Sunday 22nd January Upper Bristol Avon with David

I had guided David on several occasions in the past mainly during the summer. He had caught tench over 6lbs and a barbel over 8lbs on his last visits and now wanted to catch some chub. The stretch I was taking him to doesn’t hold huge fish but can produce them over 5lbs. Just a mile or so downstream there are a few over 6lbs coming out on the same club ticket together  with some other big fish.

Dave is hoping to join the fishing association this year and this session was aimed to show him some swims, methods and with a bit of luck a few chub.

We met on the banks of the river at 7.15am, the day just beginning to open up. We were going to fish a weir pool where at the tail there is normally plenty of chub. These fish normally go towards the 4lb mark.

I suggested we try the short hooklink feeder approach that I’ve been working on. We baited up a swim that held a far side raft of dead rushes etc. The feed was hemp red maggots and rice dyed red. About 4 droppers of each were put in to start with. With this done we tackled up using a feeder rod and quiver, 6lbs line. Hooklink was 3lbs and a size 18 hook.

After a while of filling the swim using the feeder too. We started to get a few plucks from fish, then lots of minnows came along. Dave did manage to hook one chub however the hook straightened as it tried to get under the raft of rubbish.

We changed to rubber maggots and eventually we had a 3 ft twitch from a chub which fought really well in the shallow current. David played it really well on the light line and soon we had it in the net. We decided to put a weight on it as it could have been a pb which it was at 3lbs 12oz.

I couldn’t be more pleased for him. Unfortunatley this was to be the only fish we got from this swim other than the odd pull. I really think that the splosh of the feeder continually landing in shallow water had the chub heading for cover. So not perturbed by this we decided that a change of tactic was called for. Dave was keen to explore the stretch and see the various swims that he would fish in the future.We fished behind the large stone in the background of the photo above and had several really good pulls that Dave missed.Then we went further downstream to a very good swim just below a slack where it’s great to float crust down in the summer. The cast is made to the far bank and then allowed to settle with 3 swan shot just under the near side glide about 15 yds downstream. After a few minutes the tip belted around and the chub powered downstream which caught Dave by surprise. Within 15 seconds or so it had shed the hook and Dave was left wondering what it could have been.Our next move was downstream again to a slightly larger bend where once again after about 10 minutes the rod top nodded twice then ripped around. Dave struck and stopped the chub from getting into the nearside vegetation. The rod was hooped over as he guided the chub out into mid stream. I could see it was a good chub, as I collected the landing net the line went to far bank where there were some dead rushes (well rotten) on the river bed. Guess what the chub transferred the hook into these. Dave was not a happy bunny and groaned that these river fish fight much harder than the ones on lakes.With the day wearing on we tried a couple of other swims without success.My last swim is one where in the summer there are countless chub that just drift around in the flow of a nice little pool and back eddy.So this is my banker swim as there are many tree branches and bushes for about 30 yds on the near bank for the chub to get into when hooked. So Dave cast out just out from the bank whilst I fed a few cheese paste balls. We sat down in the fine winters sun, it must have been about 10c however there was a problematical wind that didn’t help.After about 10 minutes Dave went 5 yds behind to get his tea and bingo as he did this the tip bounced around twice and then pulled around sharply. I couldn’t wait for Dave to get back so I struck and then handed him the rod. He played the fish really well in the tight corner we had. When I lifted her from the water I could see she was beautiful.One the scales she went 4lbs 6oz which is not huge by an means but a new pb for Dave.Chub 4lbs 6oz

Chub 4lbs 6oz

Ivor and Dick came along for a chat soon after we had caught the fish. AS we chatted I was hoping that the swim would settle but it didn’t and our last cast there proved to be fruitless. Soon we were heading back upstream again back to the weir pool where we would try fishing the cheese paste towards the end of the pool. I put out more hemp onto a spot but we didn’t get any action until we cast further down again into shallower water. It was getting late in the afternoon as the bites came thick and fast however Dave just couldn’t hit them. I’m sure it was chub just mouthing the bait. We once bought back the paste on the hook and you could see the perfect indication of a chubs lips where it had pick the paste up but had not taken it into the mouth. This happened twice and I’ve never seen this before. We were still using 3 swan shot to just hold it in the current.

Then as dusk approached Ian had another great bite and he hooked another 3lb plus chub which was in pristine condition.