February 26th and 27th and yet another 6lb chub from Throop

The river conditions are just about getting back to winter levels and are running clear. This is about one of the first times over the winter period that the conditions are spot on. I spoke to my mate Alan the night before about how excited I was about journeying to the river Stour to fish for the chub. You just know when conditions are perfect, low and clear.

I couldn’t  sleep well during the night as the excitement kept me dreaming of big chub and trotting the float through that perfect swim. I was like a little kid during the next morning, I say morning it was 4am and I was up and getting everything ready and packed into the car. It took me very little time to travel the 9o miles or so down through the sleeping countryside. For about the first time there was no slow lorries on the A36 which is a nightmare for overtaking them.

I arrived first and parked up and by about 6.45am I was walking across the field to the chosen swim. It was a 8ft deep swim that fishes well at the current height of the river which showed .66m at Throop weir. I always note down the level before I set off on my journey so that I have a good idea which swims will fish best.

I was using a 15ft Hardys marksman float rod, a Shimano Nexave 3000SRB reel loaded with 5lb Drennan float main line together with a pre tied Drennan wide gap size 18 hook to 3lb line. The swim was a reasonably deep at about 8ft and about 30 yds long so I used a 4AA balsa chuber float with the bulk of the shot about 3ft from the hook and a couple of no. 8 shot about 1 ft away from the hook to keep the bait near the river bed. You will see that I used a size 24 Preston mini swivel to stop the maggots twisting the hooklink when reeling in at the end of the trot. The important part is to keep the maggots going in to keep the chub feeding

So as I tackled up I kept the maggots going in via the pult. There was a strong northeasterly wind blowing into my face that made catapulting out quite difficult. I couldn’t quite reach the line that I wanted, but was close enough to temp them into feeding. The feeding method needs one pult of maggots for every trot down.

After about 1 hour of trotting the float buried under the rippled surface and I was playing a lively chub that tugged me around a fair bit. The thing is that you cannot afford to bully the fish too much with such a small hook. Providing there are few snags around then it’s a case of leading them to the net.

The first fish was about 4lbs so at least I wasn’t blanking. It’s not likely that you will catch too many chub from this swim but normally there is a 6lber present and it was this fish that I was after.

At about 9.45am after a short break from coffee (I kept feeding the maggots though) and a sandwich the float shot under again.This time I could feel a real lump banging on the end. It was trying for a far side snag and slowly taking line from the clutch. I moved back away from the river edge trying gingerly to pull the fish towards me. Eventually it came back into midstream again with it’s big tail thumping the current this could be felt in the rod. First look at the fish seemed to indicate a 5lb fish, however after it slid into the net it looked so broad and deep it had to be larger.

Whilst doing the weighing etc another angler approached and admired the fish. He also took the photo’s for me too. 6lbs 6oz we decided upon it’s weight.

Well, job done and I was half thinking of moving to another swim. Somehow I didn’t and continued to feed the maggots. After about another hour I caught another 4lb chub fin and scale perfect. Followed by another one of just over 4lbs.

So 4 chub in the morning wasn’t too bad. Everyone else who were ledgering caught very little so the float method was outscoring the static approach. Interestingly the match which was held on beat 2 on Throop also confirmed that the float method excelled and the top 3 anglers on the day used this method.

A friend Paul came down to visit me. He had joined Ringwood in October and hadn’t been able to visit the river because of the severe flooding. So I broke off from fishing and we had a walk around where I showed him some of the best swims for the chub.

Mid afternoon had me fishing again but nothing came along. I temporarily moved swims to show Paul another good swim. In about 30 minutes of fishing I had 1 small chub of about 1.5lbs. The wind was not relenting and made baiting with the pult almost impossible and I just couldn’t get on the line I wanted. So at about 3.30pm I decided to move swims yet again to one where I could trot during daylight and ledger cheese paste later when dark.

Paul helped me move my gear to this swim. I was fishing with him tomorrow so we agreed a meeting place and a time before he left. Soon I had the float rod out running the float through the swim to gauge the depth which was about 6 ft. Just as I was doing this a fellow angler came along to see me. He had been learning to trot with a pin and had been beaten. So he asked if he could watch. After showing him my setup he stood back and watched me feed the swim and start trotting the float through. Well I never after about 10 minutes the float shot under and I hooked a very strong chub that pulled me all over the place. It was a first time for me to fish this swim and I was unsure about underwater snags. The chub though knew one that it got into, it was stalemate for a while, but soon slightly more pressure from the rod had it moving again. I guess it was only soft weed that hadn’t been flushed away.

The other angler offered to net the chub for me, I declined as it seemed rather large (7lb chub was caught the week before)then if I lost it then it’s down to me. The chub gods were on my side and I netted a really long chub. On the unhooking mat I thought it would go 5lbs and perhaps a 6lber. On the scales 5lbs 14oz and quite a distinctive dorsal fin.

I need to thank the other angler who took the photo’s for me.

So that was chub number 6 and that’s how it ended for the day. I didn’t get a touch on cheese paste during the hours of darkness.

After a good nights sleep in Ringwood I met Paul on beat 2 again at 7am. I was already in the swim when Paul arrived having been feeding the chub for about 20 minutes. The swim is a long shallow glide about 4 ft deep and you can trot as far as your eye sight allows.

Paul was soon into a chub of about 4lbs and then another of 3lbs 14oz. We were taking it inturns to fish as it was very cold and we needed time to warm up between stints. I landed another 4lber and all this in the first couple of hours. Paul hooked the next fish that turned out to be a pb for him of 4lbs 12oz.

I then lost a couple of chub, one that certainly seemed to be much larger. I played it from the end of the swim and guided it right up to the rod tip where it got promptly got stuck into something quite invisible. No amount of pulling in all directions did any good the chub had transferred the hook into something solid.

I did swear a bit!!!!

Paul pulled out of one more after again guiding it a fair way upstream. It sometimes happens in fast flowing water.

Time was moving on and the float fishing was taking a toll on both our backs. So we decided to move swims to one where we could use a feeder approach and short 2″ hooklinks.

We had action throughout the time we fished this method, however it was mostly the chub nosing the feeder. Paul did catch a bullhead and I caught a minnow. The chub were knocking the feeders but not taking the baited hooks. Another angler told me that he had the same experience on the weekend there. Some food for thought!

We fished on until dark and packed up with just the 4 chub and 3 others lost. It could have been a different story should we continued float fishing I’m sure.

A couple of great days fishing though.

6lbs 6oz chub