| It seems these days the only time I fish the ribble is when I’ve had too much to drink, but I suppose I’d better explain that. When I finish work on a Friday night I like a beer or two; nothing wrong with that but usually with my fishing in mind I go out ‘early doors’ – you know the thing in the pub, eight by eight then home with a takeaway to ensure I’m OK in the morning. Well sometimes it doesn’t go to plan and last Friday was one of them. Early doors quickly turned into an early morning and when I opened my eyes at 11am on Saturday morning I knew my options were limited. With the ribble only being about half an hour away it seemed like the ideal venue, or rather if the truth be known my only remaining option. Now the venue was decided the choice was between barbel and chub. I personally don’t like the ‘fishing for both’ set-ups as I really get no pleasure out of landing chub on barbel gear so I always make a decision and stick by it. As it was forecast to be quite mild and I had literally only had a couple of trips after barbel this year I thought I’d give them a go, although I still wasn’t convinced I’d made the right decision. It was around 2.00pm when I arrived at the river; it was low and clear. I looked up, the sun shone brightly and there was not a cloud in sight. Great, they should be really crawling up the rods today…
I started by putting a couple of dozen feeders of pellet and seed mix along with a few broken boilies. I’m a big fan of keeping my flavourings consistent and I’m currently using the ‘Monster Barbel’ range of baits made by Nash. The pellets, hookbaits and glugs are all given the same flavour which I enhance by using a pellet soak again of the same range. If I want to wrap a paste around the boilie for extra leakage there is also a matching paste. Isn’t baiting made easy these days? It doesn’t seem long ago I was trying to achieve the same effect by buying food flavourings from food stores and mixing/soaking all my hookbait and feed for days before a session. As darkness approached I was still biteless, and perhaps more worryingly the sky was still cloudless. Then it started: slow, deliberate pulls on the tip. “Great,” I thought, “the chub have arrived.” Now I love chubbing, probably more than the next man, but not with 12lb line and 2lb TC rods. For the next hour the activity increased, raps, taps and sharp pulls. Anyone who tells you bolt rigs are effective for chub is talking bollox. Yeah, you’ll eventually get one to hook itself but I just knew if I had my soft quiver with me, then I’d be converting all these pulls into fish on the bank. Eventually those bites slowed down and I noticed that my rucksack was coated with a thin layer of frost. A look over my shoulder confirmed that it was the full moon shining brightly that was illuminating the frost! That was the final straw and by now I’d all but given up hope, it was only my daughters MP3 player (on which I’d uploaded a stack of Tom Waits and old punk records) that was keeping me occupied and on the bank. I recall thinking to myself “one more album and I’m off,” when the downstream rod slowly pulled round. When I struck it went totally ballistic.
The swim I was fishing had a major snag in the form of a sunken tree around 10 yards below my baited area and the fish was hell-bent on getting in there. It was fast, shallow water and for about two minutes the rod was bent through a full 180 degrees as we both held our ground and the fish boiled repeatedly on the surface. This is when you worry about every knot and swivel holding but I only use quality gear and despite the immense pressure being exerted I never felt in trouble. When the fish changed direction and started to plough upstream I knew there was only one conclusion. It looked a really big fish as it rolled over the net and even as I slipped it into the weighsling I thought it would be well over 11lb. I was wrong, it weighed a little under ten and a half pounds and I thought perhaps the recent spell of cold weather may have had an effect on its bodyweight. Still it was a nice fish to take, especially as I’d already convinced myself I was wasting my time! A couple of quick photos were taken on the self-timer and the fish was returned. On seeing the photos I was a little disappointed as I’d experimented with a slow shutter speed to try and enhance the quality as it was dark. All this seemed to do was result losing some of the sharpness in the picture – I won’t be trying that one again. Still, all in all not a bad day, maybe I’ll make a habit of having too much to drink on a Friday… |
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