To me, opening day of the coarse fishing season on 16th June is still special. I know stillwaters are open all year now and rivers have been out of fashion for decades, but I still look forward to June 16th every year, and book the day off work if possible.
This year, as usual, I started the river season on the Culm, a small tributary river of the Exe in Devon. Its a deceptive river, there are some big fish in the pools, but they take some catching. There are big pike in the river, but I don’t fish for them. There are Barbel too, but I’ve never caught one and I’ve only ever seen them in photographs, but I’ve caught most other species of coarse fish in the Culm, and trout too, over the years.
The Culm is one of those rivers than can be so clear that you can count the stones on the bottom. On those days you could walk a couple of miles of bank, and not see a fish, but get a little colour in the water, and chub over 2lbs, and roach and perch – I’ve caught both species over 1lb, seem to appear from nowhere. The river has a good head of smaller fish too, and lots of Dace, although I’ve never caught one over a few ounces.
Today there was a little colour in the water, so the fishing wasn’t going to be too hard. I’d decided this year to just have a lazy session catching a few fish on the float and maggot. Today’s float was going to be a traditionally whipped goose quill float that I’d picked up on ebay
. I could have used a standard stick float, but these days I prefer to use more traditional tackle
like I used when I was young. Maybe I should change my name to Mr Crabtree
!
I walked about a mile from the bridge, and settled down to a few hours of relaxed fishing in the shade of the trees that line the bank.
For the next 5 hours or so, I just allowed the float to work through the swim, feeding a few maggots every cast. The fishing wasn’t fast and furious, and I missed as many bites as I hit, but I finished the day with two chub, two roach, one perch, six dace, a gudgeon and a minnow. Not a huge catch and nothing over half a pound, but enough to start the season and recharge the batteries.
I plan to get in some evening sessions after work over the next few weeks and try to get among the better fish, but today I was just happy to be back on the river again.
Photograph of River Culm © Copyright Martin Bodman and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.