Will you be joining the Lunchtime Fishing Club?

THERE’S something to be said for fishing short sessions. Not only do they help you to get a regular fishing fix but, as reader Sam Everist reveals in this week’s issue, they can deliver some remarkable surprises too.

Fishing his local River Lea during his hour-long lunchbreak, he took an incredible quartet of chub with three of them weighing over 7lb each and a supporting fish of

6lb 6oz – a dream catch in anyone’s book.

Quick-hit angling is great fun, and takes you back to basics with your fishing, as you have minimal time to set up loads of kit or bait up areas for the long haul.

I’m pretty sure that it helps you improve as an angler, too, distilling years of knowledge of fish location and behaviour and bringing those instincts to the fore to ensure you present the right bait in the perfect place.

Angling in this way helps you focus on one tactic, one species and one venue, and with limited time you tend to concentrate harder on catching that dream.

It can be a case of boom or bust, though. Prior to Covid, when we were based full time in our offices, we set up the Angling Times Lunchtime Fishing Club with the goal of getting everyone out fishing for an hour in the middle of the day. The rules were simple – you could only have 60 minutes and that had to include travel to and from the venue. We’re lucky in that there are loads of great places on the Nene within casting distance of work and every weir, backwater, basin, lock and snag was thoroughly investigated.

The result? Well, there were a lot of funsized perch caught but then someone would hook into an absolute whacker of a chub, perch, or roach which would ensure we’d all be back for more the following day.

If you’ve got a spare hour one day this week it might be worth you wandering down to your local waterway for a lunchtime bite.