recently caught my chub, a four feet deep slack that held my pike bung in virtually the same spot. After about an hour nothing had taken my roach deadbait, so I decided to move further downstream to where the river was less fished and the banks were more overgrown. The deeper water seemed like a good idea given the temperature. 

A new dawn on the River Wey

My chosen tactic was to fish a deadbait about a foot off the bottom in slow moving water. The Eashing stretch was still flowing strongly but that made me more convinced that the bigger pike would be sheltered up in the slower water. A couple of hours and a dozen or so swims later I came to the back end of a U bend in the river, there was a nice channel of water pushing through but to the side was an eddy of water that was circulating in front of me. Without checking the depth of the swim I dropped my bait down, the pike bung moving around and back in a circluar motion. 

The float gave a couple of knocks that were not reminescent of the current, I held my rod tighter, waiting for the float to go but it just kept moving around in the eddy of water. Suddenly a mass of bubbles came up from beside my float, I could only think that a large fish was spooked at my bait and shot off. I checked my deadbait which had been untouched and recast in the hope that the fish might come back but an hour later I decided to move on. 

A few more failed attempts in other swims finally took me as far as I was prepared to go when I found a swim on another bend, this time there was a large bay area of slack water on the far bank. I cast out and waited........and waited...... and waited. Despite changing the depths of my deadbait I decided it was time to change my tactic and ledger the deadbait on the bottom and hoped that a pike would eventually come to me rather than me walk for miles trying to find them. I went back to the swim where I had my only kind of response. I plumbed the depth and found that it was over eight feet deep! That alone filled me with some hope. I dropped my bait down into the depths sat on my rod butt and tucked into a well deserved pot noodle. 

Although my rod tip was not moving I could feel a light vibration along the line. Another thirty minutes later and with no bite I reeled in my deadbait which had part of it's side eaten out. I knew of the trouble with the crayfish in the summer but didn't expect them to be a hinderance in the harsh winter. I moved to another deep spot but again the crayfish were quickest on my bait. The obvious answer was to have the deadbait off the bottom, knowing that hadn't worked  I decided to call it a day. Although I had blanked I did walk a lot more of the river that I had not walked before and no doubt the knowledge of finding some deep stretches will bode well later in the year when I pursue my first barbel.