Blown Away

 Acorns crunched underfoot,as I made my way to the river and after the first frosts of recent weeks,I was greeted with a very windy,but mild morning. The plan was to do some feeder fishing and try to tempt some of the large Chub that populate the Thames tributary,I eventually decided to settle on a sheltered area and one that had a real aura which screamed Chub,replete with overhanging foliage,wood rafts and faded streamer weed.I usually use live maggots for a lot of my Autumn and winter fishing,but given how tenacious the Crayfish can be on this particular stretch,I decided to go the artificial route and fish a combination of floating artificial casters along with artificial red and white maggots on the hair.The feeder was filled with a mixture of vitalin,maggots,casters and seed,as well as being flavoured with anchovy.

I really love these types of days,which will no doubt become rarer the later we move into the year,blustery,but not too cold and a real mixed bag of weather. Squirrels were scampering about above me,dancing acrobatically from one branch to the next,their minds set on stocking up their larders.

 Bites were forthcoming more or less straight away,but rather hesitant plucks and subtle taps,nothing that would commit angler or fish into doing something rash that they might connect with one and other,as the morning turned to lunchtime a young swan sped downstream,still wearing immature grey plumage,to all intents it moved as if its life depended on it,a few minutes later that turned out to be pretty much close to the truth,as an angry adult Swan,with wings locked in battle mode,surged past me and carried on,only to reappear heading back upstream giving me what seemed quite a resentful glare.

 Not long after this incident,the rod tip started receiving a bite that indicated more serious intentions,every light pluck met by a harder one,until the rod tip eventually smacked round and a sprinting battle commenced,after a short,but spirited fight,a Chub with a broad back was resting in the landing net,I could not help from cracking a very contented smile as the scales settled at a very pleasing 6lb 5oz.

That was to be it until the early evening darkness,when the weather changed again and the it rained hard and solidly for a couple of hours.This seemed to have the desired affect on the Bream and they got their heads down,a couple of smaller fish in the three and four pound bracket,were later followed by a nicely conditioned fish of 6lb.

By now the time was getting on for 11pm and I decided to not stay into the small hours as I would normally do,I was content to have caught a nice Chub by design and it made for a rather fulfilling feeling,one which I would like to repeat again soon,as I don't wish to waste this influx of rain and cloudy conditions.