My Quest for Specimen Winter Dace.

 Since the turn of the year I had a couple of species that I wanted to target, Dace being one of them. I won't say I have been obsessed by them this season but it is borderline, my quest for a one pound specimen is the ultimate goal, but more importantly I've been keen to locate shoals and try to monitor them, not necessarily for conservation but more along the lines to see how quickly they grow.

 The last couple of trips out have been in search of Dace, with plenty of maggots the plan was to trot every run possible. Holding areas have already been located and these have produced good fish to a dram over 14oz with the average roughly 10oz, they're some of the largest average Dace I've ever come across. Whilst I have this pool of special fish to aim at I intend to find out how large they grow. Yesterday I managed a couple of hours on the bank for the "Silver Darts", the colour and level of the river was perfect so I hoped they'd play.

 With only a couple of hours to fish I decided to target a stretch that I've located two distinct shoals, to maximise my time I started feeding maggots immediately and run the float through on a far bank crease, from experience I know that indications are few and far between. For some reason I don't get many fish on each visit, not entirely sure why as I'm certain the shoals are around 30-40 strong each.

 So, before arriving I know that I have to make every opportunity count, well that didn't happen yesterday. The one opportunity I got to land a Dace was ended abruptly by a sneaky bit of willow, a very large Dace cruised up to the surface as it fought in the flow, a clearly big specimen which was very close to the pound mark if not over headed straight for the snag, within seconds it was gone. Witnessing a large Dace transfer the hook to the branch and swim off was gut wrenching, needless to say I swore, a lot. After that two small Chub managed to stay on and represented the only fish caught, it could have been so much better.

Stunning creatures, this is a specimen fish.

 Payback time. Again with a couple of hours to spare today I was determined to go some way to banishing yesterday's nightmare. After a quick stop off at the tackle shop to stock up on maggots I was river bound. With the same tackle as usual I set about working two areas, one of which being the scene of the previous session, I hoped that the Dace were feeding. twenty trots later things seemed a little quiet but that all changed once the bait finally hit the far-bank crease, the first decent trot and it resulted in a fish and not just any fish either, she was big!

 I was extremely cautious in bringing it up the swim towards the net, in the flow it wasn't easy but made sure that I didn't suffer the same fate, lucky for me though she made it in, it was very big and I knew they were in these sections of that size. As I leant over the net to unhook her I found the little size 16 nestled in the bottom of the net......phew, after yesterday I deserved a bit of good fortune, without wasting any time she went straight in my trusty bag to give me a pleasing weight of 15oz 4dr......oh so close, she looked every bit of a pound too.

Proper winter Dace, seasons best at 15oz 4dr.

 Perfect. Amazing creatures. I can't see why such a small amount of angler's tackle the smaller species of our rivers, these are arguably one of the prettiest, but maybe one of these are!

River Rudd are very rare, great stuff!

 That Rudd was a very nice surprise and the monster Dace was backed up by two more lovely fish weighing 13oz 2dr and 9oz 2dr which were in immaculate condition. As I said time was short and that was that, I shall be looking forward to a couple more sessions soon, give it a go.

Another large Dace at 13oz 2dr.