My friend Ollie Johnson has just launched a new company called 'Clearwater' and has brought out some very good quality, robust floats. He has also kindly given me some to try out and have tested them on my local river with my favourite float so far has been the wire stemmed avon style float which is perfect in the larger sizes for controlling a bait in a turbulent swim.
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| Nice visible tip for fishing at some distance |
On this particular session Ollie kindly invited me to one of his local bits of river and in the first swim he had located some nice chub up in the water skulking about, as well as some good specimen-sized roach gliding on the clean gravel run. We also noticed some nice dace about. The swim was a steady glide formed by a snag with a confluence coming in at the rear end. As Ollie was fishing at distance he chose one of the Clearwater Chubber Floats and opted to fish maggots on a size 18. After spraying maggots for a good 15-20 minutes Ollie casted out, but by this point we noticed some dark shapes emerging that were not there before which were some good-sized pike.
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| Trotting into the slack to begin with |
The roach, chub and dace were now nowhere to be seen, therefore Ollie wandered downstream, just below the crease and fished at some distance on a quite shallow, gravelly run and instantly was catching some nice dace. The float was standing out beautifully and you could clearly see that Ollie had good control due to its buoyancy. After giving it a good forty five minutes, Ollie managed a few more dace and grayling but the larger fish that were located had clearly cruised off and noticing some nice pike in the swim, Ollie kindly offered me a shot in catching one. As we were sorting out the gear, Andy Little, who is a good friend of Ollie's, came over and had a chat with us before he headed upstream to target some perch, which was certainly a nice surprise!
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| Hooked a dace! |
After catching a small dace livebait, I flicked it out into the crease on a paternoster, on Ollie's instruction, and waited. Within 10 minutes, if that, I saw a pike come and seize my bait. I didn't decide to give it too long and wound down to the fish, it was nice Jack pike but on one of the first head shakes he managed to slip the hook. Amazed by the instant action, and with a bait still on the hook, I made the same cast again. The second take came very quickly and this time I let the fish run a bit as it was only on a single treble trace.
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| About to wind down into the pike! |
After a few seconds as the fish moved to the back end of the crease to the shallow water, I wound down and was into a better fish. Although it wasn't fighting particularly hard it was a big dead weight and after pulling it through the weeds and seeing it emerge, it was certainly an upper double and at one final thrash by the net it managed to shake the hook out, I could not believe it. I was rather disappointed as this was certainly a much better fish and would have smashed my personal best river pike, but not feeling disheartened we got the float rod out to try and catch another livebait.
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| The one that got away! |
The first chuck resulted in a minnow which was certainly a good size for a perch livebait and certainly one we couldn't waste. After chucking the bait and letting it settle under the in the near bank slacker area, the float was gone in seconds and Ollie struck into a lovely little vividly coloured perch. Although the fish was not going to break any records, it gave a great little scrap.
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| Hooked a perch! |
After this Ollie had a phone call from Andy. He was telling us of a big pike (around mid-20) upstream which had been attacking the perch he'd been hooking. Without hesitating we headed straight up there! On arrival at the swim Ollie sticked on another small livebait, exactly where Andy had said the pike was attacking the perch he hooked. We were hoping the pike was going to make another appearance at some point but we were slightly unsure as it had certainly taken a fair few perch off Andy's line.
Whilst we waited for a take, Ollie got his float rod out again and attempted to catch some roach, but all that could tempted was large trout which not only caused a disturbance, but were much more obliging than the roach we were after, therefore probably driving them away. After watching Andy continuously bagging beautifully conditioned perch, Ollie and I opted to also give it a go and after catching a few livebaits we trotted them to likely looking areas and where we could see the perch and takes were instantaneous!
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| One of a number of quality perch for Andy |
The chubber floats were fantastic for this, as they are not dragged by the minnow livebait on the end so the takes would be easy to detect. Another advantage is that you could literally let the float control the livebait by casting out and letting the current sweep the bait wherever it would and the it would perfectly settle in the slacks on this particular swim where a number of perch are lurking and patrolling, leading to savage takes!
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| Beautiful vividly coloured perch for Ollie |
After a few more thoroughly enjoyable hours catching plenty of perch and having a nice social with both Andy and Ollie, we decided to head back to the swim where I had lost the pike. Unfortunately the bigger pike in this swim did not make an appearance but I'm sure that's one of a number of pike on this stretch which has either Ollie or Andy's name on it!
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| The light's starting to go, prime roach time! |
Ollie brought down his trotting gear and fished below me and managed a few nice quality little roach, dace and grayling, but the question was where had the bigger ones disappeared off to. After catching another livebait, I flicked the paternoster to the same place. After 15 minutes or so, I had another take where this time the pike sat on the bait, but after giving it a bit of time, I wound down and struck into another nice fish which certainly gave me quite a battle - managing to successfully weed me a couple of times and shake its head like mad when it came towards the bank, we thankfully managed to get the this one in the back of the net. Although it wasn't massive, it was a nice result as I had managed to lose quite a few, and the markings were absolutely stunning on this fish.
After a quick photograph and release it wasn't long until another livebait was caught which I quickly hooked up as a last ditch effort, and flicked it back into the same spot - this one was on the money. The float absolutely sailed away instantly. I gave the fish a few moments to spin the bait in its mouth and run with it, then I wound down and set the hook. This fish stayed nice and deep and taking it steady I slowly guided it to the bank, by which time the fish had really woken up and starting thrashing in the shallows and charging off at speed tearing line off the reel. Hoping the hook would stay proud, I gave the fish some stick and Ollie kindly netted it for me. A quick unhooking was to follow and it weighed in at just a double at 10lbs on the nose - not massive for many's books, but my second river double which I was really made up about. It was also in good shape and again, had stunning colouration.
By the time I got the fish back, I realised it was time to pack up as my mum had arrived, but it was a fantastic session and a big thanks goes to Ollie for taking me to the stretch and showing me a spot with a few nice pike lurking about!
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Tight Lines,
Tom Aldous
