October 16th Dorset Stour Throop

Well after last Thursday efforts on the Bristol Avon and catching a few chub on the banded pellet it was good to be heading south. I was due to be guiding on the Sunday with two Andy’s from London way. So I hadn’t seen the Stour for 3 weeks so I thought it best to go down the day before to see what the score was regarding river height etc. It was .39m which is still very low for this time of year. Most of the weed had gone but the pipe reeds were still present in clumps across the river. I had arrived at 2pm and spent 2 hrs walking and looking at some chub and barbel feeding away in different swims. I looked into  swim where I had some good chub over 6lbs previously and saw that a few were at home again. I baited with hemp (about 1.5pints) and went for a walk. I also put in about 10 boilies by dropper to ensure that they would have some free offerings. Source was the bait again. Now the water was cooler I fished 1.5 boilies on the hair rig to allow the cut one to release a little more flavour in the water.

After about 45 minutes I returned and cast out. Within 10 minutes I had a spirited tussle with a 5lbs 9oz chub which got the session off to a flying start. The sky’s were clearing as I sat there. The promise of the first frost of the year filled me with dread for the proceedings tomorrow. It can kill a river stone dead.

Then things went a little quite. Sid the bailiff came along for a chat at about 6.15pm.