Running water.

It's stopped raining, it's warm and the upper river is running clear. Up to Chicken Town and tuck in by the bridge.  Swing over to the clear run, left to right trot, double reds on a #16 B560 . Float stabs under and first Wensum fish of the season. A dace, perfect

Followed up by a picture perfect roach: getting better.

Several more of each before the inevitable brownies muscled in and I upped sticks. 

I'd spotted a familiar looking bog shed door blue rope swing in a first day bagging shot, looking a bit like a favoured swim a hundred yards down. he'd reported chublets so I wasn't quite sure, I've seen  a couple of 2-3lb chub up here that must have been moved a couple of mills in the tradition of some of the old Norfolk Bois like Housego but haven't caught one yet. Not too difficult a swing over to the darker water but a troublesome tree above my left shoulder. A couple of decent dace and this lovely roach and a few brownies.

It was getting hot in the late morning sun so I crossed over Chicken Town bridge to fish the same swim in the shade of a big oak, with a gentle drop in and  right to left (my favoured) trot down into the near cover. Much more efficient and worth wading through the lurking brownies. Some of the roach were the darker variant with distinctive tail lobes I only ever seem to catch up here

 

along with the more typical river roach like this one.

And obviously a shed load of brownies . But no chublets in the few I kept in the landing net for another bagging shot.

I've ditched the rucksack for these sort of sessions and pressed into service my trusty 'huge' bucket much lampooned by the Loafer so I'm bit more mobile now working back to the car.

Last stop before lunch and three trots, three different species.

Lunch was served by Mr Wetherspoon, cheap, cheerful and very welcome it was too. Handy for a post pint fish too,. I hoped to draw some fish out of the mid river cover (inside full of minnows) but they preferred the fast run and were mostly small rudd like this one. 

My enthusiasm dwindled and I spent the last 15 minutes  seeing how feeding influenced behaviour. To the left the eddy  slowed and  single maggots enticed first rudd then dace being taken almost as soon as they hit the surface,  a few more and some made it down to the dead water and the fish kept coming in from nowhere and were more interested in the maggots on the bottom as I increased the feed and for a while after the bait was gone.  Seeds/small amount of groundbait would certainly held their interest for longer.

That swing and the chub  must be a few bends down....