Sunday 8 December 2013

Where has all the water gone ?

Having spent a fruitless afternoon on the Medway on Saturday , with kayaks all over the bloody place ,racing up and down.
Why cant they just go somewhere, and not came back for a couple of hours,every 10 minutes the same flotilla of twenty or so would come hurtling through taking up the whole width of the river,travelling at well over the 4 knot speed limit that motor craft have to observe. the wash from twenty speeding kayaks is quite substantial I can tell you ,so it wasn't long before the river was clouded up, I concentrated around the deeper water ,with slowly retrieved texas rigged grubs and and worms ,just bumped along the bottom

 
But nothing wanted to play ,I had a throw with  a couple of hard lures as well, just in case, but got the same negative response:(

Met up with Mark  "Arveey" fellow Kent perch angler and founder of The Perch Forum, on  Sunday  morning, to fish what was a couple of days ago a splendid looking River Eden.
When we got there we realised that the water level had dropped a couple of feet , I have never seen it as low, even in the summer months, in some places there was only 8-9 inches of water, where there is normally 2 -3 foot .
Someone, somewhere is mucking about with the water levels,but seeing as how it was about 6ft over its bank the other week, I cant think that any farmer is short of H2O at the moment, unless one of the local commercials are topping a new c##p puddle up !
any way we slogged on none the less and it was 3 hours later that "arveey" got the first fish, which was a cracking looking perch,  on a 2" Relax Kopyto lure of course !


a fish of about 13/4lb -2lb

 same fish - different photo


and it looks a lot bigger !


Big enough to juggle with  as well !



I only managed a small Jack on a drop shot rig , my only bite of the day (week end ! )
we then decided that it was time to admit defeat, and head home.

Not great fishing ,- but a nice December morning, spent in good company, on the river bank!

2 comments:

  1. "Having spent a fruitless afternoon on the Medway on Saturday , with kayaks all over the bloody place ,racing up and down.
    Why cant they just go somewhere, and not came back for a couple of hours,every 10 minutes the same flotilla of twenty or so would come hurtling through taking up the whole width of the river,travelling at well over the 4 knot speed limit that motor craft have to observe. the wash from twenty speeding kayaks is quite substantial I can tell you ,so it wasn't long before the river was clouded up, I concentrated around the deeper water ,with slowly retrieved texas rigged grubs and and worms ,just bumped along the bottom" just a thought but do you think it might relate to the fact that they cant go anywhere else if they want to, it's a public right of way unlike the stretch above the barrier or the numerous lakes available to anglers all within a miles radius

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  2. I try not to go on the main river at the weekends, because of the bloody canoes and kayaks , I will fish above the barrier, or on the shallows or the muck stream , but not the main river after about 0900hrs its chock a block with paddlers. I have never had much luck when the boats are about , it could be because the bait fish are always on the move because of the disturbance, and the perch follow them or they just wait until it calms down a bit, either way I've found it to be a waste of time. the fishing used to be better when it was just the day boats gently chugging along , it didn't seem to put them off so much as a flotilla of dick heads going hell for leather up and down all day long .
    I'm not so sure as there being a public right of way on the water'' the rowing club have the use' but I think that Joe Public need permission from the riparian owners and/or the fishing club that rents Ithe water. I think that the Sportsground is council owned ' but as for the rest I am not sure.
    The Anglers Trust are fighting this problem at the moment.

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