Big Dace in a Wild Place. ( The Special One ).

 I have spent a sizeable chunk of this season targeting Dace with the ultimate goal in catching a pound plus specimen, throughout the season I have been lucky enough to catch plenty "Silver Darts" over 12ozs with the largest weighing a massive 15oz 4dr, so close to that magical mark but as the season nears it's conclusion most species of fish are approaching their top weights in preparation to spawn. Knowing this it's a case of putting a bait into the water, having already done all the hard work in location.

 This morning I woke up and went off to work as if it was any usual day, went about my business and managed to finish up early, naturally I shot off home, packed my trotting gear and camera then headed off out river bound for a Dace or two. Once I arrived at the river I quickly found out it was very low, the lowest I've seen it in a long time and gin-clear just to make it more difficult, not to be deterred I start trotting straight away as I only had a couple of hours out before dusk, my first swim usually provides me with some sport but this afternoon the wire-stem float went through untouched repeatedly until I concluded nothing was home. Typical, but I know Dace and know them enough that they won't be far away.

 By this point I was already halfway through the time I had available, thing's were looking hard but then I found a short run where magic was about to happen. First cast I bumped a nice Dace which was hard to take, but I continued running the float through and on the fourth trot I finally hooked a good Dace that stayed on!. A strong fight followed but it was only going to end one way, another specimen fish of 13oz 2dr nestled in the bottom of my net, wicked!. But it was about to get sooooo much better, maybe half a dozen trots on from the first Dace and the float slipped under sharply as a fish made off with my bait, the fight initially was so powerful I thought it was a Chub but I eased up the river and as it cleared the vegetation a bright pearly silver flank glistened in the sun as it cut through the water. It was a very large Dace and I thought it was going to break that magical barrier but I've thought that before this season and had just missed out. It wasn't to happen today, in all her glory the needle inched past the one pound mark and settled on half-ounce over. I weighed it twice after just to confirm the weight and the same reading was given. Bloody awesome!!.

One pound and half ounce of monster Dace. Brilliant.

 I can't even imagine how many hours I've put in and how many big fish I've had during that time but this specimen tops them all!, only a month or so a go I lost what was a certain pound-plus fish on a snag before disappearing into the turbulent water, this one was mine. I think I deserved this one.

Colossal.

 Knowing all of the hard work had paid off I could just continue and see what else I could manage, not long after I restarted I received another decent indication on the float and when I struck the rod thumped around, for more than 2 or 3 minutes I didn't get to see what the culprit was until it broke the surface in front of me and really was a good Chub, I thought at first it was an easy 5lb fish and approaching 6lb when it steamed back off downstream then as it vanished from sight the hook slipped and the float came hurtling out of the water.....gone but not forgotten, I shall be back with the proper gear for them at some point.

 That Chub unfortunately had ploughed through my swim on numerous occasions which put the Dace right off. I headed off downstream as the sun started to set and had a few trots for Dace in a couple of other runs but contrived to catch a couple of pristine Brown Trout, first was about 2.8 and the second was a long lean 4lb 4oz Male Trout which didn't fight particularly hard but when unhooking it he flipped and drove the hook straight through the top of a finger, lucky it was a barbless!

Big wild spotty.

 What a couple of hours fishing, just proves that the more time you spend on the bank the luckier you get.