BRYANS ANGLE

It was my birthday a couple of Sundays ago and as a treat i thought i,d spend the day fishing the local River Chelmer for whatever happened to take  my bait. My trusty John Wilson Avon Rover rod, a light lure rod and all the associated tackle was loaded into the van saturday evening for an early start. Unfortunately the weather report was not too good as heavy rain was forecast for the morning so instead of the crack off dawn start i was originally planning, i opted for a more leisure get out of bed when i wake up approach. This actually worked in my favour as i managed to miss most of the rain, only most though as i,ll explain later. After a nice bacon sandwich for breakfast i surveyed the sky outside and saw not a cloud in sight, so much for the weather forecast. On with my boots, a quick drive to the local shop to stock up on water and a bit of nosh for later and i was speeding round the country lanes, well maybe more like ambling round the lanes as my old escort van has seen ...

This sunday just gone i was up before it was light and winging my way to the local River Chelmer for a wee spot of dangling. Unfortunately i got my timings wrong and actually arrived a good 30 minutes before the sun even starting to rise. So in darkness i loaded myself up with tackle and set of to the area that i fancied fishing for perch and maybe a pike or two. Carefully i set up in my chosen swim trying not to make too much noise as i knew there could be a predator nearby in the bankside reeds waiting for the sun to rise and highlight his prey. Well i got my float rod set up ready to catch some livies and also my perch rod set up ready to fish said livies just as it started to get light. Looking up the river it was a bit foggy which looked great and just added to the serenity as i sat there sipping on my cup of rosie. As soon as it was light enough to see my float tip i started to fish single maggot on a size 22 in hope of some nice mouth size silver fish. Well the theory was ...

Ryan and I had planned this little trip for the past week to fish our favourite area on the River Blackwater at Maldon. Bait was caught at first light and of we set to try and tempt some of the big perch which reside in this stretch of the river. I opted to fish with the small livebaits and Ryan went for lobworms. My first chuck cast between two boats resulted in my float disappearing within 2 minutes of hitting the water. After a cracking scrap Ryan slid the net under a lovely old warrior perch weighing 3lb 9oz.  Photos were taken and he was slid back a little further up the bank to resume its tyrade over the silver fish. Under normal situations i would of carried on fishing the same swim but decided to let Ryan fish in my place as he,s been struggling with the perch lately. Within 15 mins he had managed 2 more perch to a pb of 2lb 15oz, to say he was over the moon would be an understatement. We bounced in and out of a couple more swims with me managing a small 3lb jack for...