In Search of Monster Chub: Tough Times.

 Three days planned, with my Chub gear back on my playground I had high hopes, I was packed in a flash and on the river by 9am which is a slightly later start than I'd usually aim for but I thought I had plenty of time, the first few hours I spent wandering around to find where the Chub were holding up and planned to get some bait in in preparation for the evenings, during the day I moved about with a trotting rod, just hoping a Chub or two would slip up.

 With the river being low and clear I felt the Chub were just a little lazy and not moving much, the water was also very warm and that I think has added to the small amount of time they are feeding, as the first day headed towards the evening I had one eye on dusk, I believed that would be my best chance. Two Pike banked and another dropped six times of a small Chub which would have possibly been a mid-double was my only action through the daylight hours. An hour before dark I got my bait out over the baited area and sat back with anticipation.

 As the sun disappeared and the night descended upon day one a beautiful Barn Owl glided around the tree line behind me and had the pleasure of watching it for half a minute before vanishing into the night, not five minutes later my tip twitched and then slammed over, I was in and the dogged battle straight away suggested a Chub, in the half light I could just make out a decent frame ploughing into the weed beds, when I bought it past one it would go into the next, but with my stepped up gear for this very reason the fight didn't last too long, after 12 hours of fishing I'd finally bagged a Chub, not a bad one either and just a smidgen under 6lb, it flicked between 5.15 and 6.00 before resting on 5lb 15oz, I was happy with that though, tough day and worthy reward as my morning was punctuated by the unfortunate incident of kicking two poaching swines off the river, 14 fish they'd caught, two good Roach already beheaded, one of which was still moving! Thankfully I was able to rescue the other 12 which all went back alive. The epidemic is still very much occurring, it's up to us anglers to prevent it as the EA and the police couldn't give a toss.

 I continued on but no more joy in that swim, so I moved upstream a mile or so and spent the night with the rods out, again no joy, day two beckoned though so I got some sleep.

The first thing I saw on the river on the second day was a big Otter, not good to see but part and parcel of these Wessex rivers, there are a lot of them around. (Short video of one aswell)

 The fish didn't seem too bothered with them in truth and the Otter glided past them with little fuss, I decided to go the opposite direction in the vein hope I would manage some more joy, long story short though the Chub were not in a feeding mood, not even movement from them on the areas I baited, the Pike continued to show and I had another two to 7.07 but the big girls didn't show again, the fishing was so tough I decided to give the third day a swerve, still one good Chub is better than none!