I did manage to get out last week on Wednesday to use up some dead baits from the chew trip. River low and clear but still caught a few pike but only jacks.

I’m sat here now and the rain is falling however it’s not to last long and further east on the upper Bristol Avon hardly any fell during the afternoon and evening as I went about my business. There was plenty of flooding in Devon and Cornwall plus south Wales but the rain hasn’t gone far enough east to help the BA catchment area.

I first started fishing a good swim with a few chub around the 5lb mark. I put out the caviar of chub bait casters and hemp via a bait dropper. I wanted to leave the swim for 30 minutes or more so I baited up a barbel swim just with hemp for later in the evening.

A couple of different dropper I use.

I normally don’t use the shinny ones as they tend to attract the pike on the retrieve. I lost the old black one and it needs replacing.

The wind was extremely strong from an unusual south east direction. It was so strong at times it was uncomfortable. Debris fell from the trees and leaves filled the river.

On returning to the original swim I could just about make out 4 chub feeding on the baited area, however normally there are many more, they were not feeding confidently. I suspect that some of the shoal had been caught over the weekend.

The other disappointment was that I was looking forward to seeing the chub reaction to the swimfeeder and the plastic casters however the wind was so strong the ripple distorted my vision. I could just make out the odd black shape but couldn’t see the fishes reactions, so I called it a day in that swim and moved to the barbel swim.

I’m just starting to introduce my winter boilies into the swims I’m going to fish to get the fish used to feeding on them.

It wasn’t long before I had two rods out on the hemp area one with pellet and a PVA bag, the other my boilie with a few in a bag.

In about 1.5 hrs I had 6 chub to just under 4lbs and guess what all of them fell to boilie approach.

Chub liked these boilies

I continued to fish until dark and wasn’t troubled by the barbel. I’m out again later in the week and only hope the flow of the river increases, it might just have a tinge of colour too!!!!

A guy walks into the psychiatrist wearing only Clingfilm for shorts. The shrink says, ‘Well, I can clearly see you’re nuts.’ The lake has not been fishing very well for pike since it’s opening. Sure enough there have been some good pike an even 30’s but not in the numbers of former years. The lake […]

First of all a bit of news. Phone answering machine message – ‘…If you want to buy marijuana, press the hash key…’ Ian had contacted me to say that he and Laurie had been fishing further down the river in the deeper parts on the Bristol Avon and had been catching lots of smaller fish […]

I was going to fish a different area this afternoon to see what was about barbel wise. The sky had turned bright blue, or perhaps the best definition is that the cloud had gone leaving the sky empty. Arriving at about 3pm I walked and looked at several swims and there were a couple that […]

Well here I was trying for those barbel. I arrived at 3pm As I walked along I came across Paddy whom I had not seen this season so I spent the best part of an hour chatting and finding out he has caught some huge fish during the summer both chub and barbel. He was fishing […]

I was in the deepest South West when the SMS came from Andy Cowley saying do I fancy an afternoon out on the river. I was on my way back up the motorway when I remembered this and got the better half to phone him. Well I never I soon got that special pass that […]

I had a couple of pints of casters and hemp which needed to be used up from my fishing fridge in the garage. It’s a great time of year where small baits can catch barbel and chub. My choice of swims was one where there was a snag which contains some good size chub and a few […]

I guided a couple of good anglers Nick and Steve today, they wanted to catch chub and barbel. The main objective was to learn about swim selection and read the water and try and find some. Followed by learning a few different methods. We met early in the morning and made our way to the river. We […]

I’m planned to guide tomorrow with a couple of anglers and since I had not been on the river for a while I though I had better look around and see if the fish were still in the normal places. This time of year can sometimes be difficult with the water being cooler and the […]

I had just returned from a weeks holiday in Cornwall where the temperatures reached summer Mediterranean standards of almost 28c in October. Has the world gone mad? It was time to get back to the fishing again. What could be better than the 2nd day of the pike fishing on Chew for the year. Andy […]