Digital Diary: Good To Fish Again

Graham and his fat 5.8

We couldn’t get down to the stretch where we normally fish, the lane had been closed for roadworks and the notice said it was going to remain closed until mid-March. We decided we would just go to the next stretch upstream on the club card.

We had fished the stretch on two occasions before, so we knew little about it. This time we decided to fish a different area and settle in each side of a big pool that at least looked good.

I cast a bomb around it for 10 minutes before starting to fish and found that it had a drop-off about 15yds out and then was a fairly constant depth of about 6ft most of the way across this very wide piece of river.

I chose to cast about 20yds which was just past where the crease was that divided the almost still pool from the inside run where the water flowed back on itself. Then I slipped the line into the John Roberts Range Finder, before reeling back in and swapping the bomb for a medium sized cage feeder. Now I could cast spot-on each time to the right distance, take three turns of line back onto the reel to tighten up, and lay my bread mash feed along the same line every time.

Dave fished more or less the same line upstream of me, but with the flow backing up towards him.

We had to wait for well over an hour, which was expected being as the water was so clear, before Dave had the first bite, and then another one, both of which didn’t develop.

And then he had one, a nice chub of about 3lb.

One of Dave’s ‘fours’

Towards the end of the session we were catching lots of small chub. They moved into the swim with a vengeance, and that was when we decide to pack and go home.

Thoroughly enjoyed it though, it was so busy I had two (or was it three?) aborted conversations with Dave Johnson, who was sat on the Dove at the same time when fish rudely interrupted us, once (or twice?) when a chub took my bait and once when a 4lb barbel took Dave’s.