First to arrive
I was concerned that the peg I wanted (just below the island) may be occupied when I got there. However I was the first to arrive around 8am so that’s a good start. Upon arrival at the peg the river seemed even lower (if that’s possible) than it was on Friday. At least the weather should be nicer today - it was like winter on Friday.
As I was tackling up, two other anglers arrived closely followed by a third; it’s a good job I wasn’t 30 mins later!
Glaring sun
It certainly was brighter today, a bit too bright as the sun was downstream and made stick float fishing very difficult. I could not see my chubber float as it move between tree reflection and sky reflection with dappled sunlight in both cases. I just had to persevere as the sun would move in time. I was able to get about 2 feet in depth but that meant holding back to clear obstabcles as I discovered them. Thankfully a cloud obscured the sun for around half an hour once i had been fishing for an hour or with just a minnow!
First Chub
In the improving light consditions I was able to fish the end of the peg more effectively and it wasn’t long before I had a “puppy” Chub of about 1.5 lb. I got a few more Minnows but no sign of more Chub.
Meat - maybe?
I had brought along two strip of luncheon meat (enough for about a dozen casts). I got another similar sized Chub on my 1st run through on meat in teh main channel. A then had a couple of fruitless trots down the river before the flow took my float (and meat) under an overhanging bush on the far bank. I was ready and, sure enough, a slightly larger Chub dated out from the bush to grab my meat. Several casts later, I got one more Chub from the overhanging bush and the another. Unfortunately I was now out of meat; why didn’t I bring more!!
I then tried maggot and caster under the overhanging bush but simply got more minnows.
On the cadge
I had about one hour left (planned to finish at 2pm). I decided to go ask another pair of fisherman if they had any meat to spare. They gave me about half a tin - great guys. I waded back out, nearer the overhang this time, and managed three more Chub in fairly quick succession before it wnet quiet near the overhang.
Stalking
Whilst talking to the guys who gave me the meat, they said that there was a deeper run near the back close to where they had been fishing (they had moved above the island now). I was a bit hard to access but I did manage to get close and trotted meat under anotehr overhang down that run close to the nearside bank. FIrst tro through I had a Chub of about 3 lb. Then I got another of about 2lb. It was only a small run and it was soon spooked.
Far side
I had about 10 minutes left so decided to try the overhang on the far side with the last few bits of meat that I had. I managed one more Chub of about 2.5lb.
Summary
I ended up with 10 Chub. I had hoped to get them all on maggot/caster but only got 1 with that bait. Meat was easily the best and I now know what to try next time.
I did not manage to photograph any fish because I was mid-river and could not use a keepnet or have my camera to hand. Had I got a bigger fish, I would have taken it to the bank for a photo. However, here is a short video showing the swim - so beautiful.
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