More chub and first barbel of the season.

The rain has been falling steadily during the whole of June and I expect it to be the wettest on record certainly for the south east. Here in the southwest things have not been so bad we have missed most of the thunder and storms.

I have fished a couple more times down on the H.Avon. The first time back after the 6lbs 15oz chub had me scratching my head as there didn’t seem to be any chub in residence even after baiting up with hemp and maggots. So I moved to another stretch where I fancied there would be a few.

The river was still stained with a brown tinge from the forest so sight fishing was still difficult.

Sure enough there were chub in the swim plus another angler so I passed the time of day with Andy for a while then headed back up river for a go for some other chub.

I baited with hemp and pellets and it wasn’t long before the chub were feeding very hard on the baited area. Again I can catch a few of them however after a while they become very shy again. The 3 of them were not huge and the largest one must have been over 4.5lbs.

It was early afternoon as I made my way downstream again. Andy had left so I settled into the swim. I don’r normally like to fish behind another angler however last year saw a very large chub in the swim. I could only dream that it might be there as the visibility was not good enough for spotting fish.

Out went some hemp and pellet into some shallow water where if fish came to the bait then I would see them. Sure enough after 30 mins or so I could make out some chub and the odd barbel come onto the shallows. After they moved out from the baited area I cast in. After what seemed no time at all the rod pulled around and a chub was on. Not a huge fish but one of 4lbs or so. Then I had one much smaller almost as soon as the bait entered the river.

Then it went quiet as per normal. I could still see the odd fish come into the swim though and feed. After another hour or more the rod was off again this time with a much bigger fish. My first thoughts were barbel, then a silver flank showed and I thought I may have the monster. Alas after a very short while the fish was in the net and guess what it wasn’t the monster after all. On the scales though it went 5lbs 9oz, and thanks to Mike downstream he too the photo for me.

Nothing much turned up so at about 8pm I headed home.

The following session I was to pick up my mate Andy (you should have been here yesterday) Cowley. We were in no hurry to get down to the Avon so I picked him up at 7.30 and we headed off down the Wylye and H.Avon valley’s to our stretch of river. There had been some rain over the previous day. Tell me a day it didn’t rain in June!!!

We arrived and then Andy made a school boy error! He left his landing net at home, well in his car!

So we needed to fish close to each other just in case Andy needed a net for a monster fish. We were only fishing about 100 yds apart so close enough for a shout or a phone call.

I decided to return to the swim where the monster chub was supposed to be and Andy fished one of his favorite swims for chub. I had also seen some huge barbel there last year.

So the normal baiting regime was carried out hemp and pellets. I was using two rods on this occasion as I wanted one rod a little further down in the swim. It wasn’t long before the upper rod was away and I was playing a good chub by the feel of things. I landed it and then thought I recognised it was the same fish from the previous visit. Sure enough on the scales it went 5lbs 8oz and was 1oz lighter. I was just about to return the fish when the other downstream rod registered a savage take. I was quickly on the rod and playing something much bigger than the chub. The rods were onlt 1.5lb t/c and 10lb line so I didn’t give it too much stick. The fight was very enthralling with line being taken and retrieved. It was clearly a barbel on the other end, but how big.

It couldn’t be a large one as I had it under control quickly and soon in the net. These H.Avon barbel are beautiful in colour,  bronze and creamy under the belly.

I quickly sacked it up and walked quickly to Andy to tell him the story of the two fish. He couldn’t believe how quickly I had managed to catch and land these. He did the honors with the photo’s and very good they were too.

Things went quiet and although I had a few chub pulls I connected with zero. I decided to venture up to the car to get some lunch which takes all of 20 mins.

When I returned Andy had caught a 4lbs 14oz chub and lost a monster. He tried to grab the monster chub (over 6lbs) but it slipped out of his hands and got away. Not only this but he caught a pike on his lure fishing tackle. So he was pretty much disappointed and I was for him too. With all of this we decided at 2pm to move to another stretch of the river and one we had not fished before. So off we went and found our required parking space and trotted off down to the river. Well not trotted off but heavily laden with tackle it was more of a trudge.

The new stretch looked interesting and we walked for a mile or so looking at swims and fish. Not that we could see any fish but the swims looked great.

On returning to our spot I suggested to Andy I put some bait in a couple of swims to see what happens. One spot was close to an island the other was slightly upstream in a deeper hole which screamed out chub. You could just make out the bottom on both these swims. Andy fancied a deeper area just below the island where he saw an angler land 6lb+ chub and a 12lb + barbel. It all sounded good to me!!

It was the normal hemp and pellet approach.

So after 30 mins or so I took a look at the swims I had baited and sure enough by the island there were some chub feeding on the bait. Then the upper swim also had a couple of small chub feeding. I spooked these when looking over the high grass.

Andy came up to fish for the island fish. They were not very responsive for sure and seemed to be wary to come out from under the willow branches. I dropped a bait into the area where I saw the small chub and returned to Andy. I couldn’t see the chub in there so wasn’t sure I would get a bite.

It took about 10 mins before my rod was buckling in the rest and giving line on the free spool facility. I was soon on the rod and playing a chub by the look of things. It fought well but all too soon was in the net. I unhooked it weighed it and took a very quick photo and returned it to the river. However it didn’t look too good as the fish struggled to stay upright, and it looked poorly in the net. I cradled it in the flow for a 10 mins and was thinking that it was gone. However after another 5 mins it was upright and looking better. It was a right old scruffy chub for sure.

I moved it down to another slack area where it completely recovered thank goodness.

Andy struggled to get a bite from the island swim and moved back downstream again and caught a 4lb chub first cast. Excellent!

All too soon it was time to head home again. So a first barbel and a reasonable chub for me and heart ache for Andy. Next time Andy fish the same swim and catch that chub and see how big it was.

Fish and chips on the way home plus a swift pint in a fantastic pub made it a very enjoyable day indeed.