Diary of an average angler

My first trip to a stream this season. There were only two cars in the car park when I arrived so I was hopeful that the mill stream would be free, as it turned out to be. Despite another carp having been reported from the car park pool there was only one bivvy there on this occasion but it is now on the map as a carp venue and I'm sure it will continue to attract the bivvy club.

I decided to start by the road bridge. I saw chub there in the close season and have caught there before. It's a tricky swim to fish, requiring a longish cast between two reed banks where the stream narrows before passing under the bridge - see first photo. To prove the point I snagged the right side reeds on my second cast and lost everything. I started getting quite firm taps on the quiver tip from the start but couldn't hit anything. I assumed chublets or dace. Then after one cast the rod tip pulled around almost immediately, obviously a chub, but I wasn't ready and missed it.

I persevered and was finally rewarded with a nice chub of 3¾lbs. It fought well in the fast stream and tried to get into the reeds on both sides. Unfortunately I hadn't switched on the video so the battle wasn't recorded.

I didn't expect another chub following the commotion and after a few more casts I decided to work my way up the stream. My first stop was a swim that had always been reliable in the past. But overhanging trees on the far bank have now encroached so far over the stream that the swim is very difficult to fish, any cast being limited to a short flick under the tree branches. I wasn't surprised when nothing came of it.

I moved upstream a couple of spots, first trying a far side slack that had produced in the past. But not on this occasion. I then cast downstream towards the overhanging trees where I had just left, placing the bait between clearly visible streamers. But again there were no takers and the risk of tackle loss was high. I decided, therefore, to move to the top of the stream where there is an easily fishable swim.

I've caught chub at the head of the stream before but it is also packed with small dace and chublets. I was hoping that a large piece of cheese paste may tempt a bigger chub early on but all that happened was that a series a taps suggested that smaller fish were nibbling away at the paste. I persevered there for a while, during which time a brief rain shower arrived, after which the sky cleared to reveal a pleasant afternoon.

I did finally hook a fish after a somewhat more positive pull on the quiver tip but, as expected, it was a plucky little chublet. At this point I decided to have one more try back at the bridge before packing up.

This turned out to be a good decision as I hooked into another decent chub but on this occasion it got the better of me. Having stopped it from seeking refuge in the far reeds on the right it bolted into the reeds to my left and shed the hook. That was the cue to pack up.

Interestingly another angler stopped to chat and said he had previously caught eight chub by the bridge, which surprised me given chub's tendency to go off the feed after being spooked, and also because fishing by the bridge itself seemed impracticable. But it turned out that he had fished standing in the shallow water with his back against the bridge structure, positioning himself downstream of the chub and thus being less likely to alert them. In fact, while I was packing up I saw him catch one, and then as I crossed the bridge on my way back to the car park, he caught another. Quite amazing.