Chub Rescue a Perch Blank.

 For the first time this season I ventured out for Perch, I was heading north with the view to seeking out some real monsters, having never been there before and very little to go on I packed as light as possible so I could cover as much water as possible, the bait was live Gudgeon, under a 5swan shot loafer I was looking for structure to trot my livey, conditions were poor as the previous days rain had dislodged loads of loose weed and put a lot of sediment into the flow, all of which coupled with the bright sunlight meant that the Perch fishing was a non-starter from the beginning.

A spot of low profile trotting, the Chub were just downstream.

 Knowing it was going to be tough I still gave it 3 hours before throwing in the towel, I really didn't want to but from experience fishing for Perch elsewhere I know that I was seriously up against it. There was only one thing to remedy the dire morning (angling wise), a spot of trotting for Chub was called for, a small loaf of bread and some liquidised bread was all I had.

 After walking a few miles in the morning I decided to build a couple of swims close together and simply trot through the runs and hope for the best, I arrived at the river with maybe an hour or so left of sunlight and I could make out dark shapes cruising across the bottom but seemed very cautious, to get them feeding I had to wait almost for dusk, the liquidised bread started to work and the float slipped under on maybe the 50th trot, a good scrap was ended fairly quickly but not before it made a dive for the bankside vegetation. On the scales, 4lb 9oz.

 Not a monster but certainly a start, the next few trots produced tentative tugs on the float but were totally unhittable, I think that fish switched back off again, so I stopped fishing for a while and fed it up, by the time I cast back out it was almost dark, so I cracked out a night-light and proceeded to trot, first time in a long time I've trotted at night and it was an instant success, first cast a Chub around 3.08 came to the net. Within six trots I had a further three Chub with the best nudging the scales at 5lb 5oz. A good fish, plenty of room to grow aswell, so I'd be delighted to catch that in March next year. A certain disaster of a day was avoided, even when the Chub are feeding very cautiously they can still be caught.

Best of the evening at 5.05.