A Personal Best 6lb 5oz Chub

I arrived at the river, the Dorset Stour, Throop Fishery, above the weir, at about 1.30 pm. An angler on the other bank said he had lost a chub, so I offered to help him look for it but he didn’t seem as amused as I did at the idea! Never mind you can’t win them all.

John and his new PB chub at 6lb 5oz

I set up a float rod and a leger rod, but there wasn’t really as much flow as I would have liked for the float on my bank so that was consigned to the grass for most of the time. I fished quite a few swims, legering with just hookbaits; either flake, crust or cheese paste.

The plan was to move into a swim just below a big bend at dusk, which is what I did. I had about half a loaf of mashed bread with some red band, left over from previous sessions, mixed in it, which was deposited scientifically in one or two strategic locations.

All right then I admit it, I just lobbed it all in to roughly the right area mainly because I didn’t want to carry it back to he car.

About half an hour had passed when I had the first bite, just a very sharp pluck on the quiver. Two more followed soon afterwards, and as I usually find with chub, if the bait is left out, and no more bites take place, it really does need to be recast.

Having now missed a few bites, which have been at a bit of a premium lately, I lengthened the hooklink, which is easily done with my system of leger stop which involves a short piece of boom tube with the line threaded in one end with a needle, out the side ,wrapped around three times and then back through the side and out of the opposite end. More bites were missed, so some slack line was given first 3ft, then 6ft. The bites were still just the same: sharp raps and I still missed them.

I tried crust and flake and crust balanced with cheese paste. The crust and flake were ignored and the balanced crust produced more missed bites. Ultra short hooklinks were also given a chance. Time for another change. Off came the 3/8oz bomb, which I am ashamed to admit was the first one that my hand alighted on when setting up, and on went a two swan shot link. This combined with 3ft of slack produced a better bite – but I still missed it!

The final trick was to mount a half inch length of reed stem on the hook to mould the paste around, I had already tried using a Meaty Fish Bite to mould the paste on, and missed that bite as well. The final set-up then was a two-swan link-leger, size six wide-gape hook with a lump of wood impaled on it and covered in cheese paste and 6ft of slack line given after casting out. This produced a bite which actually pulled the quivertip round about four inches and stayed there long enough for me to be confident that the bait was actually still with the fish, which was duly landed with much relief.

It was obviously a good fish, I thought when playing it, and on weighing and measuring the vital statistics were confirmed as, weight 6lb 5oz, length 23 inches, girth 14 1/2 inches. It was quickly photographed and returned (I wish self-photography was easier) and the next two casts both produced fish of about 3 1/2 lbs with very hittable bites just like the bigger fish had given.

All the actual fishy action took place in a 15 to 20 minute period from 18.30 – 18.50 which if you follow some of the the moon/fish feeding theories would have been one of the peak feeding times, this was when the moon was at the very lowest point in its cycle for that day.

I had two more bites in the next 40 minutes which were very reminiscent of eels in that they just took chunks out of the cheese paste, so I decided to pack at 19.30. which was only an hour and a half longer than I had said. Dinner in the microwave again!

Since returning home it occurred to me that there is a further silly little twist to the tale; my sister-in-law, who visited over Christmas, is undergoing chemotherapy and I’m sure you are aware that one of the side-effects is hair loss. This means that new hats are in order. In jest I offered the services of one of my old fishing caps (just a flat hat) which I no longer use, which for some strange reason was declined. Still joking of course I said, “that hat has caught a lot of fish you know.” And proceeded to go through my fishing photo album. I was even surprised myself at how many of my fish photos contained that hat. You have probably guessed by now what is coming because although I have better hats now (that one only fits just after a haircut) I was wearing that hat on Sunday.

REPORT Date …………. 6th January 2002 Fishery………. Dorset Stour, Throop Fishery, above the weir Time fished…… 14.00 to19.30 Weather ……… Overcast, Mild, 46F all day Water temp……. 43 F (Avon also 43 today) Water conditions…. Low, but nice winter colour, not much flow. Method……….. Mostly legered cheese paste. Result……….. 3 Chub, inc new P.B of 6lb 5oz.

Monster Roach

I’ve also included a photo of a roach of as near 3lb as you can get without it being 3lb.

A near 3lb roach for John

I was fishing for barbel in October, using a large feeder, 8lb line, size 10 hook with a big bunch of maggots attached. It was obvious that something was giving the maggots some attention but you couldn’t really say they were bites; they were not sucked and not shrivelled up, there was just definitely something happening.

Suspecting dace, but quite prepared to find that it was barbel, I decided to scale down a bit to 6lb line and a 14 hook with just two maggots. I was in the middle of tying the hook when the tip pulled round a couple of inches. “Well you’ll just have to wait.” I said to myself.

I finished tying the new hooklength, by which time the rod had now pulled round about 2ft, and there on the end was this rather large roach!