You may recall I was after a big Thames chub before the end of this season, my most recent blog posting saying:
‘I’m hoping to end the river season in style with a six pound Thames chub, a big net of chunky dace and perhaps a rare specimen sized roach from the upper Kennet. I’ve got three trips left and if the weather stays as forecast Old Father Thames will be sock on for chub with some decent flow and the water carrying that lovely greenish tinge that screams ‘fish me now’.
Well, my fishing mate Paul Tolman and I went to a club water on the middle Thames near Shiplake on Sunday. We were biteless by lunchtime so I vacated a swim which had some previous form for monster chub and went roving. Three modest fish later on trotted bread and I returned to find Paul still biteless, but sitting in my previously unproductive swim.
At dusk he had one bite on a small piece of flake in conjunction with a cage feeder and liquidised bread and a few minutes later I netted the amazing 7lb 10oz specimen for him that you can see pictured above.
It was Paul’s first six from the Thames…an ambition that, technically, he is still to realise!
The moral of the story, I guess, is that good things come to those that wait!
