I’m a simple man, I live on a small holding that’s sat beside a meadow and a small spinney. The flinty soil beneath my feet helps me grow some vegetables, and during the summer months, my wild fruit trees come alive, and baskets are filled with succulent plums, pears, apples and greengage’s.
Poultry keeping is a passion of mine. I keep a good head of prize stock gamefowl chickens that have been in my family for many years. The hardwork that goes into my fowl is insanely stupid to some, but to me it’s my passion and I love keeping the breed true and alive. For the table I have few other types of poultry that I fatten up to a good size before they get the chop. My poultry keep me busy during the closed fishing season, those three long months would be painfully hard if I didn’t have a distraction.
Beside my feet are a couple of old fashioned lurchers, during the winter months they too help me fill the freezer with plenty of fur and feather. Many a time I have been out in dark, windy cold nights, mooching around for something for the dogs to scoop up and add to the freezer. A simple way of life, just the way I like it.
Fishing, really is a funny old game. Some enjoy chasing specimen fish, others it’s a past time, something to do on a day off, not being bothered with what swings to hand. I’m a cross between those two, but the difference is that I don’t allow the fishing to take over my life and a lot of the fish I catch won’t swing to hand.
I hunt them in summer right through to winter. Chevin, they’re a shy fish and some fight like demons and others not so. They have such catholic tastes and can be caught on just about anything, so long as your presentation is well balanced.
My fishing methods are the same as me, simple (I mean that as in, not complicated rather than being a retard). I use a piece of fine bamboo, usually around 10 to 11 ft, I prefer a through actioned rod, which allows the cane to do all the hard work. I use some strong line, wrapped around an old Mitchell 300, a couple of swanshots that I lightly pinch on the mainline to hold my bait on the bottom, yet light enough for me to bounce the bait as and when I please. Add a sharp hook, and that’s it readers.
I have caught a load of chub, plenty of 5’s 6’s and five 7’s, one of those 7’s was just four ounces off being an eight. To catch the bigger girls takes a lot of research and scouting around while keeping your gob shut. No amount of ale in the pub is going to get me singing like canary and disclose locations. Unfortunately alot of specimen fishing has turned out that way. Too many snakes, gobshites and jealousy in the fishing world, too many anglers wanting information, they make out they’re your friend until they have what they want. Fortunately, I see those irritants coming a mile away, and that is why I like being a loner, I mooch the riverbanks alone.
It was six years ago that I cast a line here. Nothing much had changed, I could see no obvious swims that had been cut out, or flattened areas, a sign of an angler that had tried to cover up his tracks. It looked superbly neglected. Not a soul in sight. I memorised a few swims for when darkness arrived. There is nothing worse when mooching at night and not knowing where you’re going.
As nightfall arrived I found myself in my first swim. I made a long cast downstream and bounced my bait to the nearside edge of a bend. My rod sat snuggly in its rest and I held it lightly in my hand, I was ready to pounce at the first indication of a bite. My bait was in the water no longer than a couple of minutes, when I had a ferocious bite. I lifted the rod into a solid mass of carnage, I was up on my two feet with my rod in full hoop. This chub was extremely powerful using the riverbed to its advantage. I had to release some line (something I do not like doing), give a decent sized chub an inch and she’ll stuff you up, but I had to prevent being flat-rodded, so a little line was offered. I knew it was very good fish, because all I could feel was a heavy sluggishness and it swam slowly backwards and forwards hugging the bottom. I just wanted it to lift from the riverbed so I could turn in some line, but it kept dashing off downstream. I could see from the beam of my headtorch that this stubborn chub was boiling the water beside a farside raft, and there it remained, holding its ground, creating such a disturbance. Then pitch blackness. My headtorch decided to pack up on me! I swore my head off and my whippet was whining away in excitement, he knew I was in shit street too. The remaining battle was played in blindness, I could feel my rod bucking and pulling away from me. Sometime later, I finally could reel in more line, it was tiring and edging nearer. I heard an eruption in front of me, the fish rolled and splashed before it surged and jammed itself into the nearside rushes. I took advantage of this and netted it. I could feel instantly that this was big chub. It remained in the net to calm down. I set my camera light and then gently placed the fish on the grass and then I saw its size. Huge shoulders and neck, it was built like a wrestler! I was convinced it was my fifth seven pound chub, but the scales stubbornly stopped at 6lb 15oz. It is what it is, but I was extremely pleased with the fish. A quick photo was taken before I released her into the ice cold water.
