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- Another fairly odd season, although on many days spent out on the bank - most, in fact - there was very little to remind me that COVID had ever existed.
There was a very welcome relaxation of lockdown measures at the end of March, and so, for all intents and purposes, it has been pretty much business as usual.
- That said, some of last year's 'unexpected effects of COVID' have still presented some problems, particularly the 'accidents waiting to
happen' folks on those almost universally detested paddleboards. I haven't witnessed any apparent increase in the skill level or situation / danger
awareness of the average floating disaster, although thankfully, have seen no-one actually come to grief, locally.
- Sadly, some of the past years' favoured locations remain off limits, or carry with them the promise of an argument, and so, in the interests of
gaining maximum enjoyment from all of the sessions, these have been pretty much avoided. Even then, there was one particular venue that threw up some serious
objections from a local householder regarding the ongoing degree of angling presence, which didn't make for a very special day.
- Maybe because of the evident increase in folks' interest in the river and its pursuits, one of the local councils has imposed pay-and-display parking
and time limits at quite a few locations where none have existed previously; this is at best an inconvenience, and not at all welcome. God forbid one should be
able to stick a few coins in a machine, but now, each machine seems to demand that a completely different payment app is downloaded.
- Anyway, all this is stacking up to be more than a bit of a moan, so let's look at what's most important, the actual fishing.
- On a very positive note, all of the mullet captured have been released safely, and for the most part, have hardly shed so much as a single scale, which is
enormously gratifying. Careful handling and not allowing the fish to roll around in the net when lifted have certainly contributed to this.
- Then there was the more than highly-anticipated return of 'The Devon Trip' after a year's absence in 2020. Really great, as always, to catch
up with Phil, and we pretty much picked up where we left
off last time. Mullet were caught, Macs were devoured, the Colonel also got a very welcome look-in, idiocies were exchanged... pretty darn good, and
there's still a really special connection there, after so many years. It's probably worth putting together a proper write-up - one for another day.
Cheers Phil - quality, as always.
- A spectacular failure of particular and painful note, on my part, occurred while fishing with DaveC, quite early in the year. After berating him for
missing an unmissable bite from a large fish, and then a second, I contrived to miss three very rapid bites in very rapid succession - karma, eh? Thankfully,
Dave then had another bite, and hooked into something quite unexpected, which put up a truly brutal fight, and which I was very relieved to scoop up in the
suddenly inadequate-looking 24" net. Certainly not one to accidentally 'bump off', this mullet looked absolutely huge, and weighed in at a
far-beyond-impressive 7/09, an outstanding fish. Did I mention that I missed it, three times?... er....
- A minor gain, but an important one nonetheless, was that I was able to narrowly exceed the 2020 and 2019 catch totals, enjoying the best results in that
respect since 2018 (which was a very good year).
- In terms of the larger fish, these were pretty much absent from the venues that I fished, or at least not co-operating. This has been a year very similar to
2016, in many way, not least because there have been no fish over 5lbs, only the second time that this has happened. There are some comments below which shed
more light on this, though.
- The best fish were two of 4/05, the first on 15/07/21, and another on
15/09/21 - not really on a par with other years, but very welcome, and highly satisfying - for
me, it's never been about the size, with mullet. The last season when the best fish was in the 4lbs bracket was 2016.
- I was able to start catching mullet earlier in the year than in both 2020 and 2019, although it's worth remembering that the 2020 start was delayed
significantly by COVID. The first fish of 2021, on 18/04/21, was incredibly satisfying
- a 2/13 thinlip on the
fly. It was very pleasing to finally capture a mullet using this method, after a fair number of near-misses in 2020.
- The last productive session was on 09/11/21, with a final trip on 18/11/21; this was despite a subsequent run of very mild weather, where I'm embarrassed
to say I should have been out chasing a few more fish, and just wasn't, for no good reason at all.
- As always, there were many truly memorable fishing days, including, but not exclusively so, some of the highlights described here.
- Carried forward again this year, and not exactly an important statistic, but I still haven't captured a 4lb+ mullet on the 1st nor the 28th day of any
month, in any year, from 2011.
- The overall 'spread' of fish weights, i.e. the proportion in each weight band, was very different from past years, although that was largely due
to the choice of venues being fished, the smaller average and maximum sizes of the mullet expected there, and the avoidance of some past favourite locations, for
the reasons mentioned above. There were also a couple of venues that have yielded larger fish in the past that just didn't deliver, a factor also reported by
other anglers frequenting those locations.
- I did note, however, that there were a number of very familiar venues which had produced good 3lb and a fair few 4lb fish in past years, which in 2021 were
populated by fish just under or just over 3lbs; it will be interesting to see if this situation continues during 2022. All that said, there were the same number
of 4lb fish landed, and more 3lb fish, than in 2020, despite the minimal difference in the overall totals for these last two years. There was also a 50% increase
in the number of fish in the 2-3lb bracket, but it was the absence of any fish in the 5lb+ and 6lb+ categories that was most remarkable.
- The average weight for thicklips was down by 6oz from 2020, and by 12oz from 2019, but again, this was affected by some of the factors already mentioned.
- Month-wise, May was a particularly poor month, and then there was the second best June of the 11 years recorded. A poor July total was followed by an
unspectacular August which delivered 'somewhere in the middle' against past expectations. September ended with the best total on record for that month,
and was then followed by an uninspiring but welcome October total, and a couple to end things off in November.
- There were again several frustrating periods where there was a total halt in proceedings due to extended spells of unfavourable forecasts, whether wind,
most commonly, or rain and wind in combination. There were so many days where the wind was expected to be 40, 50, 60+ mph, and as before, all enthusiasm faded
once the wind speeds reached the upper teens.
