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Season Update - Darryn Stolworthy
Up until the last few weeks of the river season it had been a real struggle to get myself out on the bank. I think if it hadn’t have been for Justin (my friend and fellow Team AD writer), I wouldn’t have been out much at all. Even if it took a little persuading, I’m glad he dragged me out of the house and we spent time on the Wensum or the Bure, walking across soggy fields, usually cold and usually at night. Cheers mate!
Chub were the main target this winter and, although my heart wasn’t really into it, I did catch fish. Don’t get me wrong, we always have a laugh when we’re out and it’s all very social – it just took a bit of willpower to get me to that point! We’d often walk to the top of our chosen stretch and leap-frog down the river for a few hours to give us both a fair shot at a variety of targets. It was quite handy for Justin to have me there as he really had the bit between his teeth and I was virtually his full time photographer – perhaps that’s why he was so insistent that I joined him on those cold winter sessions!
Finally, at the end of February, my fishing bug came back and, once it was, I don’t think I missed many days on the water. Even if it was only for a couple of hours before or after work, I was always on the river and I ended up with quite a few nice fish – including a number of 5lb and 6lb fish! On one memorable day, Justin invited me up to his syndicate stretch of the Wensum. We met up just on first light, wandered to the first two swims, and I was into fish straight away! Four fish followed in the first hour, a 5lb 9oz and 5lb 8oz being the best. The rest of the day was a blank for me, partly because we moved to the impossible stretch further upstream, but I really enjoyed being back amongst the fish in those early hours.
On one of the last days of the season, I headed down to a swim on the Wensum before work. In the first three casts I had three bites – all in the space of 15 minutes! The three fish came to 5lbs 8oz, 4lbs 14oz, and 6lbs 1oz. It’s safe to say that I was pleased and went to work with a smile on my face that day – what a great way to end the river season.
I did get the float rod out one morning, too, as I was determined to give it a go – what a nightmare that turned out to be! I am seriously bad at float fishing, having not had much practice over the years, and, after an hour of tangles around the reel, I decided enough was enough! Looking back, it was probably too windy for that old nonsense anyway… I went back to the van to get my trusty feeder rod and, back in the same swim, I soon had a couple of 4lb-ers on ledgered cheese paste. Back to my comfort zone!
In between the chub fishing, I had a weekend lure fishing on Blithfield with Justin. No fish were caught and, to be completely honest, I think all we did was scare them off. The weather wasn’t that great either, blowing all weekend and raining, which wasn’t ideal in a boat but we had a laugh! One of those laughs included Justin soaking me with contents of the drouge, helped by the wind. I thought he was going to fall out the boat laughing – once again, cheers mate!
Some friends and I also had a week away fishing in Cape Verde. We were meant to be off to The Gambia again but that got cancelled at the last minute, so we quickly re-booked. Totally unprepared, off we went to go shark fishing from the beach. God were we out of our depths!
My friend Shaun had a run the first evening and all he could do was hold on whilst he watched ALL of his line disappear through the rings! It gave us all a buzz and tricked us into thinking that we were going to be ending the trip with a huge haul, catching monster after monster. We couldn’t have been more wrong and the truth of it was that we got done over time and time again! This wasn’t helped by the fact that the feeding spell was so short, no more than 45 minutes, so we didn’t have much chance to get a take anyway! We did catch a few smaller reef shark but nothing of any size – not that I know what we’d have done if something larger had taken a fancy to our bait! Our days were spent fishing for smaller species with small pieces of leftover bait from the night before and I had a lot of fun one day trying to catch some mullet. They weren’t particularly big, only 12-15" long, but I spent hours after them and caught a few free-lining bits of fish.
As I said at the start, the tench rods are ready and so am I! I’m still not sure where my angling bug went for a few months back there but I’m glad it’s back and I have my fingers crossed for a few fish this spring.
