Finally Found Some Fish

Catfish Virgin (Still!) · #1 12-13-2008, 08:39 PM

I've been struggling to get out on the river bank lately and even when I've got there, the conditions have conspired against me (that's my excuse anyway!).

Woke up this morning to heavy rain but relatively mild temperatures. Plenty of time left to do the Xmas shopping so off I went to Throop and the Dorset Stour.

Finally settled in a swim at about 12 noon and set up the centrepin on a 13ft power float rod allied to a big (5SSG) balsa, 5lb mainline to a 14 on 4lb with three red maggots.

It only took about 30 minutes for the first chub to come along but I managed to lose that one in the reeds at my feet. I soon contacted another good fish of around 4lbs+ which was followed by a steady procession of very decent chub averaging around 5lbs.

The biggest challenge was working the chub upstream from way down the bottom of the trot, the flow was very strong and there's still plenty of dead weed /reeds about. I lost several as they found more solid weed on their journey up stream! The shoal did move up the swim a bit as I continually loose fed maggots but these big chub know how to fight.

I ended up with eight or nine and as the evening appoached they just got bigger and bigger! The two I weighed turned out to be my 2nd and 4th heaviest chub at 6lbs 09oz and 6lbs 13oz.

140 mile round trip for 4 hours of the most enjoyable afternoons fishing for quite some time!