Season Ending 2004/2005 Whilst thinking about how to construct an article about my chub fishing exploits on the Ribble, I knew I must also tell you about my record keeping. For me they are very much an integral part of my chub fishing. Not that I need my records to remind me about my red letter days, I just like keeping records and I’m constantly asking why, how and when. I must be doing something right for my catches of chub over 5lb are: 2002/3 Season 6 Chub over 5lb A few words on the geography of the Ribble The main coarse fishing area for me is upriver from the M6 Motorway Bridge to approximately 2 miles above the bridge at Ribchester. The Ribble is a spate river fed from the western slopes of the Pennines, stretching up from Accrington Burnley Settle and Horton-in-Ribblesdale, and the south and eastern slopes of the Forest of Bowland. The two main tributaries are the River Hodder and the River Calder. Basically the River Calder is a mixed fishery as is the Ribble from where the Calder joins it all the way down into the tidal zone. The upper Ribble and the River Hodder are predominantly game only.
The lower Ribble valley is well wooded and the farming is mainly dairy, beef and sheep. Most of the dairy and beef are generally inside during the cold wet months of winter. In the spring fields are cultivated for silage and later in the summer months some hay is produced. My overall strategy At this point it would be nice to say that after analysing my records, reading loads of books, talking to other anglers and an in depth knowledge of water craft, that I have developed a knowledge based strategy! Well part of that may be true but it’s also based around what’s convenient and available as well as experience. Convenience, in so much that our lass and I have nine to five plus jobs, so fishing time has to be scheduled around these commitments as well as the weather and river conditions. Therefore, evening sessions are the most convenient time for me to fish, which luckily coincides with what has always been considered to be the optimum time, ie, dusk. I’m basically a loner, it’s not that I mind fishing with others, but so I’m not restricted to planning my sessions around others I can change my mind at the last minute without upsetting anyone. Although I’ve generally got an idea as to where I want to fish, however, in the hours drive down from the Dales I may change my mind several times before I get to the river. I have to admit that this is sometimes just on a whim as much as the state of the river which I cross twice on my drive down. State of the river, living 35 miles away from the Ribble my main source of information is: The 5-day weather forecast for the Preston area, I use the weather site on Fishingmagic in conjunction with Rivercall data. Rivercall, which for the Ribble has three sites, Locks Weir, Jumbles Rock and Samlesbury. The level in metres and it’s state, ie, falling, rising or steady is given twice a day at 03:00hrs and 15:00hrs. The site I’m interested in is Jumbles Rock and by now I’ve got a pretty good idea what the level is at any section of the river for the levels given by Rivercall. However, I’m also interested in the other two sites as these levels tell me if a flood pulse is on its way or has just passed through. As previously mentioned I also interpret this with what the weather’s doing just prior to my intended fishing session. I read the Fishingmagic Venue reports for the Ribble. The river water temperature, ie, is it likely to be falling, rising or steady? Fishingmagic Venue reports are helpful, but I may alter how I fish if I arrive at the river and get a surprise. What the river looks like higher up in the Yorkshire Dales along with what the weather is doing. Moon Phases, these I down load off the net, on the Ribble bright moon light is the kiss of death for chub fishing, if it looks like being a clear bright night I won’t go. However, reading the weather’s not a precise science and I get caught out on many an occasion. Regarding all my trips to the river I’ve now become preoccupied with the above and I’m constantly keeping an eye on what the weathers doing and I try and plan my trips accordingly. If you are a reasonably competent angler the state of the river is the most important single factor in conjunction with the choice of swim to match the river conditions. Does this preoccupation with the weather and river conditions spoil my fishing? Not really, to me it’s no different than being interested in bait or fishing tackle and a hell of a lot cheaper. Availability has more to do with acquiring bait; there are no tackle shops within a 20-mile radius, so maggots are out, although I do make the odd trip to obtain casters. I buy my pellets, hemp and PVA stocking off the internet and our lass buys for me bulk cheap bread from ASDA as well as any ingredients for spicing up my paste. Because we still run a few sheep our local animal food merchant is another good source for groundbait ingredients. My paste base mix is made up from ground up pellets and I collect all the household left over cheese to make my cheese paste. Method The 2002/3 season was a bit hit and miss and started with eight blanks in a row while I was trying various methods, baits and rigs. I’ve always used the two rod approach for the big bream on the river Lune and continued this approach from the start for the Ribble chub. By the 2003/4 season I’d settled into fishing with an upstream rod on bread flake, with liquidised bread in the feeder, and my downstream rod as a suicide rod on pellet and paste with PVA bags of micro pellets. The idea being the upstream rod would provide the scent trail and the suicide rod would pick up any fish moving up river or larger fish sitting at the tail end of my baited area. Also at some point during the 2003/4 season I started to touch leger on the upstream rod when the chub started to play hard to get. If all my bites were coming on the downstream rod then I would put both rods onto pellet, but I can never remember fishing with both on bread. Occasionally I would also try hemp and caster in the winter if the river was running clear and low and this I would fish on my downstream rod but always changing back onto pellet at dusk. Towards the end of the 2003/4 I’d also started to introduce hemp and micro pellets into my liquidised bread. Although some anglers have been