The Sixth Ribble Fish-in
Once again around 25 anglers turned up at the Black Bull for the 6th Ribble Winter Chub Fish-in, of whom 12 stayed overnight in the bunkhouse. Once again the Ribble decided to hang on to her chub but as a reward for those anglers braving some really hard fishing conditions she let one or two of them have a peek at her beautiful grayling. Graham, Dave Colclough, Dave Chilton, Eddie and More Spiders came along but didn’t fish.
This was one of those days when it would have been great to take an extremely bracing walk along the bank with a camera. Along with the sunny intervals this was one of the windiest days I’ve ever fished on the Ribble, so windy that I had to lay my rods flat on the bank and the only way I would have known if I’d had a bite would have been when the fish pulled my rod in, having said that, some of the lads did find a few sheltered pegs. I’m not sure who it was (Bryan Baron) but someone had their brolly turned inside out, obviously not one of the lads who’d found a sheltered peg.
There were also a few surprises as well, Bryan Baron banked six barbel and was probably the angler with the best catch of the day. Bryan writes: With the wind howling down the river I was in no rush to start so I spent an hour talking to Alan Williams a friend from work who was on his second Ribble fish-in.
With the cold conditions I thought during the day I would be looking for the lady of the stream, grayling. I started with a feeder rod, 5lb reel line, 1.5oz maggot feeder and a 16’s to 2lb line with double maggot on the hook. 20mins after starting I had a savage pull that just parted the line. So I changed to a 4lb hook length and a size 14’s. On the next cast I connected to the only chub of the session at 4.2. Thinking I was going to be into a few more chub I was the surprised when on the next cast I connected to a 3.6lb barbel. Next came a 3.8 then a 4.6 barbel followed by a small trout of 12oz. This was all in the first hour.
All went quiet for a while then the 5.6 came to the net. As the light dropped and I was just thinking of packing up I connected to the 3.2 barbel, then on the next cast the best fish of the day at 7.9 ran me all around the swim. I gave it another 30 min’s into dark with no further interest so went and joined the lads in the pub. The wind was a real problem and about 5pm it got even stronger and bent my brolly arms round till they were touching and breaking one of the arms. So everything was not on my side. A few chub did managed to hit the bank but only one over 5lb which was one of two chub that fell to Dave Bassett at 5lb 2oz. However, as anything above 4lb is considered a specimen, one could say a few specimens did grace a few landing nets with Swordsy also banking two and Phil Hackett with the second largest at 4lb 8oz. The big surprise of the day was Martin Womble’s salmon; and he was also one of the lucky anglers with two nice grayling. Also caught were a few brownies, a couple of sea trout, an eel and Jim Hinchley’s prize Bull Head.
This year we decided to return to the White Bull for a few beers and a meal and without doubt the meals at the White Bull are excellent, with babies head and chips being the most popular choice after a very cold day on the river. As we weren’t quite sure how the landlady at the Black Bull would take our eating in the White Bull we sent Wol back first to ease our return, seeing that the landlady had taken a real shine to Wol. She even asked after him while I was doing a bit of tidying up in the bunkhouse and said he was a very, very nice man!
A few more beers were sunk in the Black Bull before we retired around midnight to the bunkhouse for the late night cabaret, the star turns being Swordsy, and Wol and Andy doing a double act. Swordsy also provided some excellent nibbles, great Bhaji’s and a superb bottle of Black Label Whisky not to mention several tins of lager. There was some talk about Baz’s milk being tampered with; I’ll say no more on this subject but you may want to read the postings on the Fish-in thread. I think Phil Hackett’s post on the forum basically sums the night up:- “Plenty of zoo noises in the bunkhouse when I got up for a slash about 5 30 am. Ric, wait till you see the pictures, which I have no doubt, will emerge at sometime on here. The bunkhouse after party is now a Legend in its own right and has taken on its own life form. The new rising stars of the ‘Legend’ this time were Wol and Andy with their double act. As has been said, Lee came with new material, demonstrating the Girls from Sheffield. Somebody mentioned Okynoodling and putting your arm into dark fishy holes. Now I ask you in all seriousness, how many in that room hasn’t done that at sometime? Clearly Lee had, and demonstrated it most graphically with his material about the girls for the Field.” Look forward to seeing you all again next year and tight lines for the last couple of weeks of the season. John |
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