A bit of Anker fishing

I fished the River Anker today starting at the crack of dawn, which at this time of year is 7:00am ! so not too early. It was just about light when I arrived at the Car Park, so I quickly set up and plumed the depth. The target was to be Perch on the float rod first off, but I also set a barbel rod up with some flavoured meat on - to be left to its own devices in the margin in case any barbel decided to come on the feed.

After getting a few perch type bites on the float (twitchy bobs) and then missing them for some unexplained reason. I decided to move to the next peg to rest the first swim. This gave me almost instant results with a little sprat (Perch) on the denrobena worms I was using, purchased from Polesworth Tackle shop. I had another then I stuck at another typical perch bite that bobbed the float twice then sailed away. This time as it sailed away and I struck it instanly snagged me on an undewater branch ! Bites dried up quickly after this so I decided to try another species.
I decided to see what the fish that were topping all over the river in front of me were, so I changed the float rig over to a smaller stick float and started trotting maggots down the nice deep glide in front of me. After a short while I started catching a steady stream of nice Roach from a couple of onces to maybe 6 oz, which was quite fun from a river. I seems like along time since I last caught a river Roach and after a while I had bagged quite a few of them along with a solatary little Chublet.
None of the fish I caught were massive but as time went on I did start to get slightly bigger stamp of fish. I couldn't help thinking that a really big one would be next, but maybe thats just over optimistic enthusiasm kicking in !
It was definatly enjoyable though to trot the float down stream waiting for it to pass through the 'bite zone' that had naturally formed. I assumed this was where the shoal had gathered to intecept my free offering maggots that would be drifting down in the current. The old adage of feeding little and often was once again proved as I made sure half a dozed were fired in every cast.
A really enjoyable morning overall and I am starting to really enjoy this little stretch of river now. There were no bites on the Barbel rod suffice to say, but 'you've gotta be in it to win it' !