I haven't been fishing since before Christmas as I just didn't want to take any risks whilst this latest wave of the pandemic has been going through our community. Now that virus numbers have dropped significantly and the number of people being vaccinated is going up rapidly I decided to venture out again before the end of the season. As a group of people, we fisherfolk have been lucky to be able to carry on with our sport all through this lockdown. Last week and today, I just went along to my local staithe here in Neatishead.
A bit of a cold (8C) overcast morning but briefly you could see the sun through the low cloud. I arrived about 11am and rain was forecast about lunchtime, but it wasn't so bad that it had me scuttling off at its first appearance. I hadn't bothered to go out and buy any bait. Today I just used some sweetcorn that I had left over from last week. It was interesting that last week I had bites all the time with this but today it was much more irregular but some of the fish were a better size. I was sat near the car park where it is quite shallow. The water level has dropped quite a bit from its over-winter highs.
This rudd was one of the slightly better fish that I caught. It looks a bit like a female with eggs but I could be wrong. I had another fish like this but probably slightly larger. Though you get a lot of roach-rudd hybrids, I think this is more rudd from the upturned mouth. Compare this with one I caught last week:-
This one is very red in colour but is definitely more roach like.
There was a pike in the dyke hunting in the same area where I was fishing. I would like to say to pike fishermen to please be aware that over the last year or so otters have come to inhabit this area and they are taking fish put out as bait. Please, please, try to avoid this from happening as I don't like to think of otters caught up in pike gear and suffering the consequences. Otters are relatively easy to spot if you know what to look for. They spend a lot of time underwater but they can be traced by the obvious line of bubbles that they leave as they swim. If you see this, I suggest getting your gear out of the water pronto before they take your bait (and possibly your rod as well!). They are incredibly strong animals with a bite that could easily remove a finger if you tackled one, so don't. Just avoid the situation by being patient. They won't hang around for long and will continue their on way along their regular hunting route. They are appearing at all times of the day and just not dusk, night or dawn.
All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2021
