the plan was to have a few hours at Hampton Lucy Brook but after going to have a look at the water levels just before sunrise there was no chance, the Avon was over it's banks and proper motoring through so had to switch to plan B. Plan B was the Stour at just outside Stratford. The levels were up but perfectly fishable. The venues I fish are usually quiet, in-fact if there is another angler within sight it's unusual. Today was no exception, for a few hours I had the stretch of river to myself. The fair weather anglers of Stratford AA winter league were meant to be hogging the whole Stour stretch, but not today,a bit too much flow, slightly too cold etc.
With bread, bread and more bread, a link ledger was the rig of choice,
I love watching the tip and with a river like the Stour you can use a sensitive tip, the 2oz tip I use shows every bite from Minnow, Roach through to Chub, you know exactly what's going on at the hook end.
After it's recent flood and the fact it was coloured, bites were hard to come by. A nice Chub and some quality Roach took a liking to the bread and over 3 hours had a dozen or so fish.
Be nice if the rain lets up and the water runs clear as I've always had the bigger Chub in those conditions, a 5lb'er this season still eludes me so I'm hoping to get a few sessions in over the Christmas period. The Avon still holds the bigger Chub in my opinion so hopefully if the levels drop that's where I'll be heading.
Bread fishing on rivers. I know exactly what you mean, Mick, when you say you know 'exactly what's going on.' Amazing too how the bites can be so easily told apart from one species to the next.
ReplyDeleteI've been using slightly smaller discs now to try and attract the Roach rather than wait for the mouth of a big Chub.
ReplyDeleteSize 12 hook and 20mm Dia folded disc seems just about right. Just need the rain to let up a bit so the Stour runs clear. Fishes much better in my experience.
Me too. I used to use up to 30mm, nowadays it's more like 15-20 mm with no noticeable difference. I went down in size because of silver bream on the canal who I noticed have very small mouths indeed. Tried 15mm on the Avon and started catching them as soon as I did where I'd never seen one before.
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