Ever changing pools

Any one who reads this blog will see that I'm constantly remarking on how the pools change year by year and with them, the lies. Looking in my diary there is absolutely no pattern of where the fish tend to lie. This is the 5th year i have fished one of the beats and it would appear that hot spots do not tend to be the same each year. Although certain pools and runs can be relatively predictable the location of the lies at the start of the season is anyones guess.

When you look at the river its no real surprise, a mixture of gravelly runs and deeper pools with an amount of sedimentation and a good scattering of large 'Mud' boulders. These tend fall in during the winter floods, or summer I the case of 2012. This leaves a rather interesting series of potential new lies as well as changing the flow dynamics in the pools and runs.

I didn't realise how much the river changed over a relatively short space of time so i had a look at google earth, you can look at the same image but in different years. One of the pools that apparently used to be very productive is no longer there although you can see where it used to be. Looking at the beat map you can see how it was some years back;

The pools on the map named Sulks and Gartons quickly dried up after the river made a break through the narrow bank leading up to the point. I found an image on google earth towards the end of this process. Unfortunately it only goes back this far but i imagine the breakthrough was only made 2 or 3 years previously.

The next shot is three years later and the new pool has been formed and the old course dried up completely leaving a nice reed bed and not much more to imply that that was the old river bed.

This last picture is pretty much the same ground as shown on the map, when you compare the two you can see how much the rest of the river has changed particularly to the right of the big corner pool. At least it keeps the fishing interesting and you never really know where your next fish will come fromThe big corner pool really needs a new name, will have to think of something apt before it changes again!