Coarse Fishing in the South East (UK)

I recently received a phone call from Nick Gilbert inviting me for a day out on the River Len at Bearsted near Maidstone, Kent. I was more than happy to oblige but sometimes you can get bored with fishing as often as I do!! So I armed myself with my camera, notepad and a piping hot flask of Chicken Soup. It was my chance to learn a thing or two from the river maestro himself. Who is Nick Gilbert I hear you ask? He's your average joe angler, well, actually he's above average in my estimates and likes nothing more than to mix his fishing with open matches, club matches, league matches and of course pleasure fishing. He recently won the 2 day BCUK Hartleylands Festival against some very stiff local opposition including yours truly!. Anyway, I digress, a date was set and was soon upon us. My trusty SmartNav guided me to his house in Maidstone where he was waiting with tackle in hand (excuse the pun!). He had me a little worried at first as he only had a couple of rods, landing net, tackle box and a pair of green wellies. Further inquiry revealed he was ready for a 'mobile' day and the less gear he had the better. In just a matter of minutes we were at the venue in the heart of a Bearsted housing estate - not exactly what I was expecting to tell you the truth. We parked up in Lenside Drive just a minutes walk from the river, and I use the word river loosely! As we approached the river I could see nothing more than a trickle of water. Perhaps this wasn't it I thought, it's probably a feeder stream for the Len?. "This is it" revealed Nick. My first reaction was "you gotta be kidding Nick - seriously?". The river was little more than a few inches deep and just a few feet across (picture below). If anyone can get any fish out of here they deserve a medal, I thought. Talk about jumping from one side to the other without getting your feet wet - I could have walked the length of the river and barely got my ankles wet!. Nick assured me that the river improved further down stream where the depth sometimes reached a foot or so (yes - that's 12 inches!). What was even more amazing was that he said the river actually fishes better in the winter months when there's snow on the ground! and it's all FREE fishing. The 'free fishing' I could understand, but the bit about the river actually fishing at all I found hard to believe, we would find out soon enough......

Walking along the river the undergrowth, trees and vegetation increased in density until it was almost impossible to see the river at times. Nick was looking for likely holding spots for the fish, again he assured me there were holding spots of deeper water where fish reside. Sure enough he signalled to keep low as he could see some chub and possibly dace a few metres down stream in the crystal clear water. His intention was to loose feed a few maggots and trot his float down stream to pick off the odd fish before they spooked. His tackle was about as basic as it gets. A Preston's Carbonactive 11' Float Rod, Daiwa 123M closed faced reel loaded with 3lb line and to complete the set-up he had a Drennan Alloy Stick float with a couple of inches of stem cut off to take into account the very shallow water with 1 x No4 and 2 x No8 shot spread down the line which was tied to a 0.12 Shogun hooklength and size 18 Drennan Carp hook baited with double maggot. Nick is quick to point out that he prefers a closed faced reel for fishing in such snaggy swims, it reduces the chances of tangles and snagged line when in the middle of such overgrown swims. Bait was a couple of pints of mixed maggots and a few slices of bread, nothing fancy here then!. He set the float a foot deep and flicked his rig out, a couple of minutes later he had his first fish,  a pristine roach of about 4oz which was soon followed by a small dace of a similar size (pictures below). It was noticeable that he wasn't actually paying much attention to his float - in the shallow crystal clear water Nick was actually watching his bait, watching how the fish behaved around the bait and changing shotting pattern and depth accordingly until he put a run of fish together. This was the kind of place that you learn more in a day about fish behaviour than you do in a life time. It was uncanny how many times the fish would simply ignore the bait time after time then a simple change of depth or shotting pattern produced a bite a chuck. A change to the original rig produced not a bite as if to confirm what a difference the change made!.

Moving further down stream there was a noticeable patch of dark water that could be seen from a distance, obviously a deeper stretch and likely fish holding spot. Nick increased the depth of his rig as he knew this spot was about 2 feet deep (wow!!). Once again he fed some maggots that slowly and surely tumbled down the stream until out of sight. A few minutes in this swim produced some better roach to about 8oz but as I said the swims were getting more and more overgrown as we progressed down the river and it was inevitable that he would end up in the bushes after pulling out of a fish. A change of rod was necessary so a quick sprint to the car and he soon returned with a much shorter 9 foot Sundridge Kevin Ashurst rod that was originally 13 foot!. He had taken the top two sections and put a cork handle on especially for fishing tight swims, and it worked a treat. As can be seen from the picture below he really needed a short rod to overcome the brambles, weeds, trees and water snags that were prolific in several swims. Even with the shorter rod Nick had to constantly mend the line to obtain the best presentation as the float trotted down river. A procession of fish were taken from a number of swims including roach, chub, dace, perch, gudgeon and trout. But sadly none were above the magical 1lb mark but what has to be said was they looked magnificent, beautifully coloured, fin perfect fish which had probably never seen a hook in their lives, well, apart from Nicks. 

Two hours into the session and Nick was keen to show me what the river can really produce. He made his way to what I call the 'Back Garden' swim. Much of this stretch of river backs onto a housing estate and you can't get much closer than we did in the 'Back Garden' swim with back gardens actually sticking out into the river. It was without doubt the widest and deepest stretch of river for miles. Nick was confident of producing the goods and was expecting several good chub to grace his landing net, he's had them to 3lb before and roach to just under 2lb. It was obvious after a while that the bigger specimens were not going to play ball today but to Nick's credit he did latch into a number of small chub and roach. Not one to be beaten he changed his terminal rig to a 2g Drennan Loafer float and a size 14 Mustad medium wire hook with which he intended to fish bread in a desperate effort to attract the attentions of the resident chub. With the light fading and temperature dropping he quickly mashed a few slices of  'no crust' bread for feed and fed the swim. Half an hour with the bread produced just the odd small chub and roach. One last ditch attempt was called for - he scaled rite down to a 0.10mm hooklength and size 18 Kamasan 611 with double maggot to see what difference it made. He was duly rewarded with several more roach, chub, dace and perch but not the bigger fish he was anticipating. But in all honesty who cares when your catching fin perfect fish like this perch and roach (pictures below).

The 'Back Garden' swim (below) produced most fish for Nick but it was still hard work. We had covered several hundred yards of river in the three hours we had been there and I must say I enjoyed every minute of it. The surprise of the day had to be the two trout that made an appearance and the fact that Nick had managed to extract several species of fish from what seemed a fishless stretch of water. He added that he's been fishing this stretch of river for several years and has yet to see anyone fishing it except the odd kid bunking off from school. Hopefully those school kids will remember their days down the Len and join the ever increasing army of anglers. It's days like this that make a refreshing change from fishing the commercials and the hustle and bustle of match fishing. In the immortal words or Arnold Schwarzenegger "I'll be back" and that's a promise, but next time I will be fishing.

November 2006