lovely chubbly

#1

been inviting dave the fish to get his trotting rod out and fish my little river for a few months . well yesterday he came up ,the river was still about 10" high and pushing through but for this tiny river that aint bad.
first swim we find has a run of about6 metres 2-3 ft deep.
dave drops in there i went a bit further upstream anyhows 30 mins later neither of us has had a knock, so we go for a walk further upstream because of the extra water theres a few swims that look fishy that dont usually as there normally only 6" deep but we still cant buy a bite.
i said to dave lets walk up to my secret gauranteed to catch peg
talk about put pressure on yourself.
we gets to the swim which is a bend that gets to 2 1/2 ft in depth
youve only got a4-5 metre run to trot but fish hold up here
well we have a run through each while trickling maggot in upstreamand after about 10 mins dave has adace about 5" long yipeeeee
i still cant buy a bite
dave had another dace or 2 then his float dips and its no dace
after a short fight theres a good 3-31/2 lb chub in the net daves fiest from a river for a few years.
my turn next and i hook a chub but lose it on the surface
then i have a dace ,dave has a couple more dace then i lose another chub[getting done on my river

].
i finally caught a chub slightly smaller than daves then we decided to pack upwe finished the day off with a nice pint in the pub overlooking the river cheers dave

when you coming back

#2

Well that made a change from the carp puddles. I was brought up fishing rivers but apart from Boating holidays on the Broads and a 3 day MDs Fishin on the Trent my stick floats and balsas havent been out of the cupboard for 18 years now.

Al rang me yesterday morning asking if I fancied a session so I went running around like a madman trying to find some suitable gear. I dug out a very old glass 11 foot, 6 section Shakespeare Travelmatch which hasn’t seen the light of day since the late 70s but was the shortest float rod I have, I threw some line on my Abu 1044 closed face and dug deep into the garage and found, covered in dust my trusty bait apron. A little tub with a couple of packs of hooks shot plummet and a few other bits and my special cut down balsas I made 25 years ago, especially for fishing very shallow swims and I was ready.

From what pictures I have seen I would say the “river “ is a smaller shallower version of the Penk. I must admit that, with the rain we have had, the flow was a bit quicker than I like but it was great to have an hour or so fishing it without being bogged down with loads of gear. Also sharing a swim taking alternate casts takes you back to when you first started fishing ( a long long time ago in my case ::) ).

Great fun Al and Im sure we will do it again soon.

#3

Nice one fellas. One of my local smaller rivers is the Ember which is an offshoot of the Mole. Still it sounds about a level up in size from yours. Got a 3lb 4oz chub out of it before Xmas - but no subtle baits here - large lump of freelined cheese moulded on to a n8 hook! Great fun fighting your way thru the undergrowth to reach seldom fished swims.

#4

Sounds great guys - just up my street

Reminds me of a little brook (river?) that ran into the Severn just above the power station at Ironbridge - great fishing 20 plus years ago when the river caused it to back up a bit............over hanging trees, loads of nettles, bends in its course and variable depths........full of dace and bleak but used to throw up the odd surprise on occasions with huge roach.

Good to hear you had a few.......