2 short trips to the middle Thames this week.
Given the frosty nights I targeted chub on the first visit. Water temp was just above 5 degrees. I fished a stretch I know well but have never had a chub from whilst targeting barbel/carp/bream.
Water was well down and clearing so I fished liquidised bread thru a cage feeder with flake on the hook. I thought I might catch a bream or even a roach if the chub didn’t show….I started on a 30g feeder and ended up holding just fine with 15 grams ! To cut a long story short, 2 hours later I hadn’t had a bite, despite steady feeding.
Then I had a message that my pal fishing well upstream had just landed a big bream on a big smelly bait - so I switched to a fish meal ground bait and a small drilled pellet. But that didn’t work either….
My mate ended up with 3 bream all on 20-25mm baits ! All caught in a short mid afternoon feeding spell. The smallest one was about 7.5 lb.
Yesterday I fished higher up the river on a stretch I’ve only been to once before. The water was a not very pleasant browny/green colour with much less clarity than the other stretch. I didn’t fancy it at all.
Method was a cage and liquidised bread again. Once more I started on 30g as there was a bit more flow. In the end I could just hold with 20g.
First cast and the tip went round - a chub of about 1.5 lb. Quite ironic after the previous trip.
Through the afternoon I had a couple more tentative knocks but no more hookups. Partly due to me having too stiff a quivertip and probably too big a hook as I’d just added a quiver rod to my specialist kit. Bad decision.
Again I tried a drilled pellet and even small balls of paste but neither provoked a bite.
As it was starting to get dark, at 4.30 pm I had a better bite (again on flake) and had a decent scrap with a nice solid chub of around 4lb. Things were looking up.
I stayed on into dark with a specialist rod cast out and a big lump of paste on a big hook. Just in case. A good bite at 5.15 pm produced another small chub of around 1.5lb. Time to go home and think about a more match oriented approach for next time.
Given the frosty nights I targeted chub on the first visit. Water temp was just above 5 degrees. I fished a stretch I know well but have never had a chub from whilst targeting barbel/carp/bream.
Water was well down and clearing so I fished liquidised bread thru a cage feeder with flake on the hook. I thought I might catch a bream or even a roach if the chub didn’t show….I started on a 30g feeder and ended up holding just fine with 15 grams ! To cut a long story short, 2 hours later I hadn’t had a bite, despite steady feeding.
Then I had a message that my pal fishing well upstream had just landed a big bream on a big smelly bait - so I switched to a fish meal ground bait and a small drilled pellet. But that didn’t work either….
My mate ended up with 3 bream all on 20-25mm baits ! All caught in a short mid afternoon feeding spell. The smallest one was about 7.5 lb.
Yesterday I fished higher up the river on a stretch I’ve only been to once before. The water was a not very pleasant browny/green colour with much less clarity than the other stretch. I didn’t fancy it at all.
Method was a cage and liquidised bread again. Once more I started on 30g as there was a bit more flow. In the end I could just hold with 20g.
First cast and the tip went round - a chub of about 1.5 lb. Quite ironic after the previous trip.
Through the afternoon I had a couple more tentative knocks but no more hookups. Partly due to me having too stiff a quivertip and probably too big a hook as I’d just added a quiver rod to my specialist kit. Bad decision.
Again I tried a drilled pellet and even small balls of paste but neither provoked a bite.
As it was starting to get dark, at 4.30 pm I had a better bite (again on flake) and had a decent scrap with a nice solid chub of around 4lb. Things were looking up.
I stayed on into dark with a specialist rod cast out and a big lump of paste on a big hook. Just in case. A good bite at 5.15 pm produced another small chub of around 1.5lb. Time to go home and think about a more match oriented approach for next time.
