7lbs 3oz chub

Well I’ve continued with the chub fishing as the barbel just seem reluctant to put in an appearance this year on the H.Avon. My next session on the Avon gave me a big fat blank. The water temperature had dropped 5c so that’s just the excuse I need.

I fished a couple of days later in the island swim for a late afternoon session. There were about 10 chub in the swim with perhaps a couple going over 5lbs. The object of the session was to see if I could sort out the rigs and see where I was going wrong. Well I tried long and short rigs and during those few hrs I hooked and landed 3 chub all sub 4lbers. What this proved was that if the pellets were wafting around they wouldn’t touch the things. So it had to be pinned to the bottom of the river.

The following day I was out for a short session once more. I had decided on a swim where there are some huge chub. However I would change the area where I baited up. This did the trick nicely and some dozen or so chub came out to feed. There were some serious size looking chub coming out onto the feed. The chub would root around under the weed and it was here where I would trip them up. Following on from the previous trips observations on the chub feeding I put a AA shot about 3 inches away from the hook which stuck the bait to the river bed. I didn’t have long to wait before the rod hooped over and I was playing a chub, then almost immediately the hooked pulled out. That’s not a good move. However got to say that the chub soon regrouped and came rushing back up on the bait again. After about 15 minutes the rod hooped over once again and this time I was playing an angry chub. There is plenty of weed in the river and they always bury themselves into the thick stuff, however with gentle pressure from downstream of the weed they can normally be coxed downstream away from it. Once I’m past this area then it plain sailing for the netting. Into the net it went and I thought oh yes another good chub. On the scales it went 5lbs 15oz so not a cigar moment.

It was still a big chub that definitely be over 6lbs later this year. So that was making the session much more enjoyable.

So I rebaited and put the mesh on the hook with the 6ft hooklink and sent the line out to rest once more with the line passing through the weed to disguise it from the chub. II had a couple of rattles and pulls from chub but no really positive bites as such. Once or twice the free spool clutch would shrill out a song for a brief period but alas not hookups.

So a couple of casts later the rod shuddered in the rest and what ever was on the other end was taking line from the clicking free spool. I was on it quickly and the rod hooped over and a strong chub pulled back on the other end. I led it downstream through the weed beds which it took every opportunity to get into or entwined. It was strong powerful chub and looked to be a 6lber as it exited the last weed bed. In the deep powerful river it kept pulling hard on the rod diving for an escape. But once I had it’s head above the water the fight was over and it was consumed in the folds of the net. I knew it was a big fish when I lifted the net clear of the river and onto the mat. It looked a big 6lber. So out came the weighing equipment and on the scales it was 7lbs 3oz and my 3rd 7lber of 2020. I moved the fish to a better area for photo’s and video. I thought I would reweigh it once more and sure enough the same weight. While I gathered and set up the photo stuff the fish was safe in the margins. And what a prize that fish was.

Sequentially the fish was confirmed as Andy (you should have been here yesterday) Cowley’s same chub of 7lbs 4oz last year.

So pretty ecstatic with the outcome of the day.