One of those days

This morning I headed to a new stretch of river with the aim of tempting a decent chub to test my new rod. This stretch of river isn't known for being very prolific, but the chub tend to average around 4lb and can reach up to 6lb at the right time of year. The river level seemed spot on and the weather was favourable with plenty of cloud cover.

I spent the first hour walking the banks finding a few suitable swims, before settling for an area with a crease around a rod length out, running parallel to the near bank. I fed hemp and maggots whilst setting up and shortly after 0600hrs I had my first cast. It took around 45 minutes of steady feeding to get a first bite, I hooked into what seemed like a reasonable fish but after my initial optimism it turned out to be a trout.

A beautifully marked trout which was safely returned

Despite continuous feeding I couldn't buy another bite from the swim so after an hour I moved to an area of deeper/faster water. I changed the float to a 'chubber' style effort which was more suited to this pacier water. The feed was kept the same as the previous swim and again I was struggling, no bites, not even from minnows. After 2 hours in this swim I had caught a tiny minnow sized chub so I moved further downstream to an area of similar depth but a lot less flow.

The third unsuccessful peg of the day

I decided to scale my tackle down to the lightest I had with me, 3.3lb mainline, 2.6lb hook length and a size 20 hook. I fed the swim with caster and hemp for around 20 minutes before casting. The first trot down with caster on the hook and the float buried, a minnow! The next cast resulted in a similar bite which was from a chub smaller than the minnow. The next 40 minutes went by without a bite so I called it a day before lunch. Even though conditions seemed spot on I had a feeling I was going to struggle, one of those days when nothing really goes wrong, but nothing seems to go as planned either.

On my journey home I took a detour to my syndicate water to see if anyone was fishing, which they weren't. I had a bit of a walk around and raked the weed from some pegs in case I can get on there later in the week for an eel session.

Wormery

Last summer I set up a small wormery in one of those purpose built bins, however after some initial success all the worms had died after a couple of months. I most probably put too much kitchen waste in and everything went mouldy. I had about a 1/4 kilo of dendras left from my last eel outing so I set it up again, hopefully I'll have more success this time around.

Looking ok after a week

A social session

Yesterday I spent the day on a river with the members of a local forum - Teesside Angling. We arranged to meet up at around 7am but I struggled to sleep so I decided to get up early and get an hours lure fishing in on a water close to the river.

The water is choked with weed so I was using weedless frog lures on the surface. I was expecting plenty of action but the pike seemed fairly inactive and although plenty of fish were topping I didn't see any pike strikes. After 20 minutes I had a take but it was off after a few seconds, another 10 minutes later and I had another take which again quickly freed itself, both times the lure was taken very close to the marginal reeds. The takes were half hearted unlike the usual takes I have been getting with these lures, the pike have been launching themselves at the lure, I was hoping that this start wasn't the sign of things to come.

My first gudgeon in 15 years

I met up with the lads and picked an area with a bit of depth and plenty of overhanging bushes which screamed chub. I heavily baited an area with boilies and a mix of pellet and used my heavier rod with a running lead and a hair rigged bait over the top.

I used a basic blockend feeder on my lighter rod with a caster/maggot mix aiming to pick up whatever came along. It took around half an hour for bites on the feeder to materialise and the first fish caught was a gudgeon, then a small dace and another gudgeon soon followed.

A lucky escap

A positive take on the feeder and a better fish was on, I thought it was a chub but as I got it closer to the net I saw it was a small pike. The fish was going to be netted the pike bit through the hooklength. After that I went for a bit of a wander and had a chat with the other lads and it seemed that no one had caught anything of note.

After an hour or so I rebaited my heavy line with 6 baitdroppers worth of hemp and pellet and carried on fishing the feeder. I had a couple of small dace and was considering setting up the stickfloat rod but then the tip went round and I struck into a better fish. The fish was giving a good account of itself and I was having to put a lot of pressure on to keep it out of the snags, I had the net ready and I could see the fish was a chub of about 3 - 4 pounds. I was drawing the chub towards the net when it made an attempt to get to the tree roots on the near bank, it succeeded and managed to break the hooklink on the roots! I quickly retied a hooklength, cast into a similar area within 30 seconds the rod was off again and I struck into what seemed to be a similar fish to the last. The fish took me into a mid-river snag and the line went solid, I allowed the line to slacken hoping the fish would swim out but it wasn't to be and the fish was off. Two decent fish lost within 5 minutes!

After losing the second fish I went for another walk to see if anyone had caught anything decent, which they hadn't. At around 6ish I baited the heavy line again ( during which I lost my baitdropper in a bush), I then gave the swim a rest for an hour. After another chat with the lads I had my final cast and I sat it out until 1030pm without a touch on the heavy rod. After checking this morning the two lads that stayed on until midnight didn't get anything either. Between the 7 of us fishing we failed to land either a barbel or chub although the water was a little low, the river had a bit of colour in and it was overcast for long periods so I'm surprised we didn't catch. I ended up with 5 dace to 6oz, 4 gudgeon and 2 perch, fishing wise the day was a bit of a disaster but it was good to put names to faces and I'll be definitely be attending the next 'forum fish in'.

Difficult stick session but a first grayling

I spent most of today fishing a new stretch of my usual river, the first hour or so was spent walking the banks, finding a few areas to fish and trying to spot a few fish. I found a few areas that I will be trying out over the next few weeks but didn't manage to spot any fish.

A beautiful place to spend a morning

I decided to fish the stick on a section that seemed to have a bit of depth and a bit of colour, things started well I had a grayling on my second cast then a perch on the next. The grayling was around 3oz and was the first time I had seen a grayling on the bank, unfortunately I couldn't get a photo as it flipped back into the river before I got my phone out. I quickly added a few dace and small chub to the net but then bites dried up.

The river was clearing and dropping quickly and after the first hour it had dropped a good 6 inches, I struggled in the changed conditions especially when the sun came out. The small chub and dace were very obliging almost to the point of becoming a nuisance as they were only an ounce or two. A small jack pike caused havoc in my swim for a while and helped itself to a few small dace.

The river seemed very low and each time the wind dropped or the sun broke from the clouds the bites would stop. This continued until early afternoon, I then spent an hour on the feeder and straight lead hoping to tempt a chub but I didn't get on touch on either rod. The last hour was spent heavily feeding the stick float line, the dace returned, I then had 3 more perch to around 10 oz on consecutive casts and a few more small chub before I had to call it a day and rush home for the school run !

Best of the bunch, the biggest went 10oz or so

After the grayling I was hoping for a few more, but I will be spending some time further upstream targeting these this winter. Although today's session wasn't the most productive, it was nice being out surrounded by the wildlife, the kingfishers were very active, a female goosander was teaching her offspring to catch fish and I caught a brief glimpse of an otter messing in the margins.