For many years It's been a tradition of mine to go fishing on the first day of the new year, so seeing as I'd been doing well on the river I thought I'd see if I could catch myself a Chub or two to bring in the new 'angling' year.
It was a frosty start and there was a good two foot of extra water in the river and plenty of colour, the level was dropping as there were sheets of ice in the field where the level had been up to so I was hoping that the fish might be up for a feed. I walked to the furthest point I'd planned to go and started with a feeder of groundbait and chunk of bread flake on the edge of the main flow, I put a second rod out, again with bread flake and only a couple of swan shot to just hold bottom, I allowed it to trundle around and find it's own spot in front of the reeds hopefully where the Chub would be. After an hour it was time for a move as nothing was biting at this swim, the next spot was somewhere I'd caught from earlier in the week so I had to give it a try, then some visitors arrived.
After a quick social with Merv and Phil who were exploring this stretch of river, I got back to the job at hand which was to catch a Chub and it was several moves back up the river before I finally bagged one.
I'd done well on this last swim just before Christmas bagging three Chub from this one spot. About two thirds of the way across the river is a line of bull rush roots with a nice glide between them and the far bank, the pace was a little slower than the main flow so I put the feeder over to the far bank and allowed it to drop into the channel and settle, a nice bend was pulled into the quiver tip, after a few minutes of watching the tip nod and tap from the remains of the bull rush stems knocking the line there was a single sharp tug on the tip before everything fell slack as the feeder pulled free of it's grip on the bottom. I reeled down and struck into a Chub which gave a reasonable scrap as it tried to bury itself into the bull rush roots but with some steady pressure I coaxed it across the flow and into the waiting net.
It was a frosty start and there was a good two foot of extra water in the river and plenty of colour, the level was dropping as there were sheets of ice in the field where the level had been up to so I was hoping that the fish might be up for a feed. I walked to the furthest point I'd planned to go and started with a feeder of groundbait and chunk of bread flake on the edge of the main flow, I put a second rod out, again with bread flake and only a couple of swan shot to just hold bottom, I allowed it to trundle around and find it's own spot in front of the reeds hopefully where the Chub would be. After an hour it was time for a move as nothing was biting at this swim, the next spot was somewhere I'd caught from earlier in the week so I had to give it a try, then some visitors arrived.
After a quick social with Merv and Phil who were exploring this stretch of river, I got back to the job at hand which was to catch a Chub and it was several moves back up the river before I finally bagged one.
I'd done well on this last swim just before Christmas bagging three Chub from this one spot. About two thirds of the way across the river is a line of bull rush roots with a nice glide between them and the far bank, the pace was a little slower than the main flow so I put the feeder over to the far bank and allowed it to drop into the channel and settle, a nice bend was pulled into the quiver tip, after a few minutes of watching the tip nod and tap from the remains of the bull rush stems knocking the line there was a single sharp tug on the tip before everything fell slack as the feeder pulled free of it's grip on the bottom. I reeled down and struck into a Chub which gave a reasonable scrap as it tried to bury itself into the bull rush roots but with some steady pressure I coaxed it across the flow and into the waiting net.
With this swim now disturbed I moved onto the next with the hope of bagging one more Chub but with the temperature dropping and my landing net frozen from the frost it was time to call it a day.
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