Great holiday and another trip on the H.Avon

I’m still way behind with my blogs so I’m putting these all on in one day so please read the others.

Well after a holiday I can’t wait to return to the fishing saddle again, so to speak. The weather had continued to be hot and sunny back in the UK with temps around the 22c mark for Oct is almost unheard of.

Bingo winner

The river was low as no rain had fallen as such.

The 1hr 40 minute journey through the early morning commuters was longer than expected. The day was going to be warm and sunny. Today was going to be a walking around and spot a few fish day and perhaps fish for them. I first started on a stretch that I had not fished since I tore my calf muscle there 14 months ago. It has a reputation for producing some good size chub.

I spotted a few good chub on a bend  laying on a gravel patch in midstream. I soon had some hemp and maggots in the swim via the bait dropper. After about 30 mins I put some more bait in and went for a walk. Returning 30 mins later another lot of bait went in via the dropper. I then walked downstream looking for chub. On one bend I found the water went from a bout 5ft to 12 ft in the space of about 5 ft. There was a golden gravel bar created by the steep drop and on this gravel bar sat one of the largest chub I had seen on the Avon certainly over 7lbs. I watched it for quite a while swim up and down the bar. There were plenty of other chub there too of a good size.

So then and there I formulated a plan to fish this swim during the last couple of hrs of daylight in an effort to capture this fish.

However I had other chub to catch. Returning to the original swim I found the chub feeding on the hemp and maggots. So out went the feeder and baited hook onto the gravel.

It hadn’t been out there more than 5 minutes when weed started to take the line and feeder off the spot. The flow wasn’t right for feeder fishing even with the rod pointing to the sky beach fishing style. I needed to rethink the plan.

I had the float rod with me so that came out and a 2 swan loafer float was tackled up with 3lb line and size 18 hook.

I started catapulting maggots well upstream of the area where I had seen the chub feeding. Thinking that the bait would be down in the water to tempt the chub to start darting around in competition for the grubs. This I did for 20 mins before casting in.

First trot down the float shot under and I was playing a good chub that unfortunately took me by surprise and only just got into the weed on the far bank. Sure enough the hooked pulled.

Not deterred, by continuing to catapulting out maggots I knew the others would be feeding. I did this for another 20 minutes before casting in. It wasn’t the first cast this time that tempted the chub. However shortly after the float shot under and this time I did my normal job of walking backwards into the field pulling the chub to my side of the river. This though was into the main flow and on a 3lb hooklink and size 18 hook you really need to nurse them along. Providing there isn’t any weed it’s a case of gently, gently as you guide them to the net. I was hoping and praying that no large rafts of weed would come down and catch on the line. It was quite difficult to find a suitable place to land the chub as the river was shallow on my side. However there was a slightly deeper hole close by however it had some weed around it so I hoped that the chub didn’t dive into this. So the plan was to play the fish in the main flow and then when it had taken a few gulps of air bring it into the deeper water and net her. This worked a treat and soon a very nice chub was laying in the net.

Nice 5lb 4oz chub

So with the photo taken it was time for more feeding for 20 minutes and another go at finding the chub.

The wind was beginning to pick up at this stage and would make presenting the float a challenge. Together with the flow being on my side of the river getting the trotting line was becoming more difficult. However after another 30 mins I must have got it right again as the float disappeared and the strong thudding sensation  of a big chub fighting to get to the weed was felt down the rod. The normal slow walking back trick was working again as it came to my side of the river. Once there the game is over for the chub and providing you are careful with the clutch set light then she will be yours.

Sure enough I netted the chub in the slightly deeper hole. This one was slightly larger at 5lbs 9oz. A cracker of a fish.

5lbs 9oz chub

So with 3 fish being hooked in the swim and time was going on I thought it best to go down and bait the swim with the 7lb chub. This time because of the huge depth change in the swim  there was little chance of float fishing. So I was bait dropping hemp and Source boilies into the swim which I did. for about 1.5 hrs with 30 min intervals.

Sure enough I could see the chub feeding in the shallower water just upstream of the hole. It was time to cast out.

The wind was getting stronger and the tip was flying around. Other than a couple of plucks from the chub where they picked up the bait it was a fruitless session.

However I had now found my large 7lb chub and will look at catching this fish in the future. So it had been a productive day in more ways then one.