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Having received a number of requests for information on the best swims to fish on the River Eden, I have been thinking of the best way to tackle this subject. I believe that the anglers that have been consistently enjoying success on the river, all possess one common skill, whether they realise it or not, and that is watercraft. This skill has been generally built up through years of experience and time fishing the various stretches of water. There have been numerous articles written on this subject in magazines and books, by better anglers than myself, so I will not try to cover the same ground. I would however suggest reading some of these articles as most of the basics are just as pertinent for a small river like the Eden, as they are for the mighty Thames. Fish feed confidently where they feel comfortable ie. in or close to cover, and where food comes to them, or is available by expending the minimum amount of energy, or exposing themselves to the minimum risk. Whilst this statement may seem an over simplification, I do believe it gives us a lot of help in finding the best swims for any given condition. The one obvious conclusion from this is that the fish do not consider the angler in any way when they are making the decision to feed or not. This means we should not be taking into consideration ease of access or how comfortable the swim we fish. This may seem obvious, but nobody looks forward to a route march to their chosen swim across thick mud, carrying all the tackle we possess. So for fishing a small river like the Eden you can expand your options by cutting down on the amount of tackle you carry. Having primed you to expect me to say that the only way to success on the river is years of hard work. I am now going to tell you of a shortcut to gaining the necessary knowledge. This is no harder than taking part in some of the club matches on the river. This may smack of sucking up to the Match Secretary, but in reality as most of the river matches are run as rovers, and fished by some of the best river anglers in the Society, there is a wealth of knowledge that can be tapped, just by observing or talking to these anglers. Further more the atmosphere is generally very friendly and due to the nature of the river, whilst finesse match tactics do have their day, methods more akin to specimen hunting are quite often successfully employed. If you prefer to do it the hard way then read on. Take a loaf of bread, pick a warm evening and get yourself to the upstream end of your chosen fishery. Keeping back from the bank a little so that the fish will not spot your silhouette against the sky line, introduce a few pieces of crust approximately 20mm across into the flow singularly, until you see or hear fish rising to intercept them If you follow these pieces of crust slowly downstream introducing a few more at regular intervals to replace those being consumed, you will get to see where the chub especially are resident. Once you have found some fish intercepting the bread, pause for a few moments and try to envisage what there is about this spot that makes it attractive to the fish. Before you move on survey the surrounding water looking for a slightly deeper, steady flowing piece of water, even if this is only a very narrow short area it is likely that the fish will lie here in winter (Roach and Bream at any time of year) so as to reduce the energy they expend, yet close to any food that should pass in the flow. Look for any cover that is available for the fish, this can be very important especially when the water is clear (remember if this is a tree that it may not afford much cover once the leaves have fallen in autumn ) chub in particular can find cover in just a few inches of water under a few strands of overhanging grass. I believe that leaves in the water tend to put fish off feeding hence swims where dead leaves lay on the bottom or eddies where leaves go round and round rarely produce fish. Having done this exercise once, you must now repeat it as you will almost certainly spot something you missed on your previous visit. There is however some good news as armed with your newly attained knowledge and a rod and a few bits you can attempt to winkle out some Chub on floating crust as you learn( Don't strike until your line straightens or you will likely miss them). You will benefit greatly by doing this at the start of each season as winter floods can totally change the habitat by moving silt, gravel, boulders, even sections of bank. I have just realised that whilst talking of cover I completely forgot to mention some of the most important things to watch out for Temporary Cover! This could be a fallen tree or branch, a raft of rubbish, a raft of duckweed in the summer. The duckweed can be terrific as below this it is like night time and ten yards of river covered in duckweed can hide a lot of fish, the only problem is getting your hook bait under the weed, however with a bit of improvisation this is normally possible. On a lighter note whilst thinking of material for this article I noticed a strange thing. If you know your history of the Second World War, you will be aware that in 1940 Hitler was expected to invade. Well if the Germans had made a successful landing in Kent or Sussex as was expected, and managed to breakout from the coastal area Churchill and his Generals decided that the army would make a final stand at a fortified line south of the North Downs. This is why there are a number of old Pill Boxes along the course of the Rivers Eden and Medway which would have provided a natural barrier to any German advance. Where is this history lesson leading you might wonder, well I can't think of a pill box that isn't adjacent to a relatively good swim. This may be coincidence or perhaps the engineers who built them enjoyed their Chub fishing! I hope these ramblings have given you some food for thought regarding your fishing, rather than my sanity. Roger Ledwidge Back to the top |
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