Andy Nellist (part three)

Andy,
I had a short session on the river today; mainly because the water temperature had been creeping up since Friday and today it was near enough 50 degrees, I couldn?t get my rod in the car quick enough. Although I knew it would be in flood with a steady rise in temperature like this, something should definitely feed if I could only find the spot.
When I got there I saw a chub porpoise its self out of the water so decided to start off in this particular swim. The rod tip was bouncing all over the place with the wind and flow, but in a steady rhythm. Three missed bites later and forty minuets on, the rod tip behaved in a completely different way than what it had been doing, it wasn?t a slamming take, but I struck at it, the result was a ten pound barbel, yeeehaaa, I was well chuffed, my first double figure barbel, not only in flood conditions but also in a spot that was supposedly devoid of barbel, as I was after chub. In the next two hours I also had two chub at 3lb and 3.8lb. Thank?s for the write up which prompted me to try fishing in what I would normally think of as impossible conditions.

Well done Baz a right result. Catching a pb and your first double on a day when you might not have gone makes it all the more special )

I enjoyed your article again Andy. Very interesting to read articles by people using different baits/methods on different waters. There are so many ways to catch chub.

Congratulations Andy as well as a good read also a truly spectacular season for you and like you’ve said on another thread it’s not just a matter of putting the time in but what you do with the time available to you. Your methods and bait seem similar to what is proving successful on the Ribble but up here we don’t as yet have any crayfish for the chub to pack the weight on. It would be interesting to know if all the major big Chub rivers have one thing in common – crayfish?

Cheers lads,

One of the things that seem to make a difference is to keep introducing small amounts of fish oil. This seems to be very effective at drawing fish onto the bait.

I tried a whole range of different baits including cheesepaste, flake, lobs, boillies, maggot, caster but luncheon meat seemed to be far more effective for chub. Most of the other anglers who are having fish from the water are using boillies almost exclusively.

On a few occasions I had small plucks and pulls which came to nothing. So i tried buzzing out a maggot feedsder when it happened and caught when I did, but it was small roach, bream and chub. I took the opportunity to see what happened if I put oil in with the maggots in the feeder and the results spoke for themselves. The fish found the bait far quicker with the oil in the feeder.

This year there are massive amounts of fry in the water and when I fished last they were all over the surface along the edges of the flooded river in the middle of a cold night. So the crayfish clearly are not eating all the eggs and all the fry.

The crayfish have only just gotten into the other stretch I mentioned and the fish there tend to be slightly smaller on average but it has done fish to 6 1/2lb.
That the Chub do eat them there is no doubt indeed I photgraphed a fish for an angler that had coughed up most of a crayfish, claws and all, in the sack.

Method wise I would always prefer to fish as light and sensitively as possible i.e. using quiver-tips but a lot of the time that is simply not possible because of the flow and the amount of debris in the river.

For the last month when I have gone I've been unable to fish effectively having injured my back at Christmas. Finally came off the painkillers today and am hoping to be able to get out there again and do some proper fishing.

John,
The chub grow very big in both of my local rivers, the Avon and the Stour, but there are no crayfish in either.
Andy,
I can see why the oil would attract the chub. Several years ago meat was better than cheese in my local rivers but now it is the other way round. Cheese is naturally oily so that is probably why it is effective as it is.

Andy, for a while I got good results when I couldn’t get hold of micro pellets, so I ground up halibut pellets. When I think back my big chub and barbel came when I just fished a feeder with ground/crushed halibut pellets and a few loose fed pellets. Don’t know why I changed to micro pellets? I’ll give the fish oil a try and go back to ground/crushed halibut pellets. Is the cod liver oil you can get at the farmers stores OK to use, I seem to remember it was quite cheap when I use to feed it to my horses.

john
yes that oil is fine to use.
ground pellet was the basis for the groundbait i was using this autumn for chub too.

andy
2 things to say,
brilliant catches once more i'm jealous now.

where's my rods

I've been using dynamite baits meaty fish bites and use the oil from those together with mainline active-8 pellets in 200mm drennan perforated pva bags tied to watch leads. the reason for relying on the (expensive) tinned oil is that it is always totally fresh.

When I used chunks of mackeral in the past for Chub it became apparent that they pellets etc. but for me the tinned stuff preferred the fish that was as fresh as possible. Even freezing the bait made it less effective.

I have caught using bottled oil and halibut pelletsbut the tinned stuff from out performs the lot.

judging by how the Ouse is fishing today you should be out on the river now Jason or is it charging through and full of debris ?

Sorry that sewcond paragraph shouldhave read: "When I used chunks of mackeral in the past for Chub it became apparent that they preferred the fish that was as fresh as possible. Even freezing the bait made it less effective. "

if your in the flow it's going through like a train andy, it's the thames not the ouse i'm fishing though.
i was piking yesterday and got 5 bites from what i can only presume were big chub.
there were no teeth marks in the bait and one of then managed to pick up 5 oz watch lead with 6" dead bait and set off across the river towards the far bank.
i think the next session might see me fishing a 1inch dead bait section on a big single just to see what it was.

Better get on the mackeral chunks Jason )