Finally I was back on the river bank after numerous planned fishing trips were cancelled for one reason and another over the previous few weeks including a day at Napton on Sunday 4th of July which, rather annoyingly, prevented me from writing a post entitled Corn on the 4th of July.
Phil was with me once again as we opted for a roving approach to our regular stretch of the Avon, he was straight into his fishing positioning himself in one of the downstream pegs while I took some time to have a look around while baiting a few likely looking spots with hemp, meat and boilies as I went.
When I finally got round to wetting a line it was in the first peg I had primed with feed on my walk upsteam which had now had ample time in which to settle and a few chub could be seen milling around in the area so it was looking good for a bite at least. Sure enough, only a minute or so after casting a boilie into the centre of the narrow reed fringed run, the tip went round in a confident manner and a chub of about a pound and a half was hustled quickly to the net, he was soon followed by another of about two and a half pounds on the same bait.
The next swim, only about thirty yards upsteam, required a stealthy, crawling approach as I had placed the free offerings in a nearside gap in the weed where there was a depression in the gravel barely ten inches from the over hanging nettles of the bank. The luncheon meat hookbait was simply lowered into the water off the rod end and the rod nestled on the nettles as I waited. The tip plunged towards the water and I lifted into my third fish, another gleaming chub of about two and a half pounds was soon in the net. The chub here are in fin perfect condition with classic brassy flanks, well worth catching.
My intended next stop was the weir but as I walked up I could see Phil was already there so I put some bait in at the tail end of the white water and went for a quick chat.
Phil was still without a fish but had a couple of bites to show for his efforts, I wished him luck and got back to the fishing.
After two or three casts without a response I was contemplating my next move when the tip finally pulled round and a fourth chub was on and giving a good account of itself in the quick water, when finally coming to the net it was a slightly better fish in the region of three pounds.
Time was getting on so for a final move I settled into the big deep bend. Weed can be a problem here during the Summer months due to the slack water on the inside but I found that by fishing the faster water coming into the bend I had no problems with weed at all. The chub were very obliging with darkness approaching and I caught four in quick succession on meat the biggest being a smashing looking fish which probably went over four pounds.
As we left in darkness I was happy with my haul of eight fish, Phil was a little disgruntled with his blank and we were both left wondering where the barbel have got to on this stretch.
