Deep Frozen Chub

Nearly all week I'd been in two minds, chub or pike, pike or chub. In the end I opted for a spot of chub fish, after all I'd made up some cheese paste ages ago and chub were turning up in a local river. Nothing big but it should be better than my recent pike trips. As the weather forecast was for a rather chilly , and windy, start I decided to arrive at a reasonably civilised hour. 

Armed with just a float rod and a feeder rod I had a bit of a wander about before settling on a known swim with the intention of moving if it didn't produce. I started on the feeder as the chill downstream breeze wasn't conducive to trotting. Bait was to be flake or cheese paste with liquidised bread in the feeder. 

Having cast in I turned round to put the big coat back on and the rod wrapped round and I was in. After a brief struggle a small chub was in the net. I'm pretty sure it was colder than the water it had come from. Over the next hour three more graced the net. Each getting bigger. By letter out a couple of metres of line after the feeder had settled none of the bites was as ferocious as the first. Nor did I get any missed bites either. I then had a quiet period before getting another. two more graced the net as the wind got stronger and colder making bite detection a bit problematic. Strangely, despite alternating between the two, the cheese pate didn't produce a single fish.

Seven chub, the largest two a tad over four pound isn't too bad. I may have got more had I moved swims. Or I may have managed to avoid them. Who knows. The buzzards put on a couple of flying displays, but filming them with a phone doesn't really work. They just look like a dot moving about. A kestrel also landed on a tree opposite. Not something I've seen very often. Normally I only see them hovering and/or stooping.