In Search of Monster Chub: Part Two.

 Chub, this species is probably the greediest of all that swim within our waterways, much of the time they are the bane of Carp and Barbel anglers alike. For me this species represents a very good challenge, there is Chub and then there are big Chub, I want to get amongst the big ones and I'm targeting no river better than the one I'm currently on and with a track record that it has if I were a betting man then it would all go on the Stour to produce for me what it has done for scores of some of the best anglers ever to step foot on it's banks.

 I know what I'm doing when it comes to Chub fishing but I have adopted a tactic that not many would have thought of, that will remain a secret for the foreseeable future as I want to maximize the impact of such a simple but seemingly potent method.

 Last Sunday I had a two-day trip to the Stour planned and after a energy sapping 48 hours on the Fens I wasn't really up to making the 210 mile round trip but something was telling me it had to be done, so I did it. As I'm getting older (28) I am finding it slightly more difficult to crawl out of bed at 4-5 in the morning for a fishing trip which is something that needs to be addressed. The drive down south went fairly smooth but for a 45 minute hold up around the New Forest I was edging closer to the river and I could feel the excitement building as the smell of the river got stronger. If I could smell the river from my house then I would certainly have more about me to get up early doors, I believe it's the prospect of a two-hour drive ahead of me each way which dampens my appetite slightly, nevertheless I arrived to find a low and clear river, just as I did last time out, a little colour would be better but in these conditions I can spot my quarry.

 I went through my club-book and flicked through my pages to land on a section to fish, whichever came first was my destination. The basics dealt with I opted to use my new Fox Royale 12ft 1.75tc rod, this rod is a little stronger than I'd usually use for Chub but the amount of weed and snags that line the river pose a threat and need to make all of my opportunities count when they come knocking, spooled up with 8lb line it was rock and roll time, the search was on.

 When I fish for Chub during the day I never stay long in a swim and if I don't see any movement then I tend to move on and come back later on to see if anything had moved in or trickle in a little bait to create some investigative action, it didn't take long either to find some, 3 decent shapes weaved in and out of the weed at the tail end and these were the sort of fish I was looking for, all of them looked at least 6lbs in the water, I wasted no time getting some offerings out and they didn't last long. The smaller two seemed a little weary though and slowly backed down but the largest remained in position and on the first cast the bait was engulfed and I leant into it to set the hook and the swim erupted as the Chub went absolutely mental, every single piece of weed and reed it could find was aimed at, it was a nightmare of a swim and how I squeezed my arse in it I'll never know but I did and after a good few minutes I managed to just get the net to it as it was stuck on small raft of sticks and wouldn't come free, I had to use the net to pull the sticks towards me in order to get the Chub to a nettable distance, finally though after a minutes madness I breathed a sigh of relief, it was in and not bad at all.

Not bad. 5lb 10oz it was shy of 6lb by quite a bit, very nice all the same.

 It wasn't a six pounder but probably will be later on in the year, good fight though which I did enjoy thoroughly, just wish they wouldn't fight so dirty!. That swim was ruined though and the remaining fish bolted downstream when I latched into that one, I headed on up to locate more fish although they turned out to be very few and far between, walking long distances to see very little meant a change of plan, so I opted to tackle another stretch in the vein hope for more action.

 As I got further down I met up with fellow all-rounder Simon Daley for a mooch around, the Chub again were very hard to locate, we both had a nag for a while and decided on changing over to a static approach and wait it out until dusk and fish through to last knocking's, unfortunately though it was only the Bream that were on the feed where we both managed one each, the Chub however were difficult to persuade and remained elusive. I had decided though not to do the second day as I had got soaked in the evening and needed a b'n'b but at £69.95 for a night whilst fishing is a lot of money so I thought better of it and made the 105 mile journey back home, wet, tired and a little perplexed as to how either of us didn't manage something else, but the Stour can be very moody and trips like this are going to be experienced before I can finally say I know what I'm doing. Until next, tight lines.