Another weekend with freinds

I found myself getting out of bed at 3am and making the long drive down to Bedford for the Chub study group AGM weekend, arriving just before 6am I met up with a couple of fellow members at a local cafe for a full English before setting off to fish the river Ivel, we would have liked to fish the Gt Ouse but it was carrying extra water and as a result wouldn’t fish very well. The river Ivel is a roving water 20 or 30 Min’s in each swim and then move on and after three or four hours I finally caught a 2LB.8oz Chub, I then spent the next three or four hours trying to catch another one with little success.Later on that evening we all met up in a traditional pub hidden away down the back streets of Bedford, it was a proper pub no music no mobile phones no larger it’s a good way of keeping the riff raff and chavs at bay the beer was OK if you like real ale I had three different beers from the same pump so I went on Guinness after that.
Next morning after breakfast I returned to the Ivel this time I would find the fish and stay there in the hope of getting another rather than moving on, well it worked sort of I managed two fish 2LB,10oz and 3LB 2oz which apparently was more than most managed so I was reasonably happy. Sunday was very wet so after the meeting I hit the A1 and headed for home.

A weekend with friends.

I’ve just spent the weekend with some new friends who have descended from all over the country to plunder as many chub as they could from the river Trent. Our hotel was located in eastern Beirut err! sorry Nottingham, most of the guy’s arrived on the Friday so that night we hit the town big style, well alright we went for a curry and had a few pints and returned to the hotel for an early night( not by choice). After breakfast we all split up and fished various stretchers around the city and a few of us even headed over to Newark. Most people caught a few fish and a couple blanked but that’s fishing. Saturday night was a bit of a damp squib as the hotel wanted to charge us for opening the bar and as we had just come from the pub I didn’t fancy walking back again so a few of us just hung around out side talking till about midnight, but I was happy enough. I didn’t bother to fish Sunday as she who must be obeyed had some instructions for me to carry out, so after saying goodbye I left them to it. Till the next time.

Seasons end

Well that’s my season over, I could only manage a short session of around 4 hours so I went for the option of quantity rather than quality so after feeding half a pint of maggots I sat back and waited, I seem to have done quite a lot of that this winter with nothing to show for it. This time the river looked spot on and the weather was quite a bit warmer than of late, anyway after twenty minutes I got my first fish a small chub about 2lb quickly followed by another which was a bit bigger so I put another bait dropper full of maggots in and had a coffee.About half an hour later another chub just under 3lb graced my net and then a hour or so later another small chub before I had to pack up and return home for tea and medals.

Last overnighter of the season.

I took a couple of days of work in order to finish the season with a few fish or one fish or even a bite as my last few sessions have produced neither. So along with my regular fishing buddy Lee Swords and his ridiculous amount of tackle we headed for the tidal Trent. On arrival we met up with Simon Irvine who had already been there a couple of nights,so after a bit of a chat about our chances he told us that he had managed one fish so far on maggot. Due to time constraints and traffic we hadn’t had time to pick any up so Swordsy being from Yorkshire borrowed a few from Simon who isn’t from Yorkshire so didn’t charge him or count how many he was giving away, however I chose to fish with small chunks of lamprey as it has a habit of producing in very cold conditions.Once we were set up and settled in the temperature started to fall so it was a case of waiting for one or possibly two bites if we were lucky. Around 2am Swordsy asked me to take a photo of his first capture of the night, it wasn’t a big fish about 4lb or so but in these cold icy conditions it was very welcome.Fishing in these conditions is never comfortable and as I’m not reeling my lines in means I have to leave the bivi door open all night so I can see my Delkins and the rod tops it’s not much of a problem if your not facing the wind. I think I managed a couple of hours sleep but I was up and ready for action about 6am, well I put the kettle on and removed the bits of weed and plastic from my hook links but it was bloody cold and that tends to dilute my enthusiasm so rather than recast I made us a bacon sandwich and went to talk to Simon before deciding to pack up and calling it a day.