Itchen To Get Fishing - Roy Allen

This entry was posted on 15th December, 2016

With a heavy schedule managing the new Angling Direct Reading store lately, the invite of a day fishing on the river Itchen with friends was certainly welcomed! I'm not a die hard river enthusiast, preferring to spend the majority of my recent years chasing carp on lakes rather than river species. With this in mind I felt it necessary to purchase some new tackle ready for such an experience. I'd been informed that the stretch we were going to had lots of long trotting runs, ideal for centrepin work. I decided to take advantage of our extremely reasonably priced Advanta Ikon Centrepin, opting to spool up with 4lb Maxima.

The day started pleasantly; exceptionally warm for the time of year and cloudy. As the morning ambient light increased, we drove down the track past the weir pool. A huge wave of nostalgia swept over me as that beautiful smell of the churning water triggered great memories of growing up fishing the rivers for anything that would take a maggot. I soon had two of them nicked on a size 16 hook ready for action and flicked upstream. I couldn't believe just how smooth the centrepin was and how easy it is to trot with one. Within a few minutes of feeding up the peg the bites started coming and soon my first ever grayling was in the net. Nothing huge but what a stunning fish! The colours were awesome. I had been made aware that they look amazing in the flesh and this one was a great example.

As the morning went on the more water we covered, choosing to travel light with just a rod, net and bait pouch. I continued to catch more grayling and they got slightly larger the further downstream we went into the deeper parts of the stretch. At around 11am I had been persisting with a nice little section of river just before a bend. The float eventually shot under and at first I thought I had hooked the bottom. The rod instantly hooped over followed by a monstrous thud... then another. I had hooked something much larger! Pulling the weight against the current I soon had sight of the decent sized chub attached to the other end of my line in the crystal clear water. Finally after a hectic battle I had it in the net. The colours of this fish were also superb! At 4lb+ I felt it was a healthy sized chub and it put a huge smile on my face.

The day wore on and so did the bites. By the end of the day I had caught such a wide variety of different fish, even a few minnows! I will most definitely be back for more at some point next year but for now I feel that my need for a fishing fix has been well and truly answered.