With the Avon still banging through I fancied a small river fix to hopefully catch a decent roach that the Leam holds or a few chub would do to be honest. The Stour had been over its banks recently like the other local river however I really was surprised of the colour of it when I got bankside for this short morning session.
It was that lovely green colour that the Stour is renowned for so the roach might not be up for a feed but the chub certainly would be.
I've found the bigger roach seem to only show when the river is strong tea coloured and also when the river is carrying lots of water like it was today. Still plenty of swims to go at to try and winkle out a fish or two.
The first swim I fished I caught 3 chub on the last trip so I had high hopes for a bite which came around 5 minutes of the thumbnail piece of bread being out. A rattly bite rather than a chub pull round and sure enough the culprit was a roach I thought it could be.
A minter too but I've caught them to well over 3 times the size of this previously but who doesn't like to catch roach like this ? I thought I was on for a few more bites but sadly no more bites in that swim so I went on the rove.
I'm an inpatient angler and certainly small rivers like this you need to try and find the fish rather than them try and find you.
As I made my way down the stretch the signs of the recent high water was all there to see. In the 3rd field the whole electric fence had been wiped out giving the farmer I right old headache I'd imagine because it was in the hundreds of yards rather than a small section of it.
Anyway the banker swim didn't produce apart from the odd tippy tappy bites which presumably were small fish nibbling at the bread. I swapped to worm from time to time throughout the session but not one bite, bread seemed to get the most interest.
Anyway the morning was ticking by fast and I was wondering where the chub were. I need not worry though because the swim I caught my biggest river roach from produced a tell-tale chub bite, and I struck in to a solid lump.
A dirty fighter too and at one point I thought I was going to lose it as is was trying to get right under my feet. A stroke of luck I managed to get it in to the landing net at full reach because it's quite an elevated swim this.
Only a 2lber but a welcome sight because if I'm honest it wasn't fishing well at all. A small dace got in on the act in the next swim but that was that. Three fish and that was it, and that was after a few hours and probably 6 or 7 swims.
Some of the swims were just not fishable because the river was still banging through and boiling so I was limited to the ones that were. So not that productive but I wasn't complaining, a nice bit of winter sun and roving this cracking little river.
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