The big chub that got away plus Jeremy on the river Wye
We have now moved into October and the rivers have had a good flush through as we had about 4 inches of rain over a couple of days. This was great news as the rivers were going stale as we had little rain. It was excellent for me personally as during lockdown I had the opportunity to dig a wildlife pond in my wild flower meadow. I had managed to fill it to a level where I needed about 8 inches of rain as the final amount to enable me to finish the edging. It was almost there and looking good. However disaster struck and liner got blown around in the wind and the level dropped by 6 inches so I was back to square one again. But hopefully during the winter I won’t need to worry about the rain fall.
Talking about a disaster once more. I had been following a small group of chub That Andy (you should have been here yesterday) Cowley had told me about. He had caught a nice 6lb out of the small tight swim. They are normally sheltering from the flow tight against the bank. There are a couple of trees overhanging the bank and forming a canopy over them. So it’s easy to quietly creep up to the water edge. The plip plop of the pellets going in normally spooks them from the swim but within a few minutes they return and start to feed. One of the fish present is breath taking. Certainly over 7lbs. I had caught the smallest chub of 4lbs or so from the shoal a couple of days ago with all 6 or so feeding avidly on the bait. Any other fish in the shoal would he been 5lbs plus.
A couple of days later I arrived to find a big chub sitting in midwater. Plip plop with the pellets had the fish move from the swim. I introduced a few more pellets. Within a few minutes more chub appeared in the swim. The big one was noted by its absence. Then it came in in midwater and not interesting in feeding but feeling for line. I’ve seen this plenty of times before in previous swims where they are feeling for ages until they are sure it’s safe then they start to feed. Around and around the chub swam every 5 minutes or so. I was watching all this take place under my feet. Then the unbelievable happened the huge chub came around and got tangled in the line far from the baited hook. It twisted and turned and the rod top banged all around the place. If you couldn’t see what was happening you would have thought it a bite. It had practically lassoed itself and was in panic mode. It shot off and the swim emptied of other chub and guess what they didn’t return. Not too surprised really.
Next up was a session on the Wye with Jeremy. He wanted to catch a barbel and I suggested the Wye was a great starting place. The river was in flood and looked perfect conditions however it came up even further and sport was difficult. The barbel were not feeding as they had been. In the end we caught 2 barbel with the largest going 8lbs 8oz. He was happy and I was very relieved I can tell you. My mates fished again the following week and they too found it tough going.
