My monthly fishing diary...
Week 1
It is hard to believe I’m setting out on only my second chub session of the season, but floods and chub don’t really do it for me. I’ve been known to catch odd ones on lobworms, but why bother? Barbel are far more reliable on a rising river, providing the water temperature is favourable.
At last it would appear the monsoon has gone. We’ve now run into frosts and light snow flurries and levels are returning to normal. Last Tuesday I had some nice chub when there was ice in the margins, so today with the forecast predicting temperatures rising five degrees Celsius higher, my confidence was understandably high, especially as a rather bitter wind would keep most folk at home by the fireside.
Alas my first choice of swim was a no-go. It’s necessary to cast over to some snags and one look told me it would be impossible to hold unless the river was to drop another 18 inches. So it was on to my second choice, a long, gradual bend where the current is pushed towards the middle creating steadier water on the inside. Perfect.
I would adopt a mobile, stripped-down approach and spend half an hour or so in each likely looking spot – and there were plenty of those.
I had a couple of bait choices with me, coarsely liquidised bread for feed, flake, crust and blue cheese as hookbaits. There really is no need to complicate things any further. It really is about fishing for one bite at a time, casting accurately and concentrating.
Bites are rarely difficult to see, as a dance more often than not plays out before your eyes, beginning with tiny trembles followed by sharp taps and tugs before the tip hoops over savagely. You would imagine these bites to be impossible to miss, but they are not. Timing is everything. You must remain patient as sometimes a chub just plucks at your bait, holding it in the tips of its lips and the hook is never actually inside its mouth. Well, that’s my excuse anyway... and I’ve used it a lot!
Somehow I achieved an unbelievable 100% strike rate last time out and after working three spots with no signs of activity I had my first bite of the day – and connected. Hitting seven chub bites in a row on bread is like picking six winning numbers on the Lottery: possible, but ridiculous odds!
Still a cracking fish was quickly in the net and I could only admire how pristine it was. Despite the floods it had clearly been feeding heartily on something, but what? And where? It sure beats me.
Then came the point where I had to stand up and take a leak. You can guess what happened. Yes, the tip hooped round while I was otherwise engaged so my run of success came to an end.
Typical. And th
