By Joe Mole

June the sixteenth is always an exciting time for freshwater anglers, as the river opens up after the breeding season has finished. With the thought of ticking off some new species for the year, having the day off from work and the sun shining, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to go and wet a line. 

Chub were on my mind, only being a new species I had caught the year before, so I went back to the spot I had caught them before, and started throwing some small top water lures but to no avail. I walked down to where I was casting to investigate, and found quite a large shoal of small chub, that at that time were not going to take anything from the surface. I switched to a small jig head and attached a Magbite Bootyshake that quickly made all the difference, whilst keeping the lure close to the bottom with the occasional lift. This had the chub tussling and chasing each other to make it to this small meal first, and within a couple minutes I was landing my first chub of the season. Having played around in that section for a while and landing a few more, I tried some of the deeper, more tidal influenced water. This was where I knew some good sized bass hide in the fallen branches of long dead trees, but this turned out to be an unsuccessful choice, as I couldn’t find any new targets. 

A change of plans meant going upstream to stalk mullet, but the debris in the water made that pretty much impossible. Feeling slightly defeated by my lack of species and action, I was desperately trying to think where else on this section of tidal river I would have a chance of catching any species of fish, be that mullet, chub, bass, perch or trout. I knew I had two more sections where I had previously had a good amount of fish the year before, so I made my way past the herd of curious young cows that always seem to love investigating a fisherman and pulled myself through the thick mud and silt. 

I made it to a part that has an extremely shallow stone bed that raises itself into a beach with two deeper channels running either side of it. Knowing that I had my chub whilst fishing pretty tight to the deck, I selected a Jungle Gym Carousel jighead in 1.5 grams that I also attached a split-shot to, just to get it on the bed quicker. A one inch section of glow orange Isome was my choice of lure, hoping to imitate an earthworm and cover a few potential species with this approach. A few casts in and it seemed like I had picked the wrong section or even the wrong day to go fishing. 

Covering all areas, I cast out into the slightly deeper section of river and kept my lure as tight to the bottom as I could, in the hope of anything snuffling around. Suddenly I felt an extremely strange pull followed by a writhing splash in the water, this elongated mottled brown tentacle whipped out of the water, taking line very quickly and using the current and spinning itself. It was a good fight and somewhat nerve wracking as I wondered what I had hooked into, as I’m more of a sea fisherman than I am fresh. As I pulled this mystery creature in and lifted its head out of the water, I saw what I can only describe as something out of a horror sci-fi film – a circular mouth with row upon row of orangery yellow fangs. 

I netted then beast, but kept it in the water, and that’s when I realised I had hooked into a sea lamprey. This ancient creature was like nothing else I had ever caught, it was firing water out of its primitive gill holes, making loud squelching sounds from the rolls that run down the first half of its body. Its mouth was opening and closing showing off those terrifying looking jaws, and behind them were the circular saw shaped teeth that these fish use to scrape away at a fish’s body to get the blood to flow. It did make me shudder at one point as this very primal creature was something you would normally see in a nightmare. 

I took a couple of photos of this rare encounter and, using forceps, I removed the jig head, as I could imagine only a mad man would want to get their fingers anywhere near nature’s blender. I let it recover in my net for a few moments and then released it back into the swim it had come from. Adrenaline pumping, I messaged my fellow Lerfers, Ben and Rich to show them the creature I had just had contact with to their impressed and somewhat disgusted surprise. 

I took some time to steel myself, have a drink and look at the photos I had taken so I could look at what I had just caught. I sorted out my lure and fished a few feet further up and it was back to business of not finding the chub or bass. Then, when I was dragging the lure back in with the slow retrieve, I felt something that I had not long felt a few minutes earlier and realised I had hooked another sea lamprey. The writhing and spinning were instant and aggressive. I got this one in quicker and didn’t net it as I quickly released it straight back into the river, only lifting its head out the water so I could remove the hook.

Wondering what was going on out there, I waded out to where all of a sudden, the green algae covered rocks were white and cleaner looking, arranged in these large circles that were each a couple of feet around. Then I saw them, many pairs of sea lampreys moving rocks with their suction cup mouths and frantically releasing eggs and sperm into the water. Knowing these were a protected species and discovering I had found where they were actively breeding, I quickly left that area so they could go about creating the next generation of fish. This may also explain the lack of other fish from this section, as watching them pick up rocks that were almost double the size of my fist with ease and placing them around the craters they were making, would be enough to make me not want to be in grabbing/moving range. 

This is the reason that I believe I caught them, as they are not feeding at all at this time and only have reproduction on their minds, but with seeing how much they were perfecting these small craters, I think my jig head and Isome combo was not what they wanted decorating it so it was quickly moved out of the situation, therefore leading to me hooking them.

Moving myself a very, very long distance upstream, I found a large group of slightly better sized chub that kept me busy and made for some pleasant fishing. That was then halted when, looking through the waters with my polarised sunglasses, I noticed some more lamprey, so immediately stopped fishing the deeper section.  I finished by fishing at my feet for bullheads that I unfortunately couldn’t connect to.

What was also really interesting was the vast amount of micro flounder, that were all along the river edges. It’s crazy to think that almost 7 miles away from the sea, in a river, the majority of the fish I saw that day were saltwater species and just shows how much those lines are blurred.

It was a day I don’t think I’ll ever forget, seeing some stuff a lot of people don’t get to see or aren’t even aware that is even happening, just beneath the surface.