Sunday 12 February 2017

First sessions of the year

My first session of the year (3rd Jan) was on my local river targeting the pike, the same area where I lost 'that' fish a couple of months previous.

River conditions have been fairly kind this winter, flooding hasn't been too bad and without prolonged periods of wet weather levels have usually dropped within a couple of days. Due to the better than normal river conditions confidence has been high when arriving on the bank for a pike session.

Conditions were decent enough during this session, water temps just above 3° C, not overly coloured and at a level that I like for this stretch. However the going was hard. A solitary jack was landed around midday and without much further interest during daylight hours, I decided to fish an hour into dark.

Just as the last of the sun disappeared I had a take on a full lamprey. A delicate take, very little line taken, but I could feel the odd tug on the braid. Almost immediately after striking I had a nice 4lb plus chub on the surface, the chub wasn't hooked as I could see both trebles and the bait was spat fairly sharpish.

That was all for the first session. After that lost chub and the others I have had in recent sessions I decided to purposely target the chub on my next outing.

A quick chub session (6th Jan)

Three days later I was out for a short evening session, the chub gear was already setup in the car ready to go. After a 13hr shift at work it had to be a short session, 2 or 3 pegs, an hour or so fishing.

Simple tactics, 1.5lb avon, 2oz tip, 6lb sensor, light link ledger to a size 4 hook.

After a few missed bites I connected with a nice chub which put up a good scrap in the dark. The chub was almost lost to a snag, but some steady pressure had it out in open water and I managed to net it fairly quickly. I thought it would go over 5 and it did, the avons settled between 5 and 5.01lb.


A new best, my first for a while

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