P.B Chub

skinhead · #1 04-11-2005, 07:07 AM

Oi Oi,

Just a quick post today. I went out to my local small river yesterday as it was such good weather, and I'd finished the required household chores. The river in question is the Somerset Frome. It was still a tad high after the rains but some of the colour had dropped out. I started on a bend that has rapids running off to the left & I started traditionally on the up stream nymph. This only elicited one BIG swirl at the fly, but it missed & swam off never to return..bugger. In the rapids I started down stream & waded up, again no luck. The water was moving so fast I couldn't keep contact. Next spot was a large slowish bend wit shallow water. Here I spent an hour trying to catch a constantly rising fish on various dry flies, again the fish didn't want to play. I changed tack & put on a damsel nymph & tried down & across. I saw fish follow but couldn't identify them. On my last cast in that spot, half way through the retrieve everything went solid. At first there was no movement, so I naturally thought it was a log and another lost fly. Then it took off downstream like a steam train stripping me nearly to the backing. I tightend up the drag as much as I dared & began a game of cat & mouse. At this point there wasn't much head shaking, just long hard pulls near the bottom. After what seemed like an eternity, in reality about 10 minutes, a brassy shape neared the net. At first I thought a carp, going on the size but once safely in the mesh I could see my P.B chub, all 7lb 3oz.

After the excitement I took a short break and walked to the next field. Here the water was deeper and slower. I tried everything I could but didn't get any interest until the last swim. Initially I was on the nymph which only produced a short, but hard missed take. I changed over to a small sea trout treble, just because I'd never used it. Fishing down & across under some overhanging branches the fly was savagely taken. After a brief but energetic tussle, a lovely 2lb 4oz brownie came to the net, my biggest from the river.

On light tackle, 7'6" 3/4 wt, the sport was out of this world.

All up a good session, 3 hours, 4 takes, 2 big fish, nettle rash & a lot of smiles.