Big Fish Wrecks Landing Net

The river was at a rather indifferent height when I got down there, but still carrying a bit of colour. I wandered up and down for a while pondering which swim to start in. I was the only one on the stretch, which was a bit unusual, so had far too many swims to choose from. I eventually settled for one with a nice over hanging tree down stream of me and plenty of bankside vegetation upstream.

An 8mm pellet went upstream and a 14mm pellet downstream. The feeders were half filled with 6mm pellets and topped up with 3mm. The 3mm wash out of the feeder and the 6mm stay in giving a scent trail. That's the theory anyway. I recast every half hour or so to remove any debris and top up the swim. A couple of cuppas and a sandwich later the upstream rod whacked over and a two foot branch was hauled to the surface before falling off. The rod had only been recast a minute or so when it lurched over again. This time it was definitely something fish like on the end.  Clearly a smallish barbel careering about all over the place I was surprised at it's size when it surfaced. It felt like a three pounder but looked and felt more like six when landed. It also had an odd looking scar on it's nose.

 

No sooner had I released the barbel when the downstream rod started to rattle. This felt more like a chub. I was even more convinced when it went straight into a snag. I then became a little puzzled when the snag slowly moved downstream. Steady slow cranking had the snag moving towards the surface. The snag turned out to be a double figure pike with the chub held across it's back. My attempts at filming the incident weren't very successful as I had no real idea where my phone was pointing. eventually the pike let go and the chub shot into the bankside vegetation followed by the pike which grabbed it again before letting go. I quickly had the rather battered chub in the net. A fish of nearly 4lb I can see why the pike didn't want to let go of such a large meal.

I let the somewhat battered chub rest in the landing net while I recast and made another cuppa. The landing net then suddenly shot away. The pike was back. It had obviously come back for the chub and got it's teeth snagged in the net. As I hauled it back it started to spin and mangle the net frame. The net then snagged on something down the bank. The pike let go and I managed to free the net. The chub had managed to get away during this farce.

As I attempted to bend the frame back to something like it's original shape I managed to snap the alloy frame. Anybody with any sense would have brought the rods in at this point as landing anything of size would be damn near impossible. I, however, decided to finish my cuppa. Having finished started wind in the downstream rod only to find something on the end. A bream of a couple of pounds quickly surfaced hooked the pectoral fin. Thankfully it rolled off the barbless hook. Which saved an faffing about.Don't know what I'd have done if it had been a barbel or chub properly hooked.

 

For a long time I'd had a smaller landing net head lying about in the boot of the car that would have allowed me to continue fishing, but I'd had one of those inspired moments when I thought I ought to declutter and remove them mess in the car. Tidiness isn't all it's cracked up to to be.