A couple of hours on the Hampshire Avon 3rd March 2016

Mangaed to sneak a couple of hours on The Hampshire Avon Near Ringwwod today.
Now iIm still a novice River angler so wasn't overly confident when we pulled up to our swims and i saw that i would be fishing a stretch probably 30 metre's wide that was absolutely racing through and felt i had arrived totally under prepared.
Undeturbed i set up a large Maggot feeder with a 12" hooklength to a size 16 hook hoping for some large Roach.
I set my bankstick up and was screwing my rest on when it snapped in my hand. Luckily there were plenty of branches around so used 1 of them.
First cast and it seemed fine so i tried setting up a second rod but found i had somehow snapped my tip not happy but i was not going to let it ruin my day.

I sat on my chair and recast my Maggot feeder settled down and waited but nothing happened.
Third cast the same but as i was retrieving the rod lurched forward and my line snapped not sure if i hit a snag or a fish

I set up a second feeder cast out only to find it was wrapped around my tip and snapped straight off.

Today really wasn't going well.

Just then my fishing partner for the day came around and said he had been advised to move as he was after Pike and they were normally found further up river.

I was quite to happy to move as there was a nice overflow stretc behind the main river which was more like the Rivers i had fished before.

I arrived at a nice swim set up a new Maggot feeder and cast double maggot 3/4 across slightly down stream and started pinging a few maggots just above it.
Almost immediately i had a little knock a nice little Gudgeon came in.
Over the next 30 minutes i almost had a fish a cast either Gudgeon or small roach.
As they were all small i decided to move upstream to the deeper water but found the flow was too strong so moved back to a different swim were i could see some fish moving.

After 10 minutes i had a lovely Roach around 14oz followed by another larger one and then i had a few Dace up to 8oz.

The light started to fade and soon it was time for the drive home

My partner had no pike but did have 1 take early that he missed.

Good day in the ned after an horrndous start.

Next up is  a Match at Goodiford Mill that i am really looking forward as long as the weather warms up.