A challenging but rewarding morning on the river

It was really challenging this morning on the river. The river was still up, chocolate coloured and the leaves flying through. I opted to try for chub with meat and cheesepaste, an after finding a swim with a nice crease, but of slack and overhanging tree, I was soon setting up the drennan big feeder.

 

This swim produced pretty quickly, but the culprit was this chublet so I moved on to try others..

After walking a good mile without success, I started making my way back to try the swim I'd caught on. This time I tried some smelly cheesepaste, and the bite was again pretty quick, this time a much better fish had to be coaxed out of the snags at an ounce under 4lb. 

Then it was time to go, happy with the days work!

Chub, coal fish and sea scorpions!

Had a nice morning on the river. Fished cheesepaste for the chub, first cast under a tree resulted in an instant bite. I spent a minute or so desperately trying to persuade the fish to come out of its lair but it was just too much and the inevitable happened.

A move to a different peg, and the link ledgered paste was taken pretty quickly again. This time, a similar fight under a tree saw me win and it came begrudgingly over the net, not massive but a welcome fish. Didn't bother weighing it...

And that was it, because te water very quickly rose after that and I couldn't tempt anything else, try as I might.

You can tell I'm not catching wen I start taking other photos 

During the week, I had a late night session fishing for cod off Hartlepool headland. Using size 4/0 pennell pulley rigs, with worm / razor cocktail, casting to a deepish gulley I managed a coal fish and this sea scorpion, which is a first for me...

I like to mix my fishing up a bit and try for different species and methods as you can probably tell!

Night time chubbing on the river

Night time fishing rivers is a new experience for me, so to roll up to the river at 8pm when all was dark was certainly a different game! Fortunately I wasn't alone, because those trees looked creepy to me.

Tactics involved a double 10mm boilie hook bait combined with a small pva bag of pellets, cast somewhere towards the far bank tree line. Once the headlamp was off, stars were out it was certainly an exhilarating experience, especially when the bait runner started screaming off. I had hoped for a tees barbel (yeah right!), but was certainly happy with a 4lb 4oz chub.

 

Ronny had two further chub of a similar size on sweet corn, a great evening and something I'll be doing again soon.