Justin Grapes - The Final Push

This entry was posted on 3rd April, 2018

With the end of the season in sight, and with the weather being so poor, it was going to be touch and go whether there was much fishing on the rivers left. With the snow and winds hitting Norfolk midweek it looked like I was going to be sat indoors praying that I could actually go out over the last week of the season. By the Saturday, the roads were good enough to think about making my way to the river to see if it was fishable. After a long walk to the river, as I wasn’t going to get the van stuck down the muddy tracks, to my surprise the river looked in good condition. With the temperature still around freezing, the snow hadn’t started to thaw yet, and with today’s temperature being forecasted for around 4c, there was going to be a couple of days’ window before the rivers started to fill with freezing cold, dirty water. With the levels and the flow being normal there were a couple of swims I was going to try first; I don’t normally fish them as they are narrow and shallow, so when there’s extra water in the river they are too fast to fish. The first swim I fished had a run of bushes on the opposite bank, with a slow, wider pool just before them.

I had caught from this swim before, when the river was lower, so thought I’d give it a go. As in most swims, I thought I’d try the head of the swim first and then cast further down the swim if I got no indication.

As there wasn’t much colour in the river I started off with bread flake, thinking I would try cheese paste if I thought there were chub to be had, but there was no interest in bread. Nothing happened in that first swim, so I moved to a bend with a deep hole on the near bank and a tree on the opposite bank. It didn’t take long to get a bite, but it was so sharp that I missed it, so I baited up again and cast into the near bank to see if I would get another chance. Sure enough, after a few minutes I started to get indications that the chub had come back, then the tip started dancing and I struck into my prize. As like most chub I hook in this swim it tried to take me into the tree and under the near margin but after a few minutes of knit one pearl two she was in the net.



It was a modest chub of around 4lbs, but in the conditions I was happy just to get a bend in the rod . With Darryn coming down, I then met him on the way to my next swim. We gave a few of the more productive swims a go, to see if there was more chub that were after a bit of grub. We gave a few swims a go, but with no joy. We were about to give it up as the temperature was starting to drop ,when I dropped into a corner swim which I normally fish on the downstream part, as there’s a bush on the opposite bank, but this time I fished into the corner where it’s deeper, and after a few short minutes I had a positive bite and struck into what felt like a good fish. With the flow being strong on this corner it took me a few anxious minutes to get anywhere close to netting it, but luckily it kept away from the far bank snags and the near side marginal weed and slid into a waiting net. It looked a solid chub and one worth weighing. Darryn was passing me at the time, so he got out the sling and scales; the scales settled on 5lb 6oz. The numbers of 5lb chub from this stretch were growing, and we both had our fingers crossed that there would be a bigger surprise waiting for us. With the temperature dropping like a stone and my fingers and toes freezing up it was a good time to make our way back through the snow to the van. On the way back to the van we could see that the snow had melted a fair bit over the course of the day, so we were hoping that the river wouldn’t rise too much overnight, so we could get another evening session in the next day.

Unfortunately, the river started to come up overnight, so we sat back to see how long the rivers were going to be flooded for, fingers crossed that there would be a few evenings at least to catch a few more chub. My next fishing was at lunch time at work again, and with the flood water coming through, the boat yard was colouring up a fair bit.

The first day that week I struggled to find the perch, but the second day was totally different, and I had a couple of two-pound fish in the net at the same time. Then, just as lunch time was over I had another good perch of about two and a half pounds. I had them all on the Ned rig again, which I have found to be the going method in coloured water on this river. The next couple of days went the other way again, and I struggled to find the perch but had a couple of jack pike instead.





I went and had a look at the river on my normal Thursday evening session and to my surprise it was fishable, so I made my way to a few swims that had slower water in the margins and gave them 20minutes in each . Nothing much happened until I got into my last swim and I had a short, sharp tap on the rod tip, so I sat it out a bit longer, and after what felt like a week the rod sprung into life and I was attached to a hard fighting chub. After netting the fish it was weighed in at 5.1lb - yet again another 5lb Wensum chub.



My next trip out was for a day session on a tough stretch of the Wensum, so Darryn and myself weren’t expecting much to happen. The weather had warmed up a bit and the stretch was still carrying extra water, but if we could find them I was sure we would get a bite . We started off in the middle of the stretch, in an area which had been kind to us in the past, but after a hour or so of no action we walked to the top of the stretch and worked our way back to the van.

After a couple of swims I moved, stopping to see if Darryn had had any action; as I started talking to him he had a bite, and struck into a chub. It was a nice 4lb+ chub but most of all it was a good indicator that the chub were feeding. After another couple of swims with no action I settled on a bend that I hadn’t fished much before and set up just upstream of the bend, so I could cast to the middle of the river. Five minutes after casting out, I had a short, sharp jab on the rod but then nothing after, so after leaving it there for another 10minutes I reeled in to see if the paste had come off.

