I don’t do a lot of angling nowadays, (photography rules), but I spied this spot while crossing a local pedestrian bridge over the River Wharfe. As it happens, it’s the close season for coarse fish at the moment. (Coarse fish? – everything that isn’t a ‘game fish’ – game fish (apart from those that take my bait ;)) are trout, salmon.)
In the open season, I might expect to catch Chub, Barbel, Pike, Perch, Grayling, Trout, Eel – whether Roach and Dace are present, I don’t know. Whilst sitting there I might see Kingfisher, Goosander, Moorhen, Little Grebe, Wagtails, Hirundines, Heron, the odd Wader, Mink, Otter, Voles and Rats.
Most coarse fish are returned after capture, although they may be kept in a large keepnet for the period of the fishing session. This allows a final weight and assessment of the catch to take place before returning them – without retention it’s likely that any returned fish will scatter any shoals or put them off the feed.
I’ve had the good fortune to do a bit of fishing in the US and I would judge that coarse fishing in the UK tends to be a much more genteel affair – in some specialisms we think nothing of using lines with a breaking strain as light as 1lb, fixed lines and poles that approach, well put it like this, you can buy a pole that is 16m long (over 50ft!) and use hooks as small as size 24 – though personally I’ve never used anything less than a 20. Of course, that’s not to say that we don’t ‘tool-up’ for larger fish – carp and pike, in particular.
——-Stephen——-
Stephen G Hipperson 
I’m an angler myself but not exactly a keen one; I spend more time looking at the wildlife than fishing. If I take my camera along, I hardly get any fishing done at all. That looks like a wonderful location.
🙂 – I stopped taking my camera for that very reason! I’d resist the temptation to pick the camera up and almost every time I did I’d get a bite! I got to the stage where I’d pick my camera up if I wasn’t getting any bites, just to improve my luck – a sad place to be! 😉
See what you mean stephen, well taken, nice area
That’s not it. 🙂
If you’re interested I’ve just posted the image I referred to.
https://stephenhip.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/for-paul/
🙂 –
Lovely place, fishing or not. 🙂
oh, and to have a canoe on the river! Interestingly, the local angling club used to have a rule that said if you were a member of the club you were not allowed to use a boat on the river.
That is a nice spot. We’re avid anglers; around here it’s mainly salmon, trout, bass and pumpkinseeds (“pond perch”). I can imagine casting right under those trees…
Of course, what is not revealed here is the depth of the water. I can vary significantly between 0 and 5 metres, depending on the state of flood – this is a non-tidal stretch and whether various sluices are opened upstream. I’ve had it rise as much as 15cm in 1/2 hour while I have been sitting by the river with my Barbel rod. It might not sound much but when you’re inches from the river edge, it will certainly flood you out in no time. There are many times when the river becomes virtuallyunfishable because of the speed of the flow.
Aahh, and in your photo it looks so calm; they would seem to be such ideal hiding spots for the fishies. Well, they probably still are — the humans just can’t get to ’em. 🙂
When I used fish along this stretch, I rarely caught many more than ten a session, sometimes no bites at all. the biggest would be a Barbel about 8lbs (3.6kg) – because of the rate of flow in the river they give up a good fight! Bite indication is more like dragging the rod in the river than a gentle movement of an indicator (float or quivertip).
Nice image – very evocative.
Thanks!