With my birthday money, I picked up a Drennan 14ft Matchpro Ultralight float rod and was absolutely dying to test it out, along with the Clearwater floats I have been kindly given. I started on a deeper, slower stretch where I had spotted several roach to what I personally reckon are over 2lbs. Unfortunately though, there was still a lot of weed and presenting a bait was not particularly straight forward so I decided to move on downstream.
 |
| Lovely rod and my favourite Clearwater Float! |
After a few minutes walking I arrived and spotted a good shoal of roach. I fed some mashed bread upstream, and watched as I saw some nice roach taking bits as they crumpled off. After missing one bite, it wasn't long until I was into a fish. The rod was absolutely beautiful with a nice action in it and was feeling in very good contact with the fish. With the right tackle I've come to realise that roach are actually decent fighting fish. This was a lovely fish to christen the rod at around a pound or so in weight I would expect, what I would see as a quality roach. After a few more runs through, as the roach had backed off from this spot, I long trotted the breadflake and picked up a nice grayling coming onto a pound and a half. I moved swim and connected with a very nice roach shortly after feeding another nice pocket of fish. It gave another lovely scrap, flashing its beautiful silver bar as I gently guided it towards my waiting net. After putting this pretty roach on the scales it went 1lb 6oz, which is my second biggest of the river season and a nice result. After this, it was time to go, so I packed up and headed for home.
 |
| Can never knock a River Roach! |
A couple of days later after a kind invite from a good friend, Simon Daley, we headed to the Dorset Stour with a decent chub or two on our mind. After sorting out tickets etcetera, we headed to one of Simon's favourite chub swims with some cracking features for chub to dart and skulk around. After feeding for a good few minutes, catapulting maggots, Simon ran through and at the bottom of the run, he was into a chub straight away. After a few seconds the hook pulled out, but we were both not feeling disheartened as this was so early on in the day. After sorting out an appropriate float rig for the job for the shallow water on this particular swim, I ran through a few times before the float buried and was into a nice chub. The ultralight had a lovely forgiving action and despite the chub digging away on the end of the line, I managed to slow its run and slowly guide it to the waiting net. This was a nice solid fish of 4lbs or so which was a lovely result and was nice as the first chub on the new rod.
 |
| Nice way to put the new rod to some test! |
Simon and I continued to feed, and as I was watching Simon's float moving beautifully through the swim, I knew it his float was going to bury at any second and sure enough it did. After what seemed like a very enjoyable battle as I catapulted another dozen or so maggots, another quality chub was in the net. This fish was at least an upper 4 pounder, so another great result.
 |
| Another for Simon's impressive album! |
After one more hook pull and a few missed bites, the swim was suddenly dominated by minnows as the morning mist cleared. It was rather frustrating though as despite the chub were still coming in and out of the over-hanging tree, it was impossible to wade through the minnows. We decided therefore to venture downstream and try and find some 'virgin' fish.
It wasn't long until Simon spotted a lovely group of fish in the shallows downstream and in no time we had them going on our offerings of maggots. After patience of watching this nail-biting scenario of 5lb plus chub feeding on our maggots and eating a few snacks to try and make time go faster, I had my first run through. Continuing with the feeding pattern, on my third or so run through my float buried. I struck and felt another good chub digging on the end. "Get downstream of it mush" Simon urged, as I ran up the bank trying to keep in good contact. Unfortunately there must have been a weakness in my hook link and therefore it unfortunately parted. Much as I will beat myself up about it sitting on my desk now, it is easily done at the time. After giving the swim a few minutes to rest I fired some more maggots in and it was Simon's turn to run through. After a bit of steady feed and a few runs through, Simon's float buried followed by a firm strike. Not hesitating like me, Simon hurriedly ran down the bank and managed to guide the feisty chub out of the thick weed and after what seemed to be an enjoyable battle of the chub digging away on the end, another nice fish of 4lbs or so was in the net. What I enjoyed about this scenario was it was opportunist fishing and in difficult conditions like what we were met with, it is a very rewarding endeavour.
After going downstream where the next section seemed somewhat even weedier, after getting electrocuted a few times by the electric fence, and sorting out our gear we found a good point to wade in and fish this beautiful run. The sun also came out glistening beautifully on the river, and it certainly was enjoyable to run the float through and we managed a few nice chub between us. After doing some roving around and not finding many more 'trottable' runs, we moved on upstream. It was not long until we saw some big chub, some of which we both reckoned were over 6lbs! After feeding these fish for over 40 minutes they unfortunately disappeared to our sheer disappointment and disapproval as someone waded in on the opposite side right near where they were. We were very disappointed as we refrained from fishing for these fish for a while and it was sabotaged within seconds.
Not feeling disheartened we moved upstream and fished a weirpool where Simon had had some good chub action in the past. We decided, to begin with, to try and catch some perch on minnow livebaits. After catching a few, we let the minnows whirl about on the weir pool and it wasn't long until we started getting takes catching plenty of lovely conditioned little perch.
 |
| Pretty Little Perch |
Whilst I continued catching a few perch on the live baits, Simon decided to get to work with the maggot feeder. After baiting his swim up effectively, he was starting to get bites instantly from dace and managed many hooking themselves on his feeder rig. After doing lots of chopping and changing with bait variations using imitation and real maggots, his perseverance really showed when he hooked his first chub after battling through MANY dace. After a good fight, although it wasn't the biggest chub in the Stour, it was a very pretty chub, scale and fin perfect. After more dace, Simon's tip walloped round and he was into a much better fish. After getting upstream and guiding it out of the snags downstream, it unfortunately managed to find the concrete of the bridge upstream and cut Simon's hook link off which was certainly wounding for him in the circumstances. We fished into dark on the tip and after missing a couple of bites we decided to head for home as we were both getting tired from the roving about and the early start. Thanks for a great day Simon, look forward to sorting another trip soon!
Tight Lines,
Tom Aldous
No comments:
Post a Comment