Pike Out, Chub In

When I awoke I was disappointed with myself, I really should have been on the bank now in search of big pike, I also knew that today was the day of the FM Ribble fish-in and although I do generally like these get-togethers the Ribble is taking quite a bit of pressure at the moment and I fancied getting away from the crowds. I made myself some breakfast and pondered my next move.

Eventually I decided on the Ribble and a spot in particular that I had caught some good fish from recently. After liquidising a couple of loaves I mixed in a handful of micro pellets and hempseed and flavoured the entire mix with a generous glug of Nash’s ‘Cheesy Chops’ flavouring and placed the lot in a plastic bag in my rucksack.

The drive was leisurely as the sun was shining brightly and I didn’t expect much action until dusk. As I drove along I thought again about swim selection, the river had again been up early in the week and I knew of a spot, generally fished by barbel anglers, that fishes well immediately after extra water had been in the river. The swim also had a bit of pace about it and I thought this may give me a better chance of catching during daylight. My mind was made up and I made a last minute change of plan.

I was relieved to find no other cars on the car park (which is usual in winter as the barbel anglers have long departed) and made the long walk to my chosen spot. The river looked perfect, maybe slightly up but running clear. I slowly assembled my usual chub gear. When chub are the target I only ever fish with one rod and I set up my Shimano ‘Antares’ quiver with a soft 2oz glass tip, 6lb Krystonite mono straight through to a size 4 Kamasan B980 hook. A simple running paternoster had a medium cage feeder attached to a Nash QC clip for ease of change.

It was about 1.00pm when I squeezed a large lump of flake on the hook and made my first cast, almost at the same time the sun disappeared as heavy clouds drifted over further increasing my confidence and about 1.05pm the tip pulled round and the bite was missed. It’s always disappointing to miss a bite but I was very encouraged that fish were in the swim and feeding. I had fished this spot may times for chub in winter and experience told me that fish were either present in numbers or totally absent. If they were present the fast water usually encouraged them to feed during the day but this spot really was generally all or nothing.

Before too long I was into my first fish of the day and as it looked like it may go five I popped it on the scales. 4.14 was close but it enabled me to gauge which fish to weigh and which to return immediately. The chub were in the swim in numbers and came thick and fast. Although I carry a sack, I only put the better fish in this and return the rest upon capture; however at one point I was getting so many fish that I was catching one, leaving it in the landing net and landing another before releasing them two at a time a little way downstream.

Gary’s 6.1 and 5.13 chub

With about ten fish caught and returned I hooked into a fish that tore line off the reel before doggedly refusing to come back upstream, in fact a couple of times I thought it was snagged such was stubborn resistance. I knew it was a good fish long before it hit the net but once I lifted it from the water I saw just how good. I weighed it twice for good measure and both readings were the same 6lb 1oz. Nothing else to do I suppose but call Graham, as expected he called me a t**t, in the nicest possible way. Graham was with Andy Nellist and was actually on the stretch that I originally intended heading for. As expected they had caught little as of yet as there is much less flow at that spot and nine times out of ten all the action comes after dusk.

As there was no one else on the stretch I took a couple of shots with the self timer and a couple with the fish lay on the sack using my digital camera. I placed the fish back in the sack in the hope someone else would appear before dark and recast. Then within minutes I was attached to another good fish and I began to think that maybe a brace of sixes was on the cards. However it wasn’t to be but at 5.13 it was another great fish and represented my heaviest ever brace of chub. I sent Graham another text and his response was, as expected, short and to the point.

It was however obvious that there was a lot of fish in front of me and I made a call to invite him down to share the bounty but it was getting late, and to be fair the spot he was fishing with Andy normally comes up trumps after dark so he decided to stay put.

I picked up a few more fish with another scraper five amongst them but as is often the case when the fish feed during daylight bites dried up at dusk. With the final nail in the coffin being the bright moon which appeared as the cloud cover broke. By switching to cheese paste I managed a couple of tentative bites and sneaked another fish out before I decided to head for home about an hour into dark. In all I finished with around 15-18 fish, all over 4lb with 3 over 5lb, a great day and quite fortunate when you consider my original plan was to go piking.

The icing on the cake would have been to go home and watch Everton put United out of the cup (as I’d asked my daughter to tape it) but the text messages I had received from closet united fans meant the video was left in it’s box that night. I’ll just settle for a couple of whiskeys then…