In Search of Monster Chub: Opening Day Successes.

 So the glorious 16th of June approached fairly quickly after my arrival back in the U.K and this season I had decided to give Chub a go for the first couple of days. My venue was the D.Stour and with this being my third campaign on the river I was certainly feeling more optimistic about my chances of catching some of the rivers huge inhabitants, I know I was fishing some of the best water in the country so I know I have to bide my time and continue to learn the waters, it will come.

 Myself and Brian made the long journey down at the crack of dawn with the view to stalking the fish throughout the day and static fish for the Chub during the night, once we had arrived the temperature was already at 24c with prospects of a max around 31c, that's pretty hot when in amongst towering stinging nettles and balsam, not very pleasant and if you can imagine sat in a sauna fully clothed then you get the picture. But the river season was open and we couldn't care a single bit, lovely to be on running water.

 I set up a short stalking rod (9ft) and a (12ft) trotting rod for different swims to make sure I didn't alienate myself from potential targets, as the sun got higher during the morning we could see Chub moving around but to our surprise they were still spawning on the shallows and this presented us with an early problem, just like us humans, we don't think of eating whilst doing the deed so I wasn't expecting the Chub to oblige, things were going to be tough from the outset.....

 Around midday I trotted a big lump of meat downstream to a tree line and the float stormed off downstream and was met by some very strong resistance, the fish began to come upstream and I could see a large frame (probably 6-7lb) heading for the top of my swim and as I bent down to pick up my net it lunged downstream and buried itself in a huge weedbed, not what I wanted and the line was solid straight away, I was gutted as I could still feel the subtle tapping on the rod, so I knew it was still on the other end, I let the slack off to see if she'd back off down still attached but before I could formulate a plan the line went completely slack as I took up the tension, she was gone.....not the start to the season I wanted.

 With very little since that lost fish but the occasional knock unfortunately nothing could be hit on the float or on the rolling method and as 4-5pm approached I decided to completely change tact and find a shaded area to fish a static, I had to try something else as my desired approach was proving useless, I flicked out my 15mm source boilie and sat patiently in the heat of the mid afternoon sun, tan top up time.

 Roughly two hours in my tip on my outside rod nodded and then absolutely went berserk, the sort of brutal take you'd expect from a Barbel, I made sure this time I put plenty of pressure on the fish the entire way in, thankfully the fight wasn't very hard and she came in fairly smoothly, back of the net for my first Chub of the season, not a bad one either!

5lb 6oz

 First of the season weighed 5lb 6oz and considering how hard it had been I was very chuffed with that, the evening hadn't even arrived and I felt that would be my best time, so having released that brassy beaut the successful rod went back out and the wait began again.

 That wait was not as long as I thought it would have been, maybe an hour or so later my outside rod again sprang to life with a vicious lurch towards the river and on a tight clutch I made sure that the fish couldn't make its way back into the branches I was fishing but the weight of the fish made it quite difficult and I wasn't expecting to see a big frame of a Chub surface, I had thought it was either a small Carp or small Barbel by simply how strong the fight was, not just a small Chub either, easily my biggest D.Stour chevin to date.

 Understandably I was over the moon when she slipped over the rim of the net, an easy 6 and maybe bigger I thought, only to keen to know the Rueben's came out to put a number on it.

6lb 8oz, only three ounces off a new PB.

 It had been a long time coming but I feel that it will get even better but now two Chub in the bag things were looking rosy and at 4pm I thought a blank was nailed on, funny how one decision and little knowledge of the water can help, this was no doubt a culmination of luck and hard work that has been put in over the previous two seasons.

A still evening of the tips.

Deer in the field at dusk.

 The rest of the evening unfortunately went by with little action but it was good to just be back on a river, night came and went without a hitch and we were ready for day two.

  Day two started with myself and Brian walking the banks in search of surface feeding Chub and as the sun got higher we could see more moving around but very few were actively searching for food, it must have been 6am and the mercury was already sat around the 27c mark, it was the precursor to a roasting hot day, one that I felt would not do us much good unless we found shade and equally knew the Chub would wait until the cooler latter part of the day to start feeding.

 We walked a fair few miles to search out fish but we were unsuccessful in catching, by around midday we decided to call it a day and fished a little closer to home for the remainder of the day, we knew we'd have to wait until 6pm onwards for some action, we can wait and do it all another day, the two Chub during the first day were brilliant and the trip was a success for sure.