On A Mission - Justin Grapes

This entry was posted on 3rd January, 2017

For me at the minute, my chub-fishing-head is firmly screwed on. I've got four stretches which I'm concentrating on at this time of year and they could all do me a 7lb chub, which is my winter target, and I've got four stretches just to get a picture of which one or two to put the efforts into at the end of the season. It's not possible to fish all the stretches effectively over the winter, so the choice of stretch is dependent on river conditions and whether it's an evening session after work or a weekend trip. The other thing to bear in mind is if I'm catching from a certain stretch regularly then that will always keep me coming back to those areas. With the weather still being milder than normal on the run up to Christmas, the rivers were still holding onto a lot of their weed so a couple of the stretches were left alone at first till they had cleared more with a couple of floods and a few frosts. The fish were playing ball on most sessions too and to put a 6lb-er in the net early on was all the sweeter.



My tactics were the same as I normally adopt for my winter fishing; keep it simple. I used a four turn water knot rig with a couple of swan shot (depending on river state) and a size 6 Kamasan hook. Bait was kept simple too, with cheese paste for the after dark sessions and bread flake for the daytime fishing. I've been trying to get at least two evening sessions in over the week and hopefully a day session in at the weekend, but as of yet it's been a Sunday afternoon or evening and one trip after work in the week. Most of the last few weeks have been a little harder as we are now getting normal winter temperatures, a scattering of frosts, and the day time temperatures have been much lower. The fish have still been coming ever week with a scattering of 5lb+ chub being landed.



I'm going to be really focused on my chub fishing for the next few weeks until I go on my annual sea fishing trip to Gambia with my good friends Shaun Womack and Darryn Stolworthy, so watch this space and keep an eye on the Angling Direct Facebook page to see if I'm lucky enough to catch some more big chub. I will touch on the Gambia trip a little closer to the time but, for now, Happy New Year and I hope you catch the fish of your dreams in 2017.

Tight lines