Flipping Feeding Frustration….

I arrived at the swim at 7.00pm, the river was clear and I could see the bottom before it dropped of 10ft or so from the bank. I was planning to fish just off the main flow on the edge of some thick green streamer weed. I put in two medium Seymo bait droppers of hemp, a mixture of small pellets and some chopped up squabs.

With my cocoon 'Mr Magoo' polarised sunglasses I could look beneath the surface to spot fish. Within 20 minutes or so I had 6 or 7 decent sized Chub milling around the swim and happily feeding on the free offering. A couple were >5lb I’d say. Now we all know there isn’t much a Chub doesn’t like, I've caught them on the lure, bread, maggots, slugs, cheese, pellets, lobworms and boilies. They are probably the greediest fish in the river and they don’t usually take much time to find the hook bait. Could I catch one this evening, no chance.

I started off with a glugged sausage sizzle squab cast downstream and quietly dropped it in to the swim. It didn’t seem to disturb the fish because they were still resident in the swim. For an hour or so I had a couple of rattles on the tip but no proper bites. The bait was attached to a short hair and I’ve never had a problem in the past catching Chub so maybe a hookbait change was in order. Maybe the stonze was the issue against the silt bottom so as I was fishing out of the main flow I removed the stonze, tied the swivel directly to the main line, moulded some tungsten putty around it and swapped the squab for a couple of small pellets, the same size as some of the free offerings.

The Chub were still there but now they were joined by a Barbel, not a big one but a welcome sight all the same. Again, for an hour, a couple of knocks but that was it. All very frustrating, I left at 10.00pm with one of my first blanks in a long time. That’s fishing for you, it shouldn’t be easy, I’d lose interest quickly if it was.