My lucky new rod

[Sir Blanks-alot]

Id not been river fishing in ages and even though i knew the levels would be well down i thought what the heck, give it a go. Especially as i discovered a new stretch of river which is free and supposed to hold a good head of fish. It was decided on for sure when my new rod, an old edgar sealey, 11ft octofloat deluxe split cane rod arrived this morning, be rude not to give it a go, plus everywhere else i could think of fishing held big fish and it would be just my luck to hook one on a 50 or so year old rod.

I arrived to see the levels well down so walked along the stretch to see if there was anywhere i could fish, there werent many places but settled on a straight stretch with overhanging trees on the far side, surprisingly there were a few fish topping so set up nice and quick with a 3 no. 4 stick float, running through to a 2lb trace with a size 18 hook. I was also using my portage centrepin reel for the first time which is quite small but looked like great fun.

Feeding maggots every cast i initially had a few bites resulting in a small perch and a couple of small dace, everything was working well and was lovely day for a bit of trotting. As i fed maggots again i noticed a small chub come up to snaffle my loosefeed again and again but when i cast my hookbait into his area he would eye up my bait then swim away which was a tad frustrating. He eventually did take my single maggot but i promptly missed the bite, uttering a few choice words under my breath i plugged on but all was quiet for about an hour until i had a lovely bite resulting in a nice 5oz dace, not massive but a nice fish, quite content with that i gave myself another 20 minutes fishing and with 5 minutes left of the 20 i had a bite at the end of my run which, when i struck, turned into a chub on the end of the line which decided to run right under the overhanging trees, using my new rod and reel set up, i had no idea how much pressure i could apply to it and just inched him out into the main flow. Its true what they say about being more in touch with th fish with the centrepin but its bloody hairy business, for me at any rate. With my heart in my mouth i netted him and although not massive at about a pound and a half, on my new gear it felt wonderful and my biggest chub so far. I put him back safe and sound and thought it was a perfect way to end the session so packed up.

I will definately be at my local river this autumn using my old rod and reel and hopefully cracking into a few more of those wily chub.

[pingu]

nice one well done

[BoldBear]

Great report.

Nothing beats trotting with the pin in my book, pure enjoyment.

[Baz T]

Nice one, well written report too