A balmy autumn afternoon, not much breeze, perfect for a quick session on the Lower Derwent down the bottom of the field. The water looked in top nick – not too much colour and not too deep; in fact pretty close to summer levels. I hadn’t been down for a while so spent the first few minutes thrashing nettles with my rod  rest to expose somewhere to plant the seat:

I’d brought the leger rod; even though the water is low-ish for the time of year the flow is fairly hefty and I have trouble controlling a float. Whacked on a feeder and crammed it with red maggots and chucked in. Rod tip wanged round after a few minutes but I missed the strike. This happened again about five times. I assumed they must be tiddlers, but then connected. A reasonable chub – landing net required (rod rest in the pic is 7 inches wide):

Next cast, another big vibration on the quiver tip and a better chub was on:

Carried on replenishing the feeder and picked up a nice perch, who declined to display his fine dorsal fin for the camera:

I never know when to stop with the feeder. I’ve read that it is possible to over-feed a swim but how is one supposed to know? Anyway, having cast out a dozen or so feeder-fulls I thought maybe I should switch to the bomb. After a few minutes the rod tip slowly bent round in a perfect arc. I struck and met resistance. Another good perch:

Picked up another small perch, a couple of gudgeon and a brace of little chub like this:

Called it a day after about two and a half hours. Maybe nine fish landed, some of them pretty reasonable. But mainly just a wonderful reminder of the joys of coarse fishing.