- Due to an increase in effort, albeit a relatively minor one, there were 10 more trips this year than in 2020, and 2 more than 2019, but still 34 fewer than
2018, and 47 fewer than 2017. Although this is a welcome improvement, really must do better in 2022.
- My best continuous 'run' of mullet landed without a lost fish was 14, from mid-September through to November, and hopefully that sequence of
successes will continue with the first fish of 2022.
- This was not a particularly painful year in terms of lost fish, neither in terms of numbers, apparent size, nor the manner in which I contrived to lose them.
Statistically, it was the 3rd best year in this respect, and only missing out on 2nd by a very small margin. Most losses were just straightforward and
unspectacular hook pulls, and there's not a lot that could have been done differently, if anything at all.
- Worthwhile time was spent concentrating on several 'newer' venues in 2021, all of which produced a good few mullet; it was enjoyable to feel that
there was new knowledge and understanding being gained, constantly.
- Landed fish at a couple of entirely new locations during the Devon visit, including one across the Tamar into Cornwall.
- Success eluded me at a couple of other new / 'newer' venues, also during the Devon trip - hopefully to be continued, next year.
- Made very little progress regarding some of the other objectives set:
- 2021 produced the worst 'top 5' weight by about 2½lbs, and the worst 'top 10' by about 4½lbs of the last eleven
years; the last 'poor' year in this respect was 2016, another notable similarity between the two seasons.
- None of the fish captured feature in the 'all years top 40' - the two at 4/05 lie at no. 94 in the list.
- Thankfully, only one mullet was carrying a significant
parasite, this time on its anal fin, although a few others had very small 'fish lice' similar to those seen on
freshwater species. The fish in question weighed 2/04,
and otherwise seemed very healthy; I was able to safely remove the parasite without further damaging its host; I also noted that the disgusting passenger appeared
to be in mid-moult?
- The proportion of successful trips was very much in keeping with the previous two years, only marginally higher than 2020 and 2019, and slightly down on 2018;
this again, for the second year running, strongly suggests that increased effort on my part would almost certainly achieve a much (?) higher total of mullet
hooked.
- The number and percentage of totally 'blank' sessions was slightly increased over 2020, but very much more in keeping with the stats for 2019, when
a similar number of sessions produced a very similar number of fish.
- The average number of mullet landed per successful trip was entirely in keeping with the previous two years.
- There were seven trips where there was the ghastly and seemingly very long drive home after losing the only fish of the day, more than the five similar
occasions in 2020. I'm still convinced that these are psychologically much harder to deal with than a day without a hookup, or even a single bite.
- I was again engaged in a number of pretty enjoyable struggles, most of which (surprisingly, even unbelievably) ended well; there were the usual extremely
nasty moments when the hook just fell out once the fish was already in the net, which always sends a cold shiver up the spine...
- There were again thankfully no occasions this year where fish became snagged and a rescue mission and maybe a miserable dunking was called for...
- That said, there was one day... I had set out across a very shallow water-filled depression on a flat shoreline, and after a short time, the tide began to flood
very quickly. Realising that it was time to get out of Dodge, I started to wade back, across what was now a fair depth of water. Having lost sight of where the
shallowest part was, I finished up with the inevitable torrential rush of cold April water into the waders, and I'm more than grateful to SteveT for his help,
hauling me up the steep shingle bank. Trousers and waders off, I was able to empty and squeeze out most of the water, and then surprisingly, felt much less cold
than would be expected, under the circumstances. I remember saying something earlier in the session about it being a day that I definitely didn't want to
fall in...
- Of the 32 locations visited, compared to 28 in 2020 and 56 in 2019, 15 were productive, and 6 of these were 'new', i.e. venues where I had not
fished or not caught mullet before. There were 59 locations previously fished that remained untried during 2021.
- Caught only one thinlip, the first fish of the year as mentioned above, which,
although quite modest, was my largest to date. There were also a fair-few notable near misses, usually on the spinners. This species still deserves a much more determined effort, and is definitely something to be continued next year.
- This was one of only two years where I have landed fish of all three species.
- Surprisingly, there were hardly any problems with dog owners again this season, although that was largely due to the locations being fished.
- Managed not to fall over this year, at least not in any significant way, which was a vast improvement. There was one unfortunate instance of over-balancing,
when I finished up sitting in some very wet mud, and that wasn't a very life-affirming moment.
- Still haven't revisited all of the targeted venues - to be continued in 2022.
- There seemed to be good numbers of thinlips at a couple of locations, although at one, despite thousands of scrapes covering the low-tide mud, I rarely saw
any numbers of feeding fish, nor concerted feeding effort, and bites were not forthcoming.
- Again, I didn't actively target golden-greys in the way that I had planned, and only caught one, which weighed in at
2lb 9oz; a fair specimen, bearing all of the features typical of the species. On this
occasion, I was able to photograph its very small teeth, another important identifying
feature.
- Since the demise of Boris (the greatly revered swan), there appears to have been a bit of car-key swapping on the river, and sessions are now plagued by a
new male specimen of the Great Pale River Turkey, although he's actually not at all badly behaved
when in close proximity to the fishing effort, and prefers to sit quetly in the shallows waiting for small offerings of bread.
- All things considered, not a bad year, with better numbers, but lacking the larger fish which have graced the net in almost all past seasons. In terms of
stats, 2021 sits squarely at the top of the 'middle years', in the table of the last eleven seasons. Hoping to build on this in 2022, where the
clear and simple message from this year, as previously, is that more trips and more effort should almost certainly definitely result in more fish.
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