A Beautiful Chub!!!
On the first of October I went to Wood Mill on the river Itchen - first fishing with lobworms and then 5 maggot on a size 10 hook. No luck with the worms but after a couple of hours I did manage to catch a minnow with the maggots! A small rudd followed and then my bait was taken on the drop and the float shot under - 'this isn't a minnow' I thought. There followed a second or so of total stillness during which a log on the bottom came to mind but then the creature at the other end of the tackle began to move off taking line as it went. There followed a very spirited few minutes before I had the fish safe in my landing net. It was a chub of over 5lb - I can't be any more precise than that as I was using two 4lb scales to weigh it with. It pulled a single scale right down to the bottom with no trouble whatsoever. As you can see it was a beautiful fish in it's prime with not a scale out of place, neatly hooked in the corner of the mouth. An added bonus was the exhile...