The Angler That Went Out In The Cold

 As I didn't want to travel far, given the current weather conditions, chub fishing seemed the best idea. I made up a batch of liquidised bread and got a couple of balls of cheese paste from the freezer the night before. Unfortunately I left the paste in the garage where it proceeded to not thaw out. A quick wave of the old micros soon sorted that problem though. The car thermometer said -4 is I set off and -3 when I arrived at the river.

I had a wander about on arrival to see what swims would be accessible. A couple could be got in and out of safely so I opted for one of these. It also happens to be a swim that produces the odd very large chub, and I could get the rod rest in.  Things didn't get off to a great start when I found my two piece feeder rod was now a three piece. Thankfully the barbel rod I'd also brought was intact. Not ideal as even with the softer top it wouldn't be as sensitive as the feeder rod.

The intention was to alternate between flake and cheese paste with liquidised bread in the feeder.  After a few casts I had my first bite, a real three foot twitch. Something felt heavy on the end of the line before it all went slack. I don't know what managed to shed a size four hook, but it had. A couple of casts later a small pike shot from under the bank and took a lunge at the feeder. Somehow I managed to foul hook it somewhere amidships. It managed to shake itself free while I was reaching for the badly placed landing net. The final piece of action of the morning occurred not long after when the rod tip started to tremble. Thinking it was debris on the line I wound in to find a small, 6oz, chublet on the hook. Annoyingly it managed to flip itself off the hook as I went to lift it from the water.

After a Pot Noodle I tried a swim upstream of the one I was fishing. Fifteen minutes on flake, fifteen on paste then back to the original swim to do the same. While I was in one swim I left a little pile of liquidised bread in the other for the robins to feed on. This caused a bit of commotion at times when two or three would fly in, but never when I had the camera pointed at the bread.

By three the temperature was starting to drop. With nothing to show for my efforts I packed up at half past as it was now cold enough for gloves. Besides I didn't want to be on an icy river bank when it got dark.