New venue

Yesterday I managed a few hours on a new water with the aim of tempting a pike or a chub. I arrived at around 11ish and planned to fish until around 1600hrs, the river was carrying a bit more water than I was expecting and was slightly coloured.


Lovely stretch of river.

I headed off upstream and walked the full stretch with the aim of fishing likely areas on the way back. For the pike I was using my standard running ledger rig swapping between lamprey and smelt on the trebles and on the chub rod I was alternating between a maggot feeder and a small cage feeder with liquidised bread and cheese paste.

I spent around 15/20 minutes in each area before moving to the next, after my first move I started getting bites on the maggot feeder, initially I thought they were minnows but as I was using a size 10 hook and 6 maggots I just ignored them. After a couple of minutes I had a more positive bite, which I thought I had missed but it turned out to be a bull head. I haven't seen a bull head for around 15 years so it was a bit of a surprise, especially as it was caught on such a large hook.


Bullhead - eyes bigger than its belly.

On my next move upstream I had a positive take, again on the maggot feeder. I was hoping that it was a chub but it turned out to be a trout of around a pound or so. The trout gave a strong fight for its size and it was safely returned.

A surprise trout, unsure if its a brown or sea variant.

The rest of the session past quickly without any other bites or takes, the river seemed to lose its colour throughout the session and checking the river levels today it seems like I went a day early. I will be returning to this stretch before the season ends as the chub go to around the 5/6lb mark and the pike can push 20lb.