Tidal surge

With all the rain we've been getting lately my initial plan was to fish a still water today, the only problem is  i'm a sucker for the river pike at the moment. I had planned to fish the day after new years days a few days prior as it was giving good weather. I find myself constantly monitoring the local river and tributaries that run into it, the river was about 1.5 feet over its ideal level and running constant, in other words the river was running fast and the water had more colour than I prefer and the fish don't really like these conditions but this was going to be my last chance for a while. Our river is quite different from most, at its lower reaches it as width is as wide as both sides of the M6, throughout its catchment several smaller rivers and one big river run into it, it is also a feeder river to a very large canal. On most rivers when we have a deluge of rain the water level rises rapidly and then subsides slowly, this looks like a smooth wave on the environment agencies river levels graphs, it doesn't work like this on our river, the levels are constantly up and down but not by large amounts although saying that if the water was up by say 1' but take into account that the river is as wide as a motorway you can imagine how much extra water is pushing through. The river at its lowest reaches is also tidal but the stretches we fish are protected most of the time by a weir, occasionally, usually just a few times a year the tidal surge breaches the weir and today was one of them days.Anyway back to the session for

now.I packed light ready for another roving session as I wanted to try out some more swims I hadn't fished before. As usual I arrived just before first light, I grabbed my rucksack and sling and headed of to my starting swim. With the first baits in and light starting to break I poured a coffee and soaked up this glorious morning, lots of fish topping and small birds singing and darting about. I prefer to sit it out for an hour after first light in my starting swim, most of the fish I catch on the river seem to come with in the first hour of light then you randomly pick them off throughout the day. Half an hour into the session I had a take on the rod down stream, the fish picked up the bait headed up stream then dropped it, this kind of thing happens every now and again using paternoster rigs, the fish feels the resistance of the fixed lead and lets go of the bait. I sat it out till 9 am then moved on up stream trying each and every possible swim for the next few hours. I set up in a swim that had a nice thick over hanging bush that forced a slack in the down stream margin, the swim had good depth as well, it was 8' deep less than a rod length out.

With the baits in I set about making good a few damaged traces with a fag in my mouth and a coffee on stand by when i got a single beep, I quickly picked up the rod and felt for the fish before winding into it and the striking, I could tell instantly that it was a small fish but that didn't matter one bit to me, I had caught a fish against the odds, I took a few pics then let it go. Once the fish was back I clipped on a fresh trace and bait and cast back to roughly the same spot then set about re making the damaged traces (OCD) after 10 minutes or so making traces I noticed the water level had risen a fair bit, at first it didn't make sense because we hadn't had any rain for a good 8 hours in our region, it was then I though could this be a tidal surge. I had only heard of these anomalies but never seen one first hand, in fact exactly 4 weeks ago we fished 2 days after a surge in a swim we fish regularly and could see that the water had risen  that high that it engulfed the swim leaving silt and debris behind. I checked the moon phase first we was only 2 days past a new moon, this meant big tides, I then checked the tide times and more importantly heights at Liverpool docks, High tide was at 11.26 am and it was a big one, 9.9 mtrs. Under normal circumstances that tide would of run to the top of the weir 2 miles or so down from where I was fishing but not beached it but with the river already in flood it prevents the system from emptying properly hence the term tidal surge. Once I discovered the reason for the rise in water level I thought it best to add rear bank sticks, I only expected the water to rise by a foot or so, boy did I get that one wrong. I never for one second thought the water was going to rise so much, if I did I would off wrapped up straight away, I watched the levels rise and rise taking photos every few minutes and logging the times for future reference. When the water got level with the bottom of my reel it slowly turned and started to flow in its right direction and I initially thought to my self, few, that was close. I too got this wrong, even though the tide had turned so to speak the water level kept on rising, as I said earlier the flood water from the river had nowhere to go so even though the water was flowing back to sea it couldn't get there fast enough. The levels only started to drop about 18 minutes after the water turned and that was one hell of a relief  for me, I was sure my alarm would get engulfed in water and die. It was a long boring wait for the water to recede enough to retrieve my gear, 2 hours in fact but when I did I wrapped up quickly and moved on to a swim I had caught my PB in. I didn't have much time left  to fish, it would be dark in one and a half hours so I put two baits out and drank the last of my coffee. Although the water had gone

back to its same level prior to the surge the water was more coloured, I could only see about 4" into it were I could see about 1' earlier in the day, this knocked the confidence but I was determined to see the day out. I stood there watching the rod tips, I love watching the live baits working in the flow when one of them started to move out of character, I slowly lifted the rod to feel for a fish and felt a heavy tug, tug, bang, I hit the fish and it went bananas, thrashing about everywhere, when it came to the surface I could see that it was a low double and couldn't get the net beneath it quick enough. Unhooked weighed and photoed, and back to her home (11 lb 14 oz) that capped of the day nicely, I stuck it out for another 40 minutes wrapped up and went home with a smile on my face.