Winter has arrived so do the chub.

Having had a great week on the H.Avon it was time to fish my local Bristol Avon. Now although there are a few good chub to over 8lbs they are very few and far between. A mate of mine (Andy you should have been here yesterday) had one over 7lbs last year but it was hooked outside the mouth and so he didn’t count it. A 5lb chub from the BA is a good fish a 6lber is something special and anything over this is a dream for most. I have never caught a 6lber from the BA and I’ve fished practically all my life.

First up was to make some cheese paste. I normally use the strongest smelling cheese and frozen pastry in equal parts. I grate the cheese first and then mix the two together in a bowl. Then the secret ingredient is bought out. N Butyric acid that smells worse than my mates Alan’s socks (so I’m told anyway).

The final addition of the secret ingredient takes place in the garage as Mrs.P won’t let me mix it inside the house so bad is the smell. You only need to use a few drops in a 1 lb mix.

N butyric acid

So with this made up the previous evening I was soon up and out in the morning. There had been a heavy overnight frost and everything looked perfect other than the bright sunshine.

Must be a sign, or not!

So out went the cheese paste with 6lb line and a very light ledger that only just held it in place. The swim was a favourite of mine and produced a few good chub for me in the past. I kept getting some twitchy bites that were from small fish. I had one strong pull that I missed.

Lacock on the Bristol Avon

I moved swims a few times and had very much the same response. However as the light began to fade then the chub came on the feed and I ended with 3 however none over the 3lb range. With the light fading fast in the winter’s sky it was time to pack up and head off home. In the car park I met Kevin and Paddy and had a good chat to both of them. They both fish the area for chub.

So that was not the best of results.

The next visit to the river was on Sunday. I had just returned from a very enjoyable day at the Tench Fishers AGM on the Saturday. I couldn’t get any maggots on Saturday so I knew that the angling shop in Chippenham would be open at 9am it was here I headed to buy some for a spot of trotting for chub.

Guess what it it was closed for the Sunday. So it was off to Morrisons to by 4 loaves of bread for £2 this would be the bait for trotting today. I headed further upstream of Chippenham to fish a series of bends that shout chub. There was just one other angler on the stretch however he was much further downstream.

The normal trotting gear was used except I changed the hooklink to a 4.5lb and a size 8 hook. What I did at first was to feed some flake into the swim to get the chub feeding. It seemed to work very well as in no time at all I was catching chub not large ones but up to about 1.5lbs.

Loads of this size were caught

I carried on feeding and fishing the swim and things looked very good. However the only disappointment was that none of the larger fish were putting in an appearance. I tried a couple of other swims on the bends too but only little chublets came a long. Great for the future but not the stamp of fish I required.

One swim was like “Chub City” and I caught about 8 from there.

Chub City

I ended up fishing way downstream and unfortunately turned to the dark side and started to ledger bread flake. This caught me a few more chub to about 3lbs. Again darkness comes way too early at this time of year and it was time to leave.

So I must have had about 15 chub or so most of them under 2lbs though. Still good fun and better than staying inside.