On inspection there was a semi-circle bite mark in the middle of the paste; I had been done over. A new piece of paste was attached and cast into the same place again; after a couple of minutes the tip started bouncing about, and I struck into a hard fighting chub. It stuck in the main flow, and gave me a good fight, but after a short battle the chub was in the net. It wasn’t a monster chub, but very welcome as it was difficult to catch anything from this stretch at all. I decided to give it another cast, as the fish hadn’t crashed through the swim at all. And again, after a short while the tip had gone around, and I was into my second chub of the day, and this one felt a little better. This one looked a lot bigger than the first, so I put it on the scales. I was surprised to see the scales go around to 4lb 11oz, and it had to be one of the nicest looking chub I have ever caught, with not a scale out of place, and a big frame ,so I thought to myself; I’d like to catch this fish again in a few years to see how much it’s grown, as it looked like it could be a big fish in the future if it could keep out of trouble. I gave it another cast, but nothing happened, so I moved on. We kept moving down the stretch but with no more action.

I did manage to get out the next evening for a couple of hours and managed to get a repeat capture of the snow chub of 5.6lb. With only a few days left of the season, I took the last three days off work to give it a good go.

Monday I was up bright and early, and decided to go to the hard stretch again and give it a go with breadflake and bread mash in a few swims, which only resulted in a chub of around a pound, so I moved on to my syndicate for the last few hours of daylight, and ended up with one chub and a roach. The next day, I went to another stretch, and gave it all day there. It was a good day in all, banking 5 chub, 3 of which were over 5lb at 5.3 / 5.4 /5.7 and they were all different chub from what I had caught before. But time was running out, and it was now the last day. The plan was to fish my syndicate first thing in the morning for a few hours then make my way to another stretch for the rest of the day.





The river was looking about the same, so I was confident of a few chances throughout the day. What with getting up a bit later than I was hoping, I made my way to the Wensum valley for the last time of this season. On arrival, not surprisingly, I had been beaten to the swims that I wanted to fish, and with the river still being high there was a lot of the stretch I couldn’t fish, but I still set up and had a go. I fished a couple of swims which I normally get a bite out of, but with no joy, so I decided to get back in the van and move to the next stretch. Luckily on arrival there was no one on the stretch, so I got the gear ready and started the walk to the first swim. As I left the van there was a group of deer in the field I was going to walk through, so I had to stop and take in the surroundings and get a quick picture on my phone. After dropping into a couple of going swims and having no joy I decided to put a few pieces of cheese paste in a couple of swims, move upstream, and fish a couple of areas where I regularly catch chub; they don’t tend to be very big, but normally if there’s small chub about then there will be bigger fish close by. I put a new piece of paste on my size 4 hook and within a minute the rod tip was bouncing where the chub had picked up the bait and the swan shot were bouncing across the bottom. On striking into the fish, there was a solid resistance and with the fish staying in the main flow it was a cracking fight and putting the Advanta discovery RVS twin tip through its paces. After what felt like an hour I guided the chub into the net. It looked like it would go close to 5lb, so I weighed in, but, as with a lot of chub this season, it was well down in weight and she only went 4lb12oz; still a result. I had another cast in that swim and picked up another chub, but this one was in the mid three pounds range, so I didn’t weigh it. I then moved back to the area where I had put the pre bait in earlier in the session and had an instant bite in the first swim; this was one of the baby chub of the Wensum , but it is good to see good numbers of smaller chub coming through.



By this time it was well into dark and the time was ticking on. I had a couple of good swims left which I felt confident in so moved into the first one, one of the ones which I had pre-baited earlier.

Nothing happened in that swim, so another move was on the cards. I tried an area that you can’t get to very well with the water being high, but I found an opening that I could land a fish and cast a bait in. After about 5minutes I had a sharp bang on the rod tip but then nothing, and this time I gave it a good 20minutes to see if anything came of it; I wondered if the fish had pricked itself on the hook, so reeled in and moved downstream about 10yards and cast in again. There was a little more pace in this swim, so the bait bounced into my near bank more than the last; just after the bait had settled I had a really tentative bite, and struck into nothing, so I cast the bait back into the same area and sat back in hopes that the fish would come back. After a short wait, the rod tip started to bounce again, and this time I was into another hard fighting chub, which gave me the right run about. After trying to guide the fish through the near bank vegetation, another big framed chub was in the net and this one looked big. On weighing the fish, it didn’t weigh as heavy as it looked, but still at 5lb7oz it was another quality fish to add to the ever-growing list of 5lb+ fish from this stretch. It was pushing 10.30pm now; I did give it one more cast in that swim but nothing else happened, so reluctantly I called a day on the session and to the end of the season. Over all with the weather from Christmas to the end of the season being very up and down and the rivers being out of sorts for most of that time too I was very happy with the numbers of chub I had caught, but the size of the fish were definitely down from where they have been in the past. But I suppose you can’t be too unhappy with a 6lb7oz chub for the seasons best, and with a lot more 5lb+ chub being caught. I’m now going to have a couple of weeks off fishing and get things sorted out for the up and coming spring campaign.

So, until next time, tight lines.