A Productive Few Hours with an Old Classic

After my success last week, I decided to head back down to my favourite little chub river to see if I could nick another chub out. My dad kindly agreed to drive me up for a few hours of roving, thus I hoped that the chub would be forthcoming. I arrived at a river, which was a lot lower and clearer than the previous week. My heart sunk at this point as it looked like it could be so much harder to induce a take on this certain section. My choice of bait was lobworms, bread and I even brought a couple of sticks of spicy peperami with me, just in case the crayfish were more active and a tougher bait was needed - this has proved also to be a bait which has been kind to me with carp on stillwaters in the past.

I fished a few banker swims and was not feeling as confident as I was on the previous week. With no taps, apart from what I thought were crayfish enquiries, it did not look like it was going to happen on this section. Without letting my pessimistic feelings get the better of me, I baited a couple of the deeper holes and it took until the final swim before I received a bite. I had a couple of vicious taps and as the tip was pulling round, I struck. Momentarily, I was into a nice fish which felt like it was staying deep and pulling back a little. Before I could even come close to a conclusion as to what it could be the hook pulled. I was pretty devastated as I know how hard this section is in low and clear conditions. I was also kicking myself for striking earlier than I normally would. Unfortunately there were no other forthcoming customers from that moment on. Henceforth, I found myself in a deep state of contemplation on all the trips I had done along these sections of river. My final decision was to head upstream to a swim I knew was a good holding area for some chub.

I arrived at the swim and could make out all the features, including a nasty looking snag where I was thinking of casting to. I stuck with my bog standard link leger approach which I had been using for the morning. It was now coming onto lunchtime and I was really hoping a fish or two would be on the cards. My first choice of hookbait was a good old faithful piece of breadflake. I watched the bait trundle towards the bush enticingly as it settled gracefully on the bottom. I had a good feeling with this cast and with the pace of the river I knew something was likely to home in on it. As I put the rod on the rest, feeling at this point that it had to happen, I had a violent bang on the tip. After a couple more 'bangs' the tip pulled round positively. I struck into a good fish. I played it carefully as I was very near to a snag and after some very strong dives towards the cover, I kept the tip low and eventually guided this determined chub to the net. It was a relief as I felt that time was really slipping away, with this saving the blank significantly. 

A Stunning and very welcome 4 pounder!

At 4lb on the nose I was rather happy to have had my best fish from this particular swim and area. With the time at just past 2 o'clock, I felt it called for a spot of lunch. I had started to notice that were some nice carp cruising around the swim, therefore I reached into my bag and sacrificed a small chunk of my peperami, before I demolished it for myself. I flicked the bait further downstream and opted to fish this in a more static fashion. At this point I had started on my Coronation Chicken sandwich (courtesy of Waitrose) and just as I started to daze looking at the tip, in this beautiful piece of British countryside, the tip sprung aggressively before pulling round with ferocity. I lifted into a good fish which took off downstream instantly. I knew at this point that this was no chub, as the fish started to rip line off the tiny spool of my Rarenium reel. It was at this point, I had the drag set nicely and I was starting to catch up with the fish as it charged its way upstream. I was getting rather nervous when the fish charged towards a nasty buildup of debris in the swim, consisting of some horrible looking twigs and roots, but thankfully I managed to keep the rod low and turn the fish's head with my 6lb mono at full stretch. It was then the fish swirled on the surface and I saw the flank of a carp come up, as the fish dived its way back down and made a run for the overhanging tree I originally hooked it from. After some nerve wracking final lunges and insane little runs, the turbo-charged little common started to tire, before safely being netted.

Only a little carp, but a lovely bonus on such a short trip (6-6)

I quickly got a few pictures, before releasing the lovely little carp back into the river. It was now time to pack up, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable few hours fishing. This topped off last week's session very well, and I was rather overwhelmed to have connected and landed another carp on this particular little waterway. With time running low now before the end of the season, I think I may fish some scaled up tactics along these swims to see if I can trip up another one of these carp, or even better an elusive bigger chub for the waterway.

Tight Lines,

Tom