I have never really been one for dedicating many sessions to chub, but I remember fondly the day I fished my regular early haunt and was well rewarded.
The Odney stream is a tiny tributary running off of a Thames backwater. The stream itself is where Great Uncle Ray took me and taught me the values of roach, perch and dace etc. Oh, and big gudgeon. Ray was more your old-school river-match man. Another Great uncle, Uncle Bill, was a real outdoors man. He was head keeper on the Bisham estate when it was pretty much all just manor land and, as such, he was a hunter of all types, his guile when specimen fishing was really something, he certainly was in the realms of Walker, and at around the same time too. Big chub was Bill’s favourite and he taught me much about them when I was 10 or 11 and already into fishing thanks to Ray.
Anyway, there was sometimes a bit of to-ing and fro-ing between the pair as each deemed their style the better. I had the best of both worlds, receiving terrific watercraft from Ray – river match-men can never be beaten as far as watercraft in my opinion – and on the other hand I was receiving a lot of intrinsic knowledge about many species behaviour, habitat and feeding patterns etc.
Well, it was the benefit of both their knowledge that helped me greatly and has done ever since. I still feel myself looking at my fishing with each of their heads on.
Now, the stream, as I may have said, is just less than a mile long, starting with a little riffle off the back water and ending just below Cookham weir. Sadly through abstraction, it seems to lose a bit more water every 5 years or so. In the late 80s and early 90s she was really something. Not too far removed from the look of the Lambourn, yet not chalk and perhaps only seven swims along the whole stretch that would be worth staying in for any time. Barbel used to get into it for spawning. Carp too would get above the stream and into the back water to spawn. I think now at even the start of the season there will be people bivvied up in the hopes of a nice river hog. There have been fish to 38lb out of there during the summer months.
In winter flood it behaves as it should and becomes home to some great roach and when the floods drop, the real species of that stream prevail. Dace. They get big in there, average of perhaps 9 or 10 oz but I have had some around 14 and more.
So, to the day I want to tell you about. It was the result of a chance glimpse of an old chap fishing a swim near the top of the beat. There was I, perhaps 14 years old and still content with fishing Odney regularly and catching Chub to 1lb, gudgeon and all the other usual suspects. I remember hearing a lot of noise and I turned my gaze to the old fellas swim in time to see him bank a Chevin; absolutely huge, easily as big as the ones Bill was catching from Temple, but it looked ridiculous coming out of this stream. I approached the chap as he unhooked the fish and he showed me his bait….cheese paste…Huh! Amazing, I thought.
Dear old Ray had been dead for a couple of years but Bill was still going strong. Still walking into Marlow and back everyday, at 84 years old. On my next visit to his house, which often resulted in me rummaging around in his shed looking at all his hunting decoys and cane rods, I told him about the amazing capture and asked him about cheese-paste.
‘You don’t need cheese paste’ he said…..’
Er….I do’ said I.
‘It’s July’ he replied as if answering a totally unconnected question.
I said nothing.
‘Weed is what you want” he said. ‘They suck it through to get the shrimp out and blow it out again, you get yourself a good clump of that on and trot it past one. Even if he fights hard not to bite, as soon as it drifts past, he’ll turn and take it”
It seemed months before I got back down there, but back there I was and I headed for the top swim where the leviathan resided. We must remember here that a 5lb chub was an absolute monster back then, I think the national record was a tad over 7lb.
It took no time to find the hairy weed; spike milfoil I believe, that holds armies of shrimp and it was soon impaled on a size 10 hook and trotted down the stream, across the hollow log and… Boomf! I was in, and fighting for my foothold.
I remember letting out an almost girly squeal as I saw the big fish shaking violently. Soon in the net and weighed at 5lb 2oz. Woohooo!!
So, for more. Umpteen more casts and no more fish – so I figured on a move but I wasn’t sure where too.
Now, Bill had told me much about reading the Thames but transposed to the small stream, I felt a bit, well, lost. So I studied and studied the swim I was in to see if it could give me a template to work with. To my right was a slight riffle and directly in front was a small eddy that disappeared beneath a jutting bit of bank that housed an old tree stump before the river narrowed.
It was the tree stump where I received the bite….my brain started whirring.
I moved to a spot that had given me plenty of dace, chubletts and gudgeon in the past. This too was a deeper pool between two shallower, faster bits. This too had some flatter water at the back of the swim with some cover by way of overhanging branches. On went the weed and out came another fish, another over 5lb.
This went on for the rest of the day, resulting in 10 chub over 5lb with the biggest at alb 9oz. As fortune can often shine, a dog walker was on hand for the picture of this one, and as she was a motherly-seeming lady, I yielded to giving her my address at which to send the photo. That day is the day I think about when my angling is seemingly going wrong. I remember the panic I felt at catching the fish that I knew was there and not knowing where to go or how to find the next one. I remember looking through Bill’s and Ray’s eyes and feeling the relief when the next move paid off.
Predominantly though, it just added yet another notch of awe and respect for great old uncle Bill
Will Barnard
