A significant date, as it happened to be my 50^th birthday. My long time fishing pal, Billy Bitterling, and I had always planned to hire the Parlour Pool on the Royalty to mark this auspicious occasion, but Billy is currently enduring a bout of ill health. Therefore this has been postponed until his 50^th, which is a tad inconvenient as his birthday is in May. So for my 50^th I settled for a quick three hours on the Mill Stream, initially trying my luck in the footbridge pool. It was hardly jam packed with roach and dace, but I had a few knocks on caster and managed once dace, before going for a wander, trying my luck with either casters or cheese paste in likely looking swims. Long stretches of the Mill Stream, especially by the back of the David Lloyd Centre, were shallow, and clear with no sign of fish. There is one swim I like the look of; a bend where a drainage ditch joins followed by a straight section made inaccessible by a wood on the west bank and a hedge on the east bank, but this proved biteless. The last swim I tried produced a chub on double caster, which after deducting the net was an ounce or two shy of 4 pound. Fitting to catch a PB chub on my birthday, especially using Billy’s favoured chub bait of caster, but was it a victory for watercraft skill or an attritional lucky dip fish? Go often enough and eventually you get to use the landing net!

Gary Gudgeon