The forecast was for light showers tonight so I hauled my brolly along and decided to give peg 3 a go. I had fished this when the river was really high and I wanted to know what it was like when the river was low. This will help me understand where I can fish when the level is back up again.
It was a very slippery track down to the peg so I was thankful for my trench spade.
I had made up a couple of hook lengths with a small piece of expanded foam on a hair. This, along with some stiffened cheese paste would allow me to fish the paste and see if it really does work.
Within 30 minutes I had the following 3lb 8oz Chub. I had had several knocks on cheese paste right from the off and this one finally took the bait properly. It tried to snag me under the near back but I finally netted it.
I was fishing meat on the other rod and also tried caster. I never got a proper bite all night.
After another hour or so I managed a much smaller Chub (about 1 pound) on cheese paste again.
Then the rains started. It was constant heavy rain for the rest of the evening. I am so glad I brought along my brolly - and spade to help me escape at the end!
I did not get any more bites on cheese paste so used meat on both rods. The one that was in the same place as I had been finishing cheese paste eventually wrapped around. At first I thought it was a Chub and then it made a dart for the middle of the river so I assumed it was a Barbel that had woken up. After several minutes I got it to the surface to find that it was a Chub of about 2lb - with a huge Pike clamped onto the Chub! I managed to get the head and half of the body in my landing net and was just dragging it up the bank when it flipped out of the net and let go of the Chub and left it in my landing net. Thankfully the Chub survived. I have never caught a big Pike so can’t estimate it’s weight but my landing net is 20” across and I only managed to get about half of the Pike in my net. Oh what a photo that would have been.
The swim went very quite for about 30 minutes after that. I had been getting frequent pecks at the meat but I guess a big Pike in the area put paid to that for a while. I did manage a few more pecks at meat before I decided to call it a day.
So, in summary: -
- 3lb 8oz Chub
- 2lb Chub
- 1lb Chub
- and half a Pike!
| Fishing Targets | Fishing Log |