FICKLE FISH OR FAULTY FISHERMAN

 

     If only I could work it out. We had a friendly knock up match on the Leam today, just the six of us. We drew for sections rather than pegs and I was lucky. My section contained a swim in which, last summer in the midst of a heatwave, I had seen a fair few nice chub and a good number of roach and rudd. It was not so hot today, there was a good frost, but I was pretty sure that whichever area I drew  an early chub would make the bulk of any worthwhile weight. Consequently I had a small cage feeder rigged on a Martin James 'Greaves' and Ambidex reel, my favourite small river set up for fishing bread. My plan was to set up in what I deemed the most likely spot and give it 45 minutes before giving every other likely looking feature a half hour or so. When those avenues were exhausted, I would turn to a 13 foot Matchmaker and Mitchell Match to trot maggots past the snags, hoping to top up any chub in the net with a roach or two.

     The first part of the plan worked perfectly. My first cast landed too close to the far bank in some old rotting sub surface reeds. The second cast landed perfectly right up against a small raft of rubbish that had collected against a small overhanging bush. Within five minutes, I had a confident bite and after a furious struggle landed a beautiful chub of three and a quarter pounds. Normally that would be it but today I continued to get sharp, unhittable bites and rattles. In the end, I wrote them off as small fish and went to try some other cover with the bread but sadly to no avail. Two hours in and with no more fish it was time to try for those silvers.

     I gave the float two hours. It was working perfectly; everything was just right, the wind, the current and a lovely line to trot within inches of the snags. Nothing, not a flicker, unbelievable. With an hour left, I went back to the original feeder rod but this time I swapped the size 10 and flake for a 14 with two tiny pieces of punched bread on the shank. I gave the first cast fifteen minutes. I thought, just half thought really, I might have seen the tiniest movement of the rod tip but I wasn't sure so I picked up the rod to wind in and all hell broke loose. There was a fish on the end cartwheeling across the surface in and out of the snags and into the net. Not the silly 'pike don't count' jack that I feared but another unmarked chub of around two pounds. That was my lot, not too shabby really but as always I came away with something to mull over and a problem to solve, how on earth do I catch more silvers on this river.

     There are clearly far more roach, rudd and dace in there than I can catch. It is a very snaggy water, ideal for chub and using lighter tackle is a practical option in very few swims. I get plenty of vigorous bites using my current gear anyway so I suspect that the problem may be solvable with an improved rig. I just can't seem to come up with one, or rather I haven't yet, but I am working on it.

     Ideally I think I need a self-hooking rig, something to negate the need to strike at anything remotely positive. Match anglers seem to manage with rigs using feeder gum. A form of elastic that enables the use of finer hooklengths. They also use maggots beneath a groundbait feeder. Mostly it seems to me that they are fishing open water for fish that like maggots. Neither criteria applying to the Leam in my experience however, I am getting desperate so we'll see what happens when I try it.

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