22 Sept 2013

Saturday came and I was itching to get to the river to give the bait another go, I was sure in the right swim it would give me a chance of a decent fish or two. I baited up a couple of swims and settled into the first one, right from the first cast small indications gave away the presence of the chub, I was in a very tight spot in some reeds so could not really see what was happening downstream, but a heavy roll of a big chub filled me with confidence. Small pulls and taps were being ignored to start with, but it soon became apparent this was all I was going to get, so I dug deep into my locker of tricks, first I lightened up the rig as much as I could, 1 swan on the link was just about enough to get the bait where I needed it, still they played about with it, broken and mis - shaped boilies on the hook were also met with contempt, feeding line to them as the small pull began was also not working. Free lining was my last option, but how the hell was I meant to cast a bait with accuracy that far, not wanting to introduce more feed I took the swan shot from the link, filled a mesh bag with a small amount of dry gravel and bingo, by the time the mesh had melted I had a boilie in the swim untethered to any weight. The next small pull was a little bit slower and longer giving me just enough time to set the hook before Mr chevin spat it out again. The fight was short and spirited this was a good fish, and after all the hard work she was bullied into the net before it could make up it’s mind which weed bed to dive into. The fish was very short but had lots of girth easily a seven with a bit more length, but I settled for a scale reading of 6lb 4oz very pleasing given the effort gone into the capture. The next day on a different stretch further chub of 5lb 7oz and 4lb 12oz made for an enjoyable couple of short sessions.