The Joy of Chubbing

It's a few weeks since my last post, and for that I apologise. But I've had a busy few weeks and it has not invovled much fishing.

Part of the reason we have not been on the water much is that Charlie and I have decided that we would like to catch two particular species of river fish. In order to achieve this we have had to undertake a lot of research in order to locate a river which is both near enough and also holds these target species. We are desperate to catch both grayling and barbel. This is quite a tall order living in Mid Kent. We have however dicovered a club which holds the fishing rights to parts of the Upper Medway and Tiese. The Medway in its upper reaches holds barbel, chub, grayling (in small numbers) and some trout. So we have been saving our pennies so that we can join the club and target these fish throughout the winter months.

I did, however, manage a short chub session on my own at the river Eden a couple of weeks ago. I was not expecting much from the short afternoon/evening session. The water had been low and very clear, but we did experience a little rain in the preceding days so the river was rising a little and slightly coloured.

In most of our previous sessions at this particular swim we had either caught a decent sized fish almost straight away or a few smaller ones.When we started with smaller fish - often around one pound - we seemed to scare away the bigger fish and rarely had much luch for the rest of the session.

So, I was not put off by the quiet start I was having. In fact I was surprised  and quite excited. I hoped it meant the smaller chublets were elsewhere today and that the their bigger brothers and sisters may be in residence.

My tackle for the day included a feeder rod, five pound line and a freelined lob worm or large cube of spam, on a size 8 hook. Simple but often effective chub tactics. There is a deep hole under a tree, on the near bank, that was just off the main flow.

As evening approached I started to wonder if my spot was empty of fish as I had only had a couple of slight knocks. But as I had not been hassled by smaller fish, I was still hoping the larger, more timid fish were still around. But nothing happened. My worms were gone and the last piece of was on the hook. Typically I had a very good rod bending bite that saw me lose the last of the bait. I was about to pack up when I remembered the cheese sandwich in my ruck sack. I rolled the cheese into a paste and tried one last cast. Somewhat disgruntled at this stage, it has to be said.

It was totally dark, pouring with rain and my torch batteries were about to die. Then BANG! I pulled into what I knew was a fantastic fish. It flew into the treee roots to my right and it genuinely took all of my strength to pull it left away from the snags. It then made a splash so large that I thought I had hooked a carp. But as is often the case with chub, after it's initial strong resistance, I was able to get it into netting range.

I actually shouted 'F++k me it's a huge chub'. A strange thing when on your own in the dark.

But the fun was not over yet. With my heart racing it filled my landing net and all was calm. Or so I thought. I then realised I was on a slippery six foot bank, with a large bramble bush directly in front and no other clear space either side to lift the beast. So instead of taking the strain from the pole and lifting vertically I had to lean out past the bushed and raise the landing net pole horizontally. It snapped about two feet from the net. A comedy couple of minutes with ensued, ending with me covered in scratches and thorns, covered in mud and very close to a swim in a pitch black river with no light at all.

While I have caught larger fish over the years, this specimen is the nearest to a record fish that I have had. I think the British record is around nine and a half pounds. This beauty was around seven pounds. It was very difficult to get a true reading from the scales in the dark, on my own, but it is fair to say it was either side of seven.

I was fishing alone so pictures and video are of terrible quality. I really wish the boy was with me to enjoy the moment and to photograph me holding it.


Thanks for reading the blog and feel free to go to our youtube channel to see more. CnSFishingBlog

Lovely Chubbly

Local knowledge is always a valuable thing. Charlie and I have only discovered the stretch of the river Eden that we are targeting very recently. We have found a few good looking chub swims. We have had a little success catching a few fish of around a pound in weight. But had until this week not really discovered a spot that really excited us.

Due to an interesting set of circumstances this has changed dramatically. So has our luck.

It all started last Monday night when my taxi broke down in a very dodgy part of London in the middle of the night. After being towed to my garage I had to sit in a broken taxi until seven thirty in the morning. I was extremely tired and pissed off, as I'm sure you can imagine. So after arriving home after no sleep for nearly twenty four hours, I thought, sod it lets go fishing. As any sane man would.

As we walked towards our usual swims we stopped to chat to another fisherman. He was an extremely friendly and knowledgeable veteran chub and barbel fisherman. Often people are averse to imparting thier knowledge to strangers. I can understand why. But this fella took the time to chat about our tactics and showed us a few good swims we had totally missed. They consisted of fast water running into deep holes, with lots of overhanging cover.

CHUB HEAVEN!!!

