No Trouble at the Mill

A session at the Saxon Mill yesterday fishing and shooting pictures for an upcoming Total Coarse Fishing feature, editor, Steve Philips, and myself were faced with tricky choices. Fish the uncomfortable stretches or the more comfortable ones. 

Starting off where dace were likely to be easy to come by in the mill race we were delighted to find that the work carried out by the recent work party has cleared a track all the way to the stile and cut generous pegs all along. This work will not overgrow now that the summer growth has reached peak heights so it's easy access all the way through the rest of the season.

The dace weren't playing ball though and we couldn't buy a bite, so we opted for a couple of roach swims I know of a half mile walk away at the very end of the lower half of the fishery opposite the greyhound track. The nettles were head high but we hacked out a couple of pegs and proceeded to fish.

The fish were eventually found at 9-10 foot depth and once our loose fed hemp and maggots started to work it was a bite a chuck, and soon, a fish a chuck. In an hour or so I amassed a good bag of mixed species, mostly roach and dace, but also a number of late chub attracted upstream by the feed and a single silver bream — a rarity and only the second specimen I have ever caught from the Saxon Mill in five years fishing. The first was from exactly the same swim about five years ago!

The only trouble — fishing at such depths with a fixed waggler wasn't easy. Luckily I had a 14 and Steve a 15 footer. 13 foot rods would have made life very hard indeed!

Tricky or not, I have no doubt that a concentrated five hour session there would have brought a twenty-pound bag or better. 

To access these productive swims turn right at the gate to the arable fields and walk all the way down the trackway to the dog paddle right at the very end. The pegs are just above it but you'll have to find them the hard way if you don't get down there soon!

Jeff

Picture courtesy of Total Coarse Fishing Magazine