Pete Davies travelled from his home in Essex down to the Dorset Stour, where he found the river in bad shape. It was right up, and the paths and fields alongside it were heavily flooded.
Nevertheless, having made the effort to get there, he told himself he wouldn’t let the conditions stop him from wetting a line. Chub were his target and, while conditions were far from ideal, he knew that if he found the right spot, there was the chance of a few fish.
“I follow some advice I was given many years ago – while a flooded river won’t tell you where the fish are, it will tell you where they are not. So, I eliminated areas where the Stour was hammering through and, after wading through quite deep water, settled in a swim that looked spot-on, with plenty of slack water to go at.
“When chub fishing, I like to make my first cast before putting any bait in. I think that if a chub is there, it’ll have a go at the first thing that enters the swim, which in this instance was my hookbait.
“That proved to be the case on this occasion, as a fish of just under 4lb took my cheesepaste hookbait on the first cast.
“I felt that, in the conditions, there could well be a few more fish in this swim. However, over the next few casts my rod-tip showed delicate indications, but no proper bites.
“I was fishing a 12ins fluorocarbon hooklink but decided to shorten this down to about six inches to tighten things up.
“I was also using a 2oz running lead, but this was far too heavy for the slack areas I was targeting. So, I switched to a small half-ounce bomb.
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“I recast with the new set-up and, 30 minutes later, the rod hammered over. This fish fought incredibly well, and when I eventually netted a chub of 6lb 7oz, I was chuffed to bits.
“I decided to stay as the light faded and managed another, even bigger chub, this time weighing 6lb 15oz.
“I was absolutely delighted to have managed a few cracking fish on a day when I didn’t see a single other angler on the bank.”
IF YOU ARE SHORT ON TIME, CHUB ARE A GREAT SPECIES TO TARGET!
