12th and 13th 6lb plus chub for the season. First 7lb H.Avon float fish chub!

I was soon heading down to Hampshire back on the Avon familiar territory. I expected to find the river still up a little as a few days earlier it had been in the fields. Not so the river had returned to it’s normal low October height. I decided it was time try out maggots on the float to see if I could get a fish or so. I started in one swim where luckily there were no minnows, however there didn’t see any interest from chub either. I fished hard but couldn’t buy a bite. I wandered off to look at another swim where there are 20 chub I should think. Sure enough they were there but with the low flow and clarity of the river. They would take every maggot other the one on the hook. I could have changed to a lighter hooklink of 3lbs or so. However I was fishing close to willow branches and it would have been difficult in keeping them out of these.

I wandered back down to the previous swim admiring a new star of the valley. A stork had arrived and had been present for a week or so. My goodness they are huge birds. I could get within 70yds or so before it would spook and fly off. There were a huge number of twitchers present admiring this unique visitor.

Well I fished the original swim for the remaining 1.5 hrs. I claimed one bite and a small chub of about 1lb 8oz. Still no blanking.

The next day I had about 2.5hrs of fishing in a swim I hadn’t fished this year. With the low flow I knew the chub would be present close to the willow branches as there was little weed in the area. Trotting maggots was going to be the method. I always use a heavy float as I’m continually mending the line to allow the float to travel down unhindered. It wasn’t long before I had the first chub of the session, a small little one of about 1.5 lbs. Then I struggled for bites and I went down to 3.6lb hooklinks. I had 2 bites, one straightened the hook and then the other chub made the willow branch. I didn’t want to lose anymore so returned to the normal 4.12 hooklink and wouldn’t give an inch of line. Luckily I had 3 more smaller chub up to almost 5lbs so it was a great session. Then out of the blue I caught a few little roach. I’ve never done this on the Estate before. They were perfect.

Time was moving on and I kept the routine of pulting out maggots then trotting down. After a while you do get into a rhythm. One trot down the float disappeared and I struck into a powerful chub that tried really hard to get into the branches, however  I wasn’t giving an inch and it slowly came to midstream. The landing net was positioned about 3oyds and I walked the chub downstream. I caught  glimpse of it and it looked a decent size. In the net it went without any trouble and as I lifted the net to look at my prize it looked enormous. Really fat, in fact plump I would say.

On the scales it went 7lbs 2oz and my first float caught 7lb plus chub from the H.Avon.

To say I was pleased would have been an understatement.

I carried on feeding maggots and trotting the float through and caught one more chub of about 5lbs that really put up a struggle and I thought I had hooked something much larger. The evening had been perfect in terms success and was coming to an end as the light was diminishing. I had one more chance and took it landing another 6lb plus chub of the short session. This one was 6lbs 10oz and looked a little longer than the 7lbs 2oz chub.

Well the number of 6lbs plus chub for the season had risen to 13 is that to be unlucky I wondered.

The sunsets that evening reflected my mood. Ecstatic and bright as it set.