Me and my mate Dave have had it a bit rough the last few weeks with the weather and river conditions turning against us almost every time we had the chance to venture out for our usual late afternoon and evening’s fishing. The big problem is that our regular winter venue, the Ribble, is 60 to 75 miles (depending which stretch) north of where we live and is prone to quite sudden changes in level. Not only that, but the weather 60-plus miles further north can be so much different than where we live. Not necessarily worse, but quite different.
Checking the level on the Riverline phone was a guide of some sorts, but as that level is taken at 3am each morning, and not always knowing how much it’s rained since then, there was still a lot of guesswork involved. The Ribble is prone to very fast rises and equally fast drops in level. Many times we didn’t bother as it was obvious it would be a waste of time. Other times we took a chance, saw the river was too high for chub, and drove straight back home. If we’d been interested in barbel from the Ribble then it may have been a different story occasionally, but chub are our target fish in winter from the Ribble. Anyhow, it’s probably the worst winter we’ve had for a long time so far, with many aborted or poor trips. But we did catch it good this weekend just gone. Not for any exceptional fish but for a really pleasant day when the sun shone for an hour or two, hardly a breath of wind to disturb the quivertips and enough bites to keep us happy. We each had seven or eight chub apiece to 5lb or so and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was all made more enjoyable in that the bites came steadily throughout the session when we had the river to ourselves in a remote area where only the pheasants made too much noise, and all the fish were over 4lb.
And better still was the fact that we used 6lb line, fed mashed bread and used flake on the hook; our chub tackle and bait of preference. Good trouting day On New Year’s Eve, when neither of us could fish into the evening, which meant there wasn’t much point in chub fishing on the river, we went fly fishing instead. And what a day that turned into. I can’t remember exactly how many rainbows we had but it was well in the teens, and only one went less than 4lb with the biggest about 6lb. Some of them fell to a little white, sparkly bodied lure with a white marabou tail. Can’t tell you the name of it because it hasn’t got one. Dave invented it and it’s worked well for us before. Now we’ve tied some in different colours in different sizes but it’s the all white ones on long shanked 10s hooks that always go best. It’s time now to look forward to the next Ribble fish-in on the 19th of this month. With luck and some decent conditions we should get a couple of sessions in before then. |
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