Ribble dace and roach

After the cancellation of the Salford friendly anglers match planned for today, this weekend found me at a loose end , that is until I received an invitation to visit a river I have never fished before, The Ribble.  I didn't need too much convincing, and thankfully took up Mike Duddy's (aka Fishing Fiend) offer to visit a river I knew little about. I do now though and today turned out to be an education. Firstly I learnt about tides the hard way. From the first cast I was catching steadily on the tip, although the river was moving at a pace and the bites were fast and hard to hit. I decided to switch to stick float tactics as the flow was a little slacker on the inside line. The dace and roach came steadily every cast. Then this tidal stretch rose a couple of feet in a few minutes, submerging my gear before I noticed. The gear will dry out, but my lunch was irretrievable. The change in the river was instant. Not having fished a tidal river before this was alien to me. All I could do was sit on top of the high bank and wonder how high the river would rise. When the river stopped rising after about half an hour I ventured back down the bank. Immediately I was into some quality roach, now fishing 4ft depth rather than the 2ft 6ins earlier. I managed to catch all day fishing until I could firstly no longer see the float, then secondly no longer see the hook on the feeder line to bait up. I wound up catching 140 fish all dace and roach, and some quality fish too.

I wasn't the last angler on the river as the light faded, and as myself and the angler on the opposite bank milked the remaining daylight for as many minutes as we could, the guy opposite hooked something big. It turned out to be a big bream which he took great pleasure in shouting over to me to let me know. Fair play, I would have probably done the same. Next week I am in two minds between the River Medlock and the River Tame. As usual it will depend on which side of the bed I get up from. Not very scientific but thats the way I like my fishing.