After all the rain we have had, I decided to celebrate the opening of the coarse fishing season on the local reservoir as all the rivers were running high and coloured which has drastically curtailed my fly fishing intentions and also fishing for mullet in the lower reaches of the Torridge. It has been a horrible summer so far, but we all really needed the water to return the rivers to health so we can’t complain too much.
I decided to fish for silver fish and after a slow start fishing with corn in the shallower areas, the sport gradually improved as the trickle of loose feed drew the fish in. From roach initially, the bream moved in; nothing of any size with the best roach just over the half pound mark and the bream to around 2lb.
As it was a short evening session, I decided to change to spam to try for a tench and immediately hit a big carp which just slowly swam around until the hook pulled free. I never managed to get it up in the water to see the fish, it just swam around like it hadn’t been hooked.
From that point on the rudd came onto the feed, nice fish to nearly 1lb, and at a fish every cast until I called it a day as the light fell. Not quite as enjoyable as being on a river, but still a nice evenings fishing and it was lovely to watch the float slide away again.