Chub - River Wensum

Fished the river next to Ringland bridge. Water was high and quite coloured. An overcast day, and quite cold. Yesterday was sunny and warm, but you can't win them all. This was the first time I have ever fished for Chub and to be honest I didn't think I would be successful. Pulled up next to the river and when I got out of the car, my first sight was a likely looking swim running parallel to the road. I could not help just running the float down the swim a couple of times, Ahhhhhhh!!!

I had taken a variety of baits; Hemp, Bread, Luncheon Meat, Paste and Pellets. I fed a swim with 6mm halibut/trout pellets about a crisp packet full. I spread them over an area about 2m sq. I estimated that they must be hitting the river bottom about 5m below this point, and then continuing down stream in the current. I fished a simple, half ounce, running ledger rig, straight through to a size 6 hook. The hook bait was two 8mm Halibut pellets banded to the hook, back to back.

I cast this mid way between the two points mentioned earlier and waited, and waited, and waited. 40 minutes later still not a sniff of a bite. I was thinking that it must take quite a while for the fish to come onto the bait. 5 minutes later and I started to get a bit panic stricken, "What if the bait is in weed?". I decide to reel in re-new the hook bait and re-cast.

Not even 5 minutes passed and I started to get some weird bites on the line. Unsure if this was just passing flotsam, I reeled in to check the bait, GONE!! OK whats that all about? I baited the hook again and cast to the same spot. After around 10 minutes I started getting the weird (line) bites again, not a definite take just some pulsing movements to the rod tip, like weed on the line. I left it this time and waited to see if it developed. It went quiet and after 10 minutes I reeled in to check to find one of the pellets had been removed from the band. ARGGGG!!!

What could it be? If I was sea fishing I would have screamed CRABS, but this was a beautiful freshwater river about 30 miles from the coast. Are there crayfish in the Wensum?

After a couple of repeat attempts the swim went quiet and I decided to bait the swim again, move onto somewhere else, do some thinking, then return later to fish from the opposite bank.

Roving about produced a couple of noteworthy locations for a return visit. One swim was beautiful, with a big overhanging tree at the end of it. Mmmmmm Nice......

Eventually, fish less, I returned to the original swim with renewed optimism...OK here we go "Chub, Chub, Chub." I chanted under my breath. Same technique, but this time I will strike earlier. Bait went into the water, with 4 or 5 pellets offerings. I sat and waited and almost straight away the same weird line bites I had previously. I struck and connected with nothing, Oh well try again. I checked the bait which was fine and re-cast to a slightly different place. Now in hindsight I must have put the hook bait in weed, because nothing stirred for about 30 minutes. I decided to re-cast to the original place and had a bite within 3 minutes. I struck, connected into a fish and then almost straight away the line went slack. Snapped line, weakness on the hook length. Check, Check, Check!!!! I was now quite low as you can imagine!!!

I tackled up again and cast to the same spot...5 minutes and the weird pulsing started on the tip of the rod. I waited till the rod tip pulled around a bit more and struck into a fish. YES!!! COME ON!! Carefully I played it to the side of the river, a lovely fight, very give and take, the kind I like. And then it was in the net, Phew!! My first ever Chub of about 3lb and beautifully marked in gold grains on its flank.

A great day and a great fish (which I really deserved).