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Tag Archives: float

Barbed wire, stingers, flies & heat – summer river chubbing

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by The tuesday swim in General fishing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

anglers, Association, birmingham, chub, float, mease, Netherseal, river, small, stick, stream

The first signs of a heatwave hit England on Sunday and I was in the West Midlands seeking to winkle out a chub from the river Mease, a tiny meandering river that can be fished on a Birmingham Anglers Association day ticket. The Mease flows past the village of Netherseal that sits in classic open english countryside just half an hours drive from Central Birmingham.
NethersealI fancied a break from my current search for large river Lea carp, the Lea sadly contains very few chub in it’s lower reaches and I felt that I needed to be re-introduced since my last chance meeting on the Kennet last winter. My approach of trotting with a heavy chubber float, keeping the bread flake low in the water took me on a good mile long walk along its meandering course, the water was low and I saw no sign of a chub despite my stealthy approach of keeping low, pushing back the stingers and opening up small gaps in the undergrowth to expose tiny swims. With no luck I started to turn back and fish the swims that I had previously baited with bread and maggots, finally I saw  a chub dart up and take a maggot, despite the sun getting hotter and brighter I knew there was a chance of a fish.

Barbed_wire

fishing_bagThe BAA do a great job in providing access over the barbed wire fences that follow the meanders of the river Mease but once over the fence you are right up to your neck in stingers, luckily stinging nettles push over quite easily and with a little care you can form an opening by placing your net and fishing bag down to create relatively pain-free platform.  I was now fishing the stick float on a slow drop using a button shirt shot pattern, I continued to trickle in the maggots and soon started to observe the chub darting out unable to contain their hunger for an easy meal. On my second cast I was into a chub of around the 3/4 pound, then another and another, each one getting a little larger.

stick_floatChub_1

Surrounded by stinging nettles and the temperatures increasing the whole experience was becoming quite intense, flies were becoming more persistent as they buzzed around my face, sweat dripped from my brow, there was no place to retreat unless I got back up the bank and over the barbed wire fence, this would have broken my cover and spooked the chub, so I stayed low and continued to fish. For the next hour I caught ten to fifteen chub, the largest no more than a pound and a half, but on a light line and stick float this was fun fishing that reminded me of my summer holidays as a lad fishing on the Sussex Ouse. Finally I dropped a chub amongst the stingers, I had no option but to bury my hand into a clump of nettles and quickly pick it up, the pain was bearable, I was after all fishing and very little could deter me, but as the heat rose further and the flies grew in numbers I finally called it a day.

Chub_2

stinger

A few more floats.

08 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by The tuesday swim in Tackle

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

avon, cook, float, maker, making, paul, vintage

After posting a shot of two rather nice old floats on the Traditional Fisherman’s Forum for the float builders to use as reference, I was most surprised to be contacted by master builder Paul Cook who has used the colours as a reference for some Avons.

Below are the original two floats that i posted on the TTF.

Vintage floats And here are Paul’s versions, amazing work as to be expected….

photo 2 photo

I was also given a sneak preview of something that Paul has been working on, the results are stunning but I’m afraid its all hush hush for now!

Tackle boxes part nine, the Palmer float case & surgeons roll.

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by The tuesday swim in Tackle

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

aluminium, box, case, float, palmer, storage, tackle, tube, vintage

Stuffing all my terminal tackle in a Oxo tin leaves one item of tackle un-protected, the float. Long waggler’s are always vulnerable to breakages so the Palmer Float Case is ideal, light and strong and can hold up to ten 14″ floats.

To store shorter floats I have come up the rather ingenious (I’ll say it myself) solution of using a cotton surgeons tool roll which looks like Efgeeco themselves could have stitched  it together. It can take up to around twenty floats and rolls up into a neat little bundle, this one is made by S Rampling of 8 Market street, Cambridge.

Tackle boxes part six – The Henry Aiken of London tackle box.

08 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by The tuesday swim in Tackle

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aiken, angling, box, fishing, float, Henry, london, tackle, traditional, wooden

I pretty much dragged this box around lake and river throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, it could take a lot of tackle and an impressive float collection. It was only when I discovered a low-fi approach to angling that this box was shelved, but it still remains the tackle box that has shared more personal angling experiences than any other. The interior wood is still stained with strawberry flavourings from my early days of carp fishing on a small pond near Ansty in West Sussex, in search of my first ‘double’. Eventually with the help of Carp Fever it did happen, a 11 1/4 lb specimen.

Even now, twenty five years on a light waft of strawberry essence mixed with pilchard oil lifts the nostrils as the lid is opened and a memory ignited, this box shall never be passed on!

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