River Stour - 20.02.12

Had a quick roving Chub session at the Stour at Honington Bridge, Shipston On Stour. Simple tactics, A size 10 specimen hook tied direct to 6lb Drennan Double strength line with a couple of float stops holding a small length of flourocarbon fitted with a single Preston 3SGG Jumbo locking shot. I've tried small feeders, running rigs using those tiny Guru leads and even lead clips, but for Chub I've had more success using a link ledger rig.

From my previous post I thought I'll try the Jeff Hatt punch bread method, so with a 30mm dia piece, compressed, folded in half and hooked I tried the same swim I fished a few weeks ago.

I've never been that confident fishing with bread, is it still on the hook ? I think the beauty of the bait and rig method is you do as little as possible with it, I always try and underarm cast, watch the bread sink and then sit and wait, avoid tightening the line as much as possible. As shown in Jeff's article the bread swells around the hook keeping it on. Anyway within a minute some knocks of the rod tip and a violent pull I was into a Chub straight away. I use a John Wilson 11ft Avon Quiver and a cracking fight it was too as it tried to get into every snag and undercut. A tad under 4lb, and a lovely fat looking fish.

I released it downstream but the swim was probably disrupted too much. I tried a few more swims, liquidised bread feed and breadflake on the hook but sadly no more fish. Lots of indication on the rod tip but I think the bread was being attacked by the minnows. Started to get a bit windy too so I called it a day.