Another 6lb chub from a low and clear H.Avon

The weather had continued to be steady with high pressure hanging over the UK. Not too conducive to good fishing but as anglers we still need our fix.

The perch fishing had been slow earlier in the week and I wanted to get back to the chub fishing as the conditions looked promising, with the river being clear. For me it’s about a 90 minute drive to get to the H.Avon area I’m fishing and therefore I need to be up and down there when it opens at 7am. Having said this the dark mornings of mid December doesn’t warrent me getting there until 7.30am just as dawn is breaking. The sunrise is about 8am in the morning.

I was unsure what bait to use. Something told me to float fish with casters in an effort to avoid the minnows. They find it more difficult to get these in their eager mouths. Then again I wanted to try out a new swim feeder rig that I had been working on for a week or so.

So I decided to cover all bases and buy 3 pints of reds and the same quantity of casters for float fishing.

Sure enough I was soon travelling down the A36 through the beautiful country side then onwards towards Salisbury and then the A338 towards Downton passing some great pubs The Bull at Downton, The Stag and Bat and Ball before Fordingbridge. What a history in angling legends these pubs have seen.

The whole scene though was one of darkness!

As time moved on at 7.25am I pulled up and parked the car. 10 seconds later another car pulled up too. I wasn’t in a hurry so I let him get the gear out and pass by saying good morning.

Lucky for me he walked passed the swim I wanted to fish. John you know the swim and I haven’t been able to fish it on each visit because a 15lb 7oz barbel was caught there.

This time I was greeted by the river being about the lowest I’d seen it in winter.

So soon I was putting in about 1 pint of hemp plus about half pint of reds via a bait dropper.

The rod was a “loverley” old Free Spirit barbel rod that I used on Linch Hill to catch a good few of those 3lb plus roach. A quiver on the end gave me plenty of room to play the fish carefully on light hooklinks.

First cast I have a tentative pull but no hookup.

I had met John Mc Gough in November and he showed me a rig which I thought would help me in the future. The grey cells had been working on thinking about this. Then came along a new Korum swim feeder that looked very interesting for tench and chub fishing. The thing with chub fishing is that you can use a short length hooklink but sometimes the feeder shakes the small hook out from the mouth.

The method I’ve been developing ensures this doesn’t happen.

It’s not complicated to use but there are so many things to bear in mind when using it. Fish safety is the most important and John taught me this with his rig. So this is where the thinking has come in.

The rig needs another blog to describe the various features and perhaps I cover this. I’ll show the rig in one photo but take special care, all is not clear with how it works. You can make some wrong choices that might mean the rig is a death one.

There is a very short hooklink and the silicon rubber tubing acts as a bolt rig and the extra line clipped up gives you extra security and pulls out when a chub is hooked. Then you have the added luxury of the pole elastic as a buffer. Believe me it works.

So after fishing with Reflo power line at 4lbs 12oz which has a very low diameter without too much success changed to 3lbs 6oz line of the same range 0.11mm in diameter.

So once changing to this the tip bounced a few times and I was playing a nice chub that used the current to test the rig. The fight was not spectacular but it had me going and hoping everything held.

It did and here is a chub of 4lbs 11oz.

So the rig and method worked. So in went another few droppers of hemp and reds.

The weather was funny cloudy at first light then the fog closed in and then high cloud again.

10.30 the rod tip bounce a few more times and I lifted into a much better chub that took me upstream then downstream and I could see it in the clear water. A good chub as well. I net these fish further downstream where it’s away from the remaining shoal. When I pulled it over the rim of the net I new it was a good chub of 6lbs 5oz.

So that was it a couple of chub of good proportions on a difficult day was a good return. The water was as clear as tap water that Bristol Water Authority could supply from Chew Valley to my home.

The angler whom I had met early in the morning had 3 chub to over 6lbs on trotting tactics which given the river conditions was good.

I thought about trotting but decided to sit tight and see what came along. More hemp and reds bought more minnows but no chub until last thing.

I had one more bite and lost a fish through a hook pull at last light. Then in December I had loads of bats flying into the lines giving a few heart fluttering moments.

So with the rain pouring down I just hope things might get better in late December. What things could get better 6lbs 5oz is pretty good me thinks.