Well it’s not been great news as a national lockdown has been served again. Us fishermen are allowed to still go fishing but shouldn’t travel too far. So I started off by going to the Salisbury area for a spot of dace fishing. I was using bread flake under a float. It was a difficult day to be sure and I ended with 7 dace. Hugh who was fishing just downstream faired better with a good number of dace and 6 or so roach. Nothing of any size but still it was good fun.

The next time I ventured out was to go further down the Avon valley where arriving I found the river to be slightly coloured but with no debris coming down. The sun was shining pretty much all day which kept it lovely and warm at about 12c. I was going to fish a few new swims to start the day and as I did so it was more than evident there was still plenty of weed around. So I pondered a move back to a swim that I’ve caught plenty of chub this season.

I catapulted out some maggots towards a few willow branches draping the river surface on the far bank and could make out some shapes looming up out of the depths to take them. Yes the chub were hungry for sure. Alas so were the minnows!

Time had moved on now and I thought I would settle here for the remainder of the day. So I continued catapulting maggots out whilst I had an early lunch. Slowly it dawned on me that I needed to get a move on putting the float rod together again as the hours of daylight were getting incredibly short. Now in this swim it’s only about 3ft or so deep next to the willow branches but it’s here where the chub will feed confidently. You need to almost brush them with the float. Luckily there is a small bay in between the branches that’s a kind of bay where you can land the float and end rig without the risk of casting into the branches. I’m then able to just adjust the line of the float to kiss the branches as the maggots travel down in the flow close to the feeding area. It’s explosive stuff when the float goes under. The strike is normally met with a solid object who’s instincts are to head for the safety of the branches. This means that you cannot give an inch of line. The normal process of hooking the fish then walking back into the field with the rod tip held low means that normally you have the upper hand. Sometimes though the hooks which are size 20 ping out of the mouths. Once the fish are are in midstream the battle is over and you net them downstream. Well I had 2 small chub that I managed to land with no problem on the size 20 hook. Then to my horror I hooked 2 decent chub that pinged the hook out. They felt like better fish too (don’t they always).

Not wanting to risk any more mishaps of losing fish I decided to change to a size 18 Drennan super specialist. I was fine with the 4.12 Preston reflo hooklink but the hooks were the problem.

The day passed by at fast speed and daylight was going too quickly for my liking. Combining this with a further 7 chub caught it was turning into a fine session.

So I had a brilliant days fishing. I’m always in awe of the sunsets in winter. The air seems clear and the light bright at sunset and this ones didn’t disappoint.

So 9 chub with the largest going 5lbs 5oz and 5lbs 7oz it was time to head home on the 2 hr journey.

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