Friday 22 January 2010

The best laid plans.....

Sunday morning arrived and with it the first chance to go fishing since Ben and I went barbelling on the Severn. The plan was to do more of the same, but with the thawing of the recent heavy snow everything hinged on the state of the river.
Unfortunately, on arrival at Bridgenorth our worst fears were realised. The river was higher than on our last trip and was flowing through at speed. After much deliberation I had to concede that I wasn't comfortable with launching in such a torrent and so we decided to try the canal for pike. I felt a bit of a wuss at bottling it but I think the right decision was made, there will always be another opportunity and if either of us had got into difficulties there would have been no way that the other could have assisted.
Back in the cars and it was off to the cut. This was where we encountered snag no.2, despite the mild weather over the last couple of days the canal was still frozen solid.
No matter, Ben had one more possible venue and so we hit the road once more. This was the last chance saloon and on pulling into the car park I could see water! As it turned out, there was probably only 200 yards of canal which had seen enough sun to thaw out but it was better than nothing. Armed with two rods apiece, one for deadbaits and one for lures, we plotted up next to some narrowboats and proceeded to fish. An hour passed and after no interest on lures or lamprey we headed along the canal to try a stretch further along. It soon became apparent that this just wasn't going to be our day and after another fruitless hour we decamped to the pub.
This turned out to be the best decision of the day, and we warmed up whilst we discussed the forthcoming year's angling challenges.
All in all then, it was a disappointing days fishing but there is much to look forward to and it was better than going to work.

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