I had a walk up the river Wednesday morning. It was a foot up but dropping and not too coloured, so drawing on my vast experience of river fishing garnered over 64 years, I told myself that come while Thusday it would be sock on. I duly arrived at the river around 0730 on a still, mild misty morning, a quick look at the river told me that my gut instinct had been correct. So feeling very smug I unloaded the gear and trogged off to a favourite peg. On with the stickfloat and a 20 hook, plumbed it and found it was spot on the normal level so added three inch and off we went. Second run down took a net grayling followed by two hand sized fish and a nice brown trout. The next hour was steady, they weren't climbing up the rod but I was getting a few. It was then that all this vast experience of mine disappeared, I forgot where I was, thought I was back on the Trent and started feeding a slack handful every cast. The inevitable result was that, where I had been taking fish 7 yards down it now became 15 yards and then 30yards. The unforgivable fact is that it took me half an hour to realise that I had been feeding too heavy and the fish were dropping back chasing the extra feed. A quick check to make sure no one had spotted my fundamental error, unlikely as I was the only one on the bank, then it was back to a thumb and two fingers worth of feed each cast and the fish came back up. You think you know it all, but you don't. I finish up with 18 grayling to 1lb 8oz and two brown trout biggest 2lb 4oz, then it was down the Sports Club for a couple of beers, a light lunch and a few games of pool, with the the UEFA Cup matches on ITV 4 tonight you just don't get a minute to yourself, your life not your own. Pete
