I arrived at the river bright and early and opted to spend a light-hearted day fishing for chub on, again, good old faithful bread. The small Thames tributary I fish has various sections, some with more sparser stocks than others, therefore I opted to rove in search of a few bites. I used my bog-standard roving tactic with a little cage feeder with a nice big hook to present a nice fluffy piece of breadflake. The first swim was a nice run with the near bank having decent depth where I flicked my feeder in the margin and mid-flow to cover some bases. It was not long until I received a few taps on the quivertip before having a much better bite which resulted in a nice little chublet to start the day off. I persisted on the run and was rewarded with this lovely looking chub.
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| Lovely start to the day! |
After pulling out of a good fish, this swim went dead which meant it was time to make a move. I roved further downstream and managed another nice looking chub round the 3lb mark from a couple of banker swims, as well as a few more chublets. I then arrived at one of the sections downstream which I know holds some good fish, and with the river carrying extra water and some colour, I knew it was worth a shot. This section is slow and steady and I had a few swims in mind where I saw decent chub in the summer months. I arrived at a swim with many snags upstream which are perfect cover for chub. This particular swim, I saw some good-sized chub skulking around in the summer and knew with the extra water and colour, I was in for a chance of a bite. I flicked the bait upstream into a little gap between the branches of the overhanging tree and had my eyes glued to the rod tip as I knew I was in for a chance of a take. As expected, the response was almost instant and the tip started to bounce aggressively. I struck confidently and was into a good weighted fish which was staying deep and digging away towards the snags in true chub fashion. I saw a good swirl as I started to get the culprit's head up before it dived down again going towards the snags downstream. After cupping the spool, she came up and the way it wallowed on the surface indicated to me that it was a good fish. A huge flank came up and I saw the hook just nicked in the lip as I safely landed her.
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| Small river chunk! |
On closer inspection, as I recognised certain features and marks of this fish, this fish was the fish I had back in Summer at 6-1 on the second day of the season. She was so much more empty this time as you can see at the picture, but at 5-10, it was still a monstrous fish for the waterway I was fishing!
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| Look at the gob on her! |
All in all a great day...
Tight Lines,
Tom
That big Chevin is a cracking fish, great shot too, a six in the offing Tom?
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading mate and she is a stunning chev and as we know she has done the magic 6!
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