Leaf Fall: The Autumn Problem Nobody Warns You About

Nobody mentions leaf fall until you are standing on a riverbank picking sycamore leaves off your line for the fourth cast running. For two or three weeks every autumn it is genuinely the biggest practical obstacle to fishing, and it is worth planning around rather than being surprised by.

What actually happens

Two things, and they are different problems.

In the water column, leaves come downstream in suspension and catch on your line. On a river with a lot of overhanging trees, in a decent flow, after a windy night, you can find it almost impossible to keep a bait in place. Every few seconds another leaf loads up on the line and drags the lead out of position.

On the bottom, leaves accumulate in the slacks and settle into a soft mat. That changes presentation, and as they break down they use up oxygen, which changes where fish want to be.

Timing: it is short

The worst of it is usually a two to three week window, and it is triggered by the first hard frost and the first big wind. The exact timing shifts year to year and varies by region.

The important point is that it passes. If you have two dreadful sessions in late October where you could not keep a bait still, that is not the river being finished for the season. Give it a fortnight.

Fishing around it on rivers

Choose swims with open bank behind and upstream of you rather than a tunnel of trees. It sounds obvious and most people still fish their usual swim and suffer.

Fish closer in. Leaves travel in the main flow, and a bait tight to the near bank in slower water picks up far less debris.

Use a heavier lead than the flow strictly requires, so the extra drag of a leaf or two does not move it.

Consider a float instead. Trotting a bait through picks up much less rubbish than a static line lying across the current, and you are lifting and recasting constantly anyway.

Fishing around it on stillwaters

On lakes the water column problem barely exists but the bottom problem is worse, because leaves settle and stay.

Avoid the corners and margins where wind has piled leaves in. They will be a foot deep in some cases and your rig will sit inside them.

Use buoyant hookbaits over any area you suspect is leaf-covered. A pop-up or a wafter is the practical answer, same as with dying weed.

Lead about and feel the drop. Leaves give a soft, dull landing rather than a clean donk, and you will learn to recognise it quickly.

The oxygen point

Decomposing leaves consume oxygen. On a small, still, sheltered water with a lot of overhanging trees, a heavy leaf fall can genuinely lower oxygen levels in the affected areas for a while.

Fish avoid those areas. So the corner of the lake under the trees, which may have been productive all summer, can go completely dead in November for reasons that have nothing to do with your bait.

Move to open water, or to a bank with wind on it where the water is being oxygenated.

The small practical stuff

Check your line for nicks more often. Debris coming down at speed abrades line more than you would expect.

Clear the swim before you set up. Two minutes moving leaf litter off the area where you will kneel and lay a mat is worth it, because wet leaves are slippery and they hide what is underneath.

Watch your footing generally. A leaf-covered bank slope is one of the easiest ways to end up in the river.

The upside

Once the leaves are down, the bank opens up. Swims that were unreachable through the summer because of foliage become accessible, and you can see into water you have not been able to look at since March.

That is the point in the year to walk your stretch and take note of what is actually there. The fishing after leaf fall, from mid November onwards, is often excellent and far less crowded.