very successful loading their swims up by repeated casting with a feeder, then waiting for a while before fishing, I’ve now gone off this idea and I’m content to load up my swim gradually with my bread feeder. On average I will cast every 15 minutes with the feeder and every half hour with the pellet and PVA bags of micro pellets. I only use three types of paste; one based on ground up pellets with hot curry, garlic, fish oil and eggs, one made from pure cheese (I’ve stopped using bread or pastry) and one a mixture of the two. There was no scientific reasoning behind this; one day my curry paste was very crumbly and wouldn’t stay on the hook so I mixed it half and half with the cheese and started catching fish. As well as touch legering when the chub are playing hard to get I will play about with bread crust and a pinch of paste as well as changing over from hair rigged pellet to bait bands and lengthening cast and changing hook size, etc. Tackle At first I started using the quivertip rods I used for my river bream fishing but after making acquaintance with the Ribble Barbel I wanted something more substantial. It was around this time that Fishingmagic members designed the Fishingmagic Concept rod that was later manufactured by Harrison Advanced Rods of Liverpool. I bought one and immediately fell in love with it, it was so comfortable to use and I’ve never handled a rod as good for playing big fish. Within six months I bought another and now do all my chub and barbel fishing with just these two rods
Both rods are matched with Baitrunner reels, one a Shimano 5000 Arial GT and the other with a Grauvell Elite Br-Z 3000. Both reels are loaded with 12lb Krystonite line with 10lb fluorocarbon hook lengths. I also carry two spare spools loaded with 20lb PowerPro braid but rarely use this now. Partly because I’ve had quite a few cut offs in rocky swims with the barbel but mainly the low diameter to breaking strain ratio loses its advantage in low water conditions and for the Ribble chub I prefer these conditions, provided it’s not bright. Hooks are Kamasan B981 barbless or Raptors in sizes from 8 to 4. Clothing wise I’m a man of many lairs and some of my clothes are multi functional for fell walking and outdoors work on our small holding. However, I do own a Fishrite Xtreme set-up and a pair of Boom 80 boots – I’m not a happy bunny when I’ve got cold feet. I try and travel reasonably light, generally walking between 15 and 30 minutes to my swims in all weathers and at night both to and from the swim. While writing this I was intrigued to know just what travelling light was, so I weighed myself in just my long johns then fully loaded up for a winter chub session. Just in my long johns I weighed 81kg and fully loaded 112kg which, is about as much as I want to carry, especially if there’s stiles and gates to climb as well as heavily wooded banks to negotiate, etc. Records On the bank I carry a waterproof note pad, digital camera, mobile phone, digital thermometer and a set of Avon weigh scales. I record the air and water temps, the location of my swim, what the weather’s like and if I don’t already know it I ring up Rivercall and note the river level. All this takes no more than ten minutes to write down. When I catch a fish I record the time of capture, its weight and what I caught it on. If it’s a decent fish then I’ll photograph it. All this information is then transfer onto a spreadsheet when I get home, generally the following day, even I’m not that keen to start writing up my notes at two in the morning. I also post my results on the Fishingmagic Venue thread and print a copy off to paste into my scrap book along with any photos, maps, aerial photos (these I download off Multi-map) and other comments I don’t want to go public with. Analysing my records It didn’t take me very long to realise that I’m never going to have enough information; there always seems to be something I haven’t considered. However, it does make me think about what I’m doing and why, and at least I’m asking the question, “am I successful because of what I do or in spite of what I do?” Without my records I wouldn’t be able to know what the conditions were like when I caught a particular fish or if a swim fishes better at any particular time, especially if I’m fishing lots of different swims. My 45 chub over 5lb came from 10 different swims and when I join other clubs hopefully this will expand. However, one has to be careful about self-fulfilling prophesies. Most of my chub were caught after dusk, but most of my time is spent fishing for them at or after dusk, so catching more fish at this time is not surprising. A graph I drew up shows the distribution of chub caught against time with the sunset time plotted, is interesting. As yet I’ve not managed to plot on this graph the start and finish times of my sessions, but I’m sure that when I do it will show more chub are caught at dusk and at night. It wasn’t until the start of 2003/4 season that I started to fish up to midnight on most of my sessions. Hopefully I’ll soon find a web site that gives historical barometrical pressures for the Preston area and I’ll be able to add this information to my records. Just as some anglers are obsessed with bait or the latest gadget my obsession is the weather and its effect on the river. It’s all about giving myself the best chance, increasing the odds of catching and putting the right time in on the river, not just any time. Where do I go from here? Well, stating the obvious, catch more large chub, is easier said than done. Next year, for all my efforts, may be just a bad year, just like a bad run of blanks that happens to all anglers for what seem like no apparent reason. I will be joining other clubs and that in itself will mean new areas of the river to get acquainted with, so I can see a few more blanks on the cards. Also, the Ribble has a habit of rearranging itself after some of the large winter floods and that is another ongoing challenge. I’ll have a go at contacting the Environment Agency and see if they will give me access to the Historical Rivercall data? I’m interested in knowing what the river and weather conditions were like in the lead up to a good or bad session. Whatever happens it’s going to be a challenge to improve on the 2004/5 season, but one I’m looking forward to. |
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