GAME CHANGER

BRI GENT – 54lb 14oz CHUB HAUL

Rig switch for big river catch

“I’VE RECENTLY enjoyed a red-letter day on the River Trent, where I caught 54lb 14oz of chub from Burton Joyce on the long rod. But it wouldn’t have been possible had I not switched tactics after losing a big fish.

“The road stretch at Burton Joyce has fished its socks off, with day-ticket anglers banking 30lb-plus nets of roach and dace, so I was inspired to give it a go.

“At the head of the stretch is an outlet which creates a line of foam that carries down the river roughly two rodlengths out from the bank. It’s on the inside of this foam where the roach and dace can be caught.

“At 8.30am I settled into a peg roughly 10 swims downstream of the outlet and began feeding the inside line with hemp and caster before shipping out my elasticated whip.

“I love fishing the whip, and it was only 10m to hand, so I was comfortable and confident of a fantastic day’s fishing. My rig was set up to just scrape the bottom and I began the session with a single caster on a size 18 hook.

“There are so many fish here that you normally catch one a bung from the off, but after 30 minutes I’d not had a single bite. It was strange, although I carried on until my float finally buried – but this was no roach or dace.

“The 4-6-rated elastic I had in the whip shot out and I battled this fish, which I reckoned was a chub, for around 20 seconds before the hooklink parted. You can imagine my shock when I shipped in to find it was the hook that had actually snapped at the shank!

“The subtle tactics then went out the window and I slung the whip up the bank before reaching for my trusty 17ft float rod.

“It was set up with a 3g Bolo float, 3lb hooklink and size 16 Colmic 957 hook on to which I nicked three bronze maggots. Out went the rig and over the next five hours I never looked back.

“By trotting the float roughly two pegs downstream and keeping a constant stream of maggots, hemp and caster going in, I ended up catching 17 hard-fighting chub averaging 3lb-4lb.

“I was due at work in the afternoon so I was packed up for 1.30pm – just in time for the arrival of Wilfy, the bailiff, who helped weigh the catch and take some awesome photos.

“I could quite easily have persevered with the whip for the roach and dace, but had I not tried a different approach, I’d never have enjoyed my most prolific day on the river to date.”

“The subtle tactics went out the window and on went three maggots”