We thanked him and set up our gear as quietly as we could, a few yards back from the selected swim. I used a quiver rod with four pound line. At the business end I used nothing more than a size 10 wide gape hook and a fat lob worm. I dropped the wriggler under a tree into a hole and within 20 seconds the rod bent violently and the fight was on. I knew it was a decent chub immediately as it flew straight towards some tree roots almost at my feet. It took no more than twenty seconds to land but what an exciting fight it was. When I got its head to the surface I could see it was a fantastic chub of 3 pounds plus.

I cannot fully describe the feeling of landing a personal best fish, on a river we specifically targeted, after seven trips. But I'm sure anyone who has experienced similar will fully understand. It's fair to say I was walking on air and had a smile as wide as the English Channel.

Having achieved such incredible success our thoughts turned to Charlie. It would round off a perfect day if the boy could also get some of the action. We decided the best course of action would be to rest this particular swim for a while and return after an hour or so. So we fished another likely swim with little success until the light started to fade. We then quietly returned to the tree swim, as we were now calling it, and Charlie dropped a similar rig to me into the same spot. Nothing happened. A few tentative bites followed but nothing as violent as I had experienced. I returned to the cab to get a torch as we had decided to fish into darkness. And lucky we did. The light went completely and I told Charlie he could fish for a few more minutes, but then we would need to go. The nice bloke who had advised us earlier was walking past with his mates, also leaving. Then bang! Charlies rod bent around and he was also into a good fish.

I had been lucky earlier as I could see where the fish was heading and was able to bully it away from snags. But Charlie was fishing in total darkness and had to control the chub by feel alone. I'm very proud to say that after a few minutes he had the fish on the bank. The boy has learned well. It was another great chub, caught in difficult circumstances.

Well done Charlie!

So what had started as a horrible day had turned into an amazing chub session on our favourite river. As a cab driver and a fisherman, I never know what is around the corner, but my job and angling  both teach you to be pragmatic and accept that some days are good and others bad. This was a good day. Who knows what tomorrow may have to offer. But I'll tell you something. I can't wait to find out.

Perch but no chub. 3 August 2013

Yesterday Charlie and I decided to fish for chub on the river Eden in Edenbridge.

The Eden is a small tributary of the river Medway. It does not have a great flow but holds some nice chub. It runs through some very beautiful Kent countryside and is a real pleasure to fish, if only for the rural surroundings. Charlie and I only discovered it this season so we are still full of expectation and enthusiasm.

Last time we were there we both caught a smallish chub each, although Charlie lost a bigger fish on the last two occasions. Tactics, both last time and yesterday, were relatively simple. A size 10 hook and a fat worm or a bunch of maggots, with a simple link swivel  to hold bottom, gently dropped into areas that looked as though they might hold chub. There are plenty of overhanging trees and undercut banks around likely looking bends. What could possibly go wrong?

Perhaps the chub were shy. Perhaps they were not hungry. But we never had a singe chub bite. Not one. We fished every possible swim, quietly dribbled in some free offerings then rested the swim before fishing. Classis chub tactics. But nothing. Not a bite all evening.

We both questioned our tactics. But on reflection I think it was just one of those days.

The only bonus for us was that almost every swim was teeming with hungry perch. I love perch and so does the boy but today we were not fishing for them. However, they were the only fish feeding, so we gratefully landed around 20 of them.

Here is the biggest of the session...

It was an odd day to be honest. But the beauty of fishing is that you never know what is going to happen on any given day. We never caught a chub, but I spent a great afternoon and evening with the boy, we caught loads of perch, we had a real laugh, the sun was out.

That'll do me.

And next time who knows? The only thing I can say with any certainty is that we will be back.

Hello and welcome to Fishing With My Son.

I'm Shaun and my son is Charlie. We both share a love of coarse angling, whether it be on a river or a lake.

We have a Youtube channel CnSFishingBog where we edit and post videos of our regular fishing trips. For us it's a lot of fun and a passion we share. For me it's a fantastic way to spend quality time with my boy.

I'm new to this blogging lark so please excuse a few teething problems early on.

My intention is to talk about our fishing trips in greater detail than a Youtube video allows. But I will also try to give an insight into the special relationship which can develop between a father and son who share a love of angling.

As a London Taxi driver I reserve the right to also impart some of the rubbish that passes through my head on a regular basis, whether fishing related or not.We can't help ourselves as I'm sure you've noticed.

Anyway to get the ball rolling (and so I can work out how to load a picture) here is a picture of the boy with a smal chub he caught from the river Eden this week.

Blimey it worked!

Welcome to Fishing With My Son