By Geoff Hadley
The great thing about having a river on your doorstep is that it’s really easy to keep an eye on your favourite spots, conditions, even where certain species of fish are shoaled up, whether you have a rod in your hand or not.
We often go on family walks along my local river and, more often than not, I can be found lagging behind – checking the spots I fancy along the way.
Such was the case a couple of weeks ago. Our route took us through the middle of town, where the river is hemmed in by tall buildings, butting up to the footpaths on either side. There’s a shallow run here and I’d done well with roach and chub earlier in the year, in the warmer weather, but it had been very quiet more recently.
On this occasion, however, the run was occupied by a good fish. I didn’t have my polarising glasses on, so couldn’t see it as clearly as I would’ve liked, but it looked like a big roach and I resolved to return with a fly rod as soon as I could.
A few days passed and, having finished a job early, I rushed home to fetch my #4 weight outfit and headed off to the river.
Parking on the nearby supermarket car park, I was soon on the riverbank. I was surprised to find that the river had dropped considerably over the last few days and any colour had dropped out thanks to a couple of hard frosts. Conditions weren’t ideal.
As I approached the spot I’d seen the big roach in the other day, I was amazed to see not one fish in the run but dozens! I could see roach, chub, bream, even a few perch, all shoaled up together in the main flow, mid river!
As I watched the fish, a passer- by, seeing my fly rod and other bits and pieces, stopped for a chat (as they often do). After a couple of minutes of the usual questions (“What are you after? Are there trout in here then?” etc, etc…) he wandered off but not before tapping the metal railings with his walking stick. The shoal of fish scattered at the sound and, I guess, vibration of it! Things were suddenly looking a lot tougher than I’d anticipated.
My Wychwood Drift XL #4wt was set up in its 10ft configuration, teamed with an SLA MKII reel, and rigged up with a French leader and 2 x 2mm, tungsten beaded nymphs: a size 18 red tag on the point and a copper pheasant tail on the dropper 8 inches up the tippet. My plan was to hop over the fence a few yards downstream, sneak upstream into position and present my flies to the fish at the head of the shoal…
Everything went to plan up to the point where I raised my rod to make a cast. As soon as I lifted, the fish scattered in all directions!
After a few minutes the shoal returned to its station and I tried again, with the same result. The low, clear, cold conditions had obviously made the fish incredibly skittish. What could I do next?
A little way upstream a grassy bank runs almost to the water’s edge. Its position wouldn’t afford quite as good a presentation, but it might just give me a bit more cover than the higher bank I’d been on just downstream. I made my way to it and settled in to wait for the fish to return…
After a few minutes they began to take up their stations again. I steeled myself to wait a bit longer, to let them settle down and, maybe, for their caution to ease a little.
Twenty minutes ticked past. Passers-by passed by. A grey wagtail flittered along the bank. moorhens paddled the far bank margin, giving me a wide berth. Nando’s seemed to be doing a reasonable trade. A peregrine called once from overhead, wheeled round on a current of air and disappeared off to the West.
A couple of movements caught my eye from midstream. Fish jostling for position. I looked more closely and saw the flash of a white mouth as a roach or chub intercepted some item of food drifting downstream on the current.
The time was right to cast again.
I crept as close to the river’s edge as I dared and, this time keeping the rod low, I catapult (bow and arrow, if you prefer) cast my nymphs into the run. What followed was a bit unusual.
Several fish seemed to move to intercept my flies as they passed through the run, darting left or right, then turning back to their stations; then the indicator tippet stopped, and I struck!
My rod hooped over and a fish flashed silver on the far side of the shoal, nowhere near where I thought my flies had been. And yet that flash was the fish I was hooked up to; and it was a good fish too. A decent roach, or so I thought, but the fight wasn’t roach like at all.
Roach usually try to stay deep. They might run, but straight, and they roll to try to shed the hook. This fish fought in midwater. It flashed and darted one way then another. It charged upstream, dropped back, then flashed downstream. I applied sidestrain and brought the fish, kicking and bucking, back in front of me.
Just then there was a commotion and splash a few yards downstream of me as a pike launched an attack on some of the fish that had scattered when I first hooked up. My fish seemed to panic (who could blame it?) and tried to charge off upstream again. Applying sidestrain once more I checked the run, turned the fish and bundled it into my waiting Wychwood Rover net.
Peering into the fish friendly rubber mesh the penny finally dropped as to the identity of my prize. Silver scales, orange eye, a touch of black in the tail but no red in the fins along the lower body; hardly any colour at all, in fact. A great big dace!
Now, I hadn’t seen a dace of this size since my coarse match fishing days on the River Severn twenty years ago, so the fish was soon on my scales and weighed in at a hefty 9 ounces!
Okay. That doesn’t sound like an awful lot, but the British record for dace is 1lb 4oz 4dr, so it was certainly a good fish; and to come from an urban river that you can literally jump over in places, made it a specimen indeed, at least for me at any rate.
I took a few quick snaps and released the fish a little way upstream.
Over the next hour I caught two more, both like twins of the first and each weighing 9 ounces. I guess they must have been fish of the same year class or spawning season? After the third dace the pike struck again and scattered the whole shoal to the winds (or should I say currents?). I decided that enough was enough and left the fish to their watery lives.
But what of the fish I’d seen a few days earlier? And those larger fish at the head of the shoal? Some were roach and chub, for sure, but if this little urban river can produce dace of this calibre surely there’s a good chance it can produce even bigger ones?
I vowed to keep an eye on that spot and, when time and conditions allow, I’ll be back to see what other wonders that midstream run might hold…