It is not often I go out and catch a brace of big chub. I’ve had numerous chub to over four pounds and a fair few braces of five pounds in one session, but on that same night I had a gut feeling that another six pounder was sharking about and I was going to catch it. And that I did. The rod tip tapped, then in one smooth motion, the tip curved around towards the bend where I had bounced my bait. I lifted my rod and once again I was in battle with an energetic chub. It thrashed and rolled, then head banged its way towards midstream, but I turned its run and the battle soon ended as it rolled over the cord. Another 6lb plus chub.
We’ve just had driest February in 30 years. Once again the conditions were not the best they could be, so this particular morning I wasn’t going to be surprised if a bite didn’t emerge. It was less than two weeks to go before the season ended, so any spare time I had was spent on the bank and in any weather.
I was extremely picky as to where I was going to try for a bite. It was mid morning before my first cast was made. A long downstream cast, bouncing the bait to the nearside edge underneath some blackthorn bushes. Fifty minutes later, not a bite, the sky once again clouded over and then more rain. The sound of water droplets hitting my hood was very calming, in fact too calming, because the rod tip thumped around without any warning. I just stared at the top section of my cane rod curving some more. My hand stuck on the rod and not striking. Yes it is a bite, my brain finally registered to my hand! The chub had an advantage due to my lack of concentration and buried itself under the blackthorn. I was able to bully it out from cover and into the midstream and battled it out from then on. Soon after the chub tired and nose dived into the net, I looked down and saw a typical Ouse framed chub. Lovely.
On to my second swim, I cast my bait against a tangle of god knows what, it wasn’t a raft as such, but lots of cut tree stumps, washed up buckets, footballs, and shoes. I placed my bait directly under it. Half an hour in and nothing. The wind had picked up and the sun was out. I was feeling a little peckish, but I didn’t take any food with me. I nibbled on a slice of brown bread that I was using for bait and watched two tree rats (Squirrels) on the opposite bank that were busy collecting nesting materials. A gentle nudge on the rod tip alerted me, followed by another, then a thump! About time, and a good scrap took place. First job was to play it hard, away from that mess it was residing in. It soon dashed towards the far side, but I turned it’s run midway, the water was so clear I could see it calculating a formula to stuff me up. I had full control though and allowed the cane to do its job as I glided it towards the awaiting net. Blurs of bronze flecks were seen as the chub came up then darted back down, but I had this goodun hooked firm and played it into the net. There was a rather nice fat chub looking back up at me.
I was happy to call it day, but there was one more swim that I wanted to try which wasn’t that far away. This one was on a left hand bend. The bank was slippy and at an awkward angle. Slowly I got into a safe position and placed the bait exactly in the deep hole and waited for a chub to swim around the bend and find my bait. Almost an hour later the rod tip pinged forwards and as the tip was levelling back into its original position, it plucked quickly around then nearly shot off the rest! A little confused with such a strange bite, I lifted the rod in all hope. The heaviness of the fish reminded me that I better get my skates on and get it away from the large row of sharp reed stems. The rain started to come down fast. The fish swirled the water and then dashed to the river bed. I could see my line nearing towards me, left then a sharp right and left again. The chub wasn’t stopping and headed for the rush stems under my feet. That it did, and now it had nowhere to go. I managed to scoop it up. I could see that it was another fatty chubster that looked back at me like it had done something terrible wrong! A brace of good respectable 5lb plus chub were had using simple tactics, methods, baits and good watercraft knowledge. Without the last cog in the wheel (knowledge) you will not find those special chevins.
I’ll end by saying that I look forward to the closed season each year. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like the season to close in late April rather than in March, but that’s a separate article to write about. My reason for liking the three month break, is that I can concentrate on breeding and rearing my prize poultry. I have foxes and rats to keep at bay, fix poultry pens and harvest all our crops. It is a busy three months here. When it is all over, my wife and I visit the in-laws in the South of France, to eat lots of food and drink good wine, and play a ton of crazy French board games. Then when darkness falls, and the monastery bells start to ring, I grab my rod and rucksack, remain in the shadows and head toward those bells.
Green Grass
Winter of 2022
