River Trent, Notts
An in-depth guide to the best stillwaters, rivers, and canals that you can fish for the price of a day ticket
Alfie Naylor heads to the iconic waterway to show why he believes the chub fishing action is better than it’s ever been
IWAS discussing with a work colleague the other day about just how incredible the revival of the River Trent has been over the past decade or so.
Go back just 25 years and it was deemed to be ‘dead’ as a matchfishing venue following multiple dry nets and poor returns in a number of big events such as the 1998 Div 2 National. Since then, however, its rise from the ashes has been nothing short of remarkable.
As well as producing barbel close to the British record, triple-figure hauls of bream and bite-a-chuck action from hand-sized silverfish are now regularly reported, while come winter predator fishing fans have been filling their boots with big pike, perch and some truly huge zander.
During the conversation with my colleague I mentioned that chub appear to be the only species that aren’t booming, with catches seemingly quite thin on the ground.
Yes, the odd individual specimen or half-a-dozen in a match here or there has caught the eye, but reports of big hauls seemed, to me at least, to be few and far between. Was I missing something? A quick chat with River Trent expert Alfie Naylor soon changed my train of thought.
“Many of the matches on the Trent are staged on the wider stretches, where bankside cover is at a premium. It’s an environment where the chub don’t really feel that comfortable, but the narrower, feature-packed areas are far better-suited to the species,” explained Alfie.
“These days, a lot of specimen anglers on the river are focussed only on barbel, and when they catch a chub, they slip it back with little thought, unless of course it’s a giant!”
“But the Trent really is alive with chub if you head to the right parts, and I know just the spot to prove it, if you fancy joining me for a day, Tony?” he added.
It was an offer I simply couldn’t resist, and a date was quickly pencilled into the diary to meet up with Alfie and hopefully see the proof of the pudding.
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Alfie had several stretches in mind and finally settled on one that he claimed rarely fails to produce.
“Bob’s Island, in Newark, has the river running all around
