CHUB AND BARBEL ON A FEEDER THEY’D NEVER SEEN BEFORE!
Why not take a leaf out of the commercial book?
THE dog days of summer see our depleted rivers dawdle downstream past a languid succession of trees and plants that have long since lost their youthful greenery.
Nor does the tired tale end there. Beneath the surface, fish await the first autumn flush of cooler water that will galvanise the river back to life. In the meantime they have grown wary, expecting to find a hook in every mouthful of food.
Their lethargy is matched only by their suspicion, so a casual ‘chuck-it-and-chance-it’ approach will result in an almost guaranteed blank.
Now we need to consider our every move and perhaps present our quarry with a new approach that just might stimulate their appetites and cause them to slip up. With this in mind I came up with a plan to target two of our country’s most wonderful rivers – the Wye and the Avon.
I would be after barbel and chub, ruling out maggots as bait because of the teeming bleak populations. Instead I chose trout pellets in the 2mm-6mm range. A particle approach works well in late summer.
I wanted to try a new presentation, and was pretty sure a commercial-water pellet feeder had never been cast into the swims I intended to target.
On to 12lb mainline went a 40g Drennan pellet feeder. Generally this is a pattern for stillwaters and a soft pellet approach, so to use it with hard pellets on a river would be unorthodox – but I was certain it would work.
To plug the open end I chose Sticky’s Active Mix dampened with pure tuna liquid rather than plain water. Its tacky nature would enable the hookbait to adhere to it, preventing tangles.
“I’d be after barbel and chub, ruling out maggots because of teeming bleak populations”
A 4ft hooklink of 12lb Supplex would be less obtrusive than braid, and far softer than fluorocarbon, which tends to rise off the bottom. Rather than knotless-knotting a hair to my size 14 Barbel hook I formed a separate hair from braid. This helps keep the hook on the riverbed.
My 6mm pellet hookbait would be held in place with a large E-S-P stop and a dab of superglue, to stop chub knocking it off.
With the rig complete, I’d fold the hooklink in half and push the pellet into the soft mix. The hookbait would free itself at the same time as the groundbait and free pellets, confusing the fish as to its exact whereabouts.
Over the top? Under difficult conditions attention to detail is absolutely vital.
A day later, from my stone crib deep in the valley, it was time to put my plan into action. I began to feed the swim by recasting every 10 minutes. I didn’t expect an instant bite, nor did I get one, but with each payload I was encouraging the barbel to feed. While I waited it was pleasing to know that the rig was working exactly how I wanted it to.
After an hour a blue sky clouded over and that was the cue for my first bite – a rod-slamming affair because I was fishing directly downstream. Happily, I was holding the rod and immediately felt the power of a big barbel turning under the pressure and heading determinedly upstream – a wonderful sensation and a prelude to a clutch-ripping battle.
The fish was a big bronzeflanked beauty, and definitely one I’d want to meet up with again in its winter prime.
This pleasing scenario repeated itself 10 more times before I packed up. I have reached a stage in my angling life when once I have achieved what I set out to do I feel no need to keep on catching for the sake of it.
Chub would be my next target. I found the Avon on its knees, choked with weed and desperate for a drink. There is, however, something indescribably charismatic about this southern river – it just smells of big fish.
Keen not to waste time in the wrong swim, I baited three lightly and gave each one a fiveminute surveillance in rotation. Eventually I saw fish start to move out of the cover afforded by an overhanging bush.
This river was far more intimate than the Wye, so I restricted my casts to one every 30 minutes, and soon I felt the first rustle on the tip from an eager chub.
Unlike with barbel, a pick-up on a hair and a long hooklink doesn’t always result in a hook-up, but this time it did. Six plump chub made my afternoon and proved it’s possible to avoid a summer stupor with a pellet feeder.