Small streaming. Marvellous. If you have read any of my previous yarns you will know I am in love. With my small stream. A Hertfordshire stream. Just 12 minutes from home to car park followed by a four minute walk. Fishing just doesn’t get any better. Well not for me at least. You will probably disagree. But that’s your prerogative.
So how big do the fish run? Well the chub average between two and four pounds, barbel average 3-5lbs, and there aren’t that many of them, roach and perch average five to six ounces, dace around two to five ounces. The pike are around 2-5 pounds, carp mainly in single figures, and the minnows and gudgeon, are as you‘d expect them. And the only shoal of bream I have ever seen are all about two pounds. And every one of the above a veritable monster for such a small stream; it’s not a ditch as per Jeff’s article.. Nor is it the Upper Great Ouse, the Kennet nor the Thames. It’s small, intimate, meandering, and it’s most definitely paradise if you share my view on what makes a wonderful fishery.
I went today, a few hours from dawn when all was quiet, not even a dog walker. They don’t wake up until about 10.30, though the occasional labrador surprises me when it thunders through at 8.30, complete with bleary-eyed owner.
So, pound and a bit strength rod and a barbel rig, or a fun morning with a dose of the trots. Trotting usually wins.
I took my 9ft 6ins John Brough Zephyr brook rod – made to measure for extracting canal perch from under the road bridge – and I trotted maggots. I deliberately took no other bait… I had no decisions to make. I like that. After a stressful business week, who wants decisions on a Sunday dawn? Its Bad enough having to make weekend decision at the best of times… But on the river? When all you want is a few hours calm.
First trot was an enormously small minnow, followed by another, then a gudgeon, a pristine perch, then the most glorious barbel. Unweighed and released after a fierce scrap, the cane taking on a marvellously smooth curve, the line taught and pulling hard against the little 1930s three and a half inch Allcocks Nine pin. Or is it a Youngs No. 10. It’s the latter I think, but either way it balances nicely with the mini Wizard rod.. Whole cane butt and two pieces of built cane. Just purrfect for small streaming under the marginal trees. It was a spirited battle on two pound line with a pound and a half bottom attached to a size 18. Two maggots the bait.
I rested the swim, a near bank marginal slack, just off the main flow, though main flow is slightly too strong a description for the fourteen inches of water over the gravels that run between two beds of ranunculus.
I moved downstream and chased a brace of three pound chub. I got them actively feeding on a constant trickle of maggots and left it 20 minutes before introducing a hook bait. A chublet of around seven inches nipped in and stole the bait. Now how many times does that happen? I bet we can all hold our hands up several times on that score. It happened to me only a week or two ago on the Upper Ouse. Two splendid barbus , tails up, heads down on my freely offered pellets. Having gained their confidence I gently lowered a rig hoping for the instant take from one of the two eight pounders, both oblivious to my cunning. Bang. It happened, the pin screamed. Fish on. A glorious fish that turned from torpedo to a very hollow chub that will be well over six pounds come winter. It weighed 5lbs 13 ozs. How could I be disappointed?
Anyway, as ever, I digress. Back to my small stream. The brace of chub spooked and were gone; the stream can be really challenging when rain is badly needed. Many of the swims are less than two feet deep and the residents most wary.
I dropped into the bridge pool and had a perch first cast, then another, then a minnow, a nice swinger roach, then a minnow that turned into a half pound perch. Sadly the minnow died.
Then back to the barbel hole and a stunning fish first cast, smaller than the first, but aren’t all barbel fabulously stunning fish? This one was an eight, or perhaps even a nine – nine inches – and was probably in its fifth year and one of the juveniles the club had stocked with the EA two seasons previous. The earlier pounder could not have been a stocked fish and must have been born in the river. That brought an even bigger smile to my sun-drenched face. Nature. At its best.
I dropped a few more maggots into the swim and went upstream, taking some nice dace from a fast gravelly run. I had perch, chublet and roach in several more swims, just dipping in for a few casts after allowing a handful of maggots to meander downstream. I lost a pike at the net that took a minnow. Then back to barbel alley – and took a third monstrously small gem.
In a couple of hours, I caught some 30 minnows, several perch, 20 dace to about four ounces, half a dozen roach, chublet, the pike, gudgeon galore and the three wonderful barbel , my first barbel of the season. The biggest of the three, the mighty pounder brought a glow to my cheeks for this was no stocked fis, being too big to be one of those stocked in the previous two seasons. It was a natural river born beauty. A most splendid fish. All in all, it was a super super morning and very quiet.
Just me , a little owl on the five barred gate to the parking area to welcome me at dawn, a kingfisher, heron, a common buzzard working over the tree line and, for a short time only, our head bailiff who came to have a chat and check that I had my ticket.
Gary Cullum
