A nice river double and a quick catch up

I've had a few outings since my last update but these have been a struggle due to the river conditions, I'll mention these later in this post as they weren't very eventful.

Yesterday I finally managed to get on the bank while conditions were favourable, although there was a little extra water it was fining down nicely. I took a rod for the chub and the pike to give me the best chance of getting something on the bank. Things started slowly for me, no interest from either species , after a couple of missed bites Mick landed a nice chub of 3.07lb.

I tried bread, cheese paste, garlic spam and steak but couldn't get any interest from the chub. After a couple of uneventful moves I tried an area downstream of Mick and dropped half a sardine in the margin while I baited an area with liquidised bread for the chub. Ten minutes later and the pike rod started nodding, I unclipped the backbiter took up the slack and struck a decent fish was on. The pike fought very hard for a mid-winter pike, more like a late summer pike, minus the tail walking. I thought the pike was going to be a good mid-double but the avons settled at 11lb 3oz's.

Fought like a bigger fish, but it's hard to be disappointed when they look like this

We fished on for a further hour, no other fish were landed. I had a decent bite on a hair rigged piece of steak but I was waiting for the wraparound that never came and didn't strike.

Previous sessions

13th Jan - I fished a different river than my usual, on a stretch that I haven't had a lot of success. Conditions were awful, very low temps and high winds the river was also up, I had a rod for both the chub and pike. The only interest coming to the chub rod, but I didn't see the bite properly due the high wind, a chub of around 4lb shed the hook as I got it to the surface, the lamprey was well chewed.

The ejected lamprey

15th Jan - I headed to a stretch of my local river, a lot of water had gone in upstream but I was hoping to get a few hours after the chub before the water reached the stretch I was fishing, however I got the timing wrong and the river was rising fast. The river rose about 2ft in the hour I was on the bank and showed no signs of slowing the highlight of the morning was an otter that was running in the shallow margins. The otter was completely unaware of  my presence until it got to about 4ft away from me, a quick about turn and it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

20th Jan - Fishing with Mick we headed to the same river in fished on the 13th but to a stretch much further downstream. Again I took chub and pike gear to keep my options open, the river had some snow melt in but Mick had a nice 4.01lb chub on the bank on his first cast so I was hoping we would have a decent day. It was a struggle no positive bites on the chub rod, nothing on the pike rod. I decided to reposition the pike bait (a large sardine) and as I was slowly retrieving the bait a small jack  shot out from under my feet and hit the bait. I landed the jack which was probably only twice the size of the bait, no other bites/takes for either of us so we recce'd a few areas for future sessions.

A small jack and Mick's 4lber

22nd Jan - A short lure session, my first in a while, nothing to report a definite blank.

Planned sessions

If the weather forecasts are anything to go by it's going to be hard to stick to any plans over the next week or so, but I might try and get out for a couple of hours tomorrow species undecided and will depend on river conditions. Currently Tuesdays are the easiest day for me to be on the bank and next Tuesday will see me targeting chub, grayling, pike or perch on my local river. If the river is in flood I'll probably head to one of my stillwaters to target the pike, but I'm hoping that the rivers are fishable....