Birds do it, bees do it...

I visited Eliburn reservoir again last week for another session fishing the waggler. I took some groundbait I found in my freezer with me and as well as some maggots I also took a tin of corn. Tossing in a few small balls of groundbait and feeding a few maggots saw lots of small perch greedily gobbling up my single maggot hookbait which kept me fairly busy. It was a lovely day and it was quite relaxing just sitting there watching my float as the sun beat down. After a while the little perch stopped biting and I reasoned that perhaps some bigger fish had moved into my swim. To try and see if I was right I switched to a bigger hook and fished corn. This didn't tempt any fish though so I tried three maggots on my hook instead. Eventually my float went quickly under and lifting my rod the fish was on but after a few seconds it managed to throw the hook. Shortly afterwards however I hooked another fish that felt about the same size as the escapee. It stayed on this time and after a few head shakes gave up fighting. A bream came to the surface where it lay motionless on its side, as they usually do once they give up. It was quickly drawn over my net and was unhooked on my mat. 

...even reservoir bream do it. The fish's forehead was covered with spawning tubercles.

A very nice looking fish indeed. Not a scale was out of place and every fin was perfect. Lovely.

Shortly afterwards a couple more much smaller bream were landed and a few roach too. In the afternoon heat things went very quiet though. As my float wasn't doing much my gaze wandered a bit and I spotted a three spined stickleback in the shallow water directly in front of my peg. I reeled in my rig and spent five minutes trying to catch it. Sticklebacks do it as well and he was far to preoccupied tending to his nest under a submerged broken branch to be interested in half a maggot dangled in his vicinity. Casting my float back out bites remained few and far between so I decided to pack up and head to the River Forth near Stirling to see if there were any dace around. Upon arrival I couldn't resist dropping a maggot down the side and pulling out a few humble minnows first though.

The minnow is a nice looking little fish If you ask me. 

Getting down to business I started firing maggots upstream and letting my float run down through an area in front of me between some reed beds. The river was very low and bites were hard to come by but after catching a few tiny salmon parr and a small brown trout I finally managed to catch a dace. 

Evidence that some salmon have been doing it as well.

A nice little brown trout. 

Small but perfectly formed. A nice reward for my persistence but sadly it would be the only dace caught.

Having had a lot of fun catching a variety of freshwater species I decided to call an end to what had been both a relaxing and enjoyable day's fishing. I can see myself doing more float fishing over the summer and maybe I'll venture down south to try and catch some of the U.K.'s freshwater species that I've never caught before. Goldfish would be an nice species to catch and Forest Lane Fishery near York seems to be the closest commercial that has a few of them in its ponds.

Tight lines, Scott.