For the first time in a long time, I was summer fishing on a river with the Hampshire Avon being my chosen venue.
It was a real joy to be back on a river where it's possible to find the fish and watch how they react to bait and tackle.
This was also my very first trip out after joining the NX Baits team. I was using the crab and Cray boilies in the 15mm size and feeding pellets by hand.
I feed an area over clean gravel between the weed and the chub were immediately on the bait.
I was using a Fox 3oz Kling-on inline lead and a 15lb Camotex soft hooklink and a size 8 wide gape beaked Edges hook. A slow melt wide PVA mesh bag bait with just 6 boilies was my approach and it immediately paid off! On my first four casts I landed three good chub - 5lbs 0oz, 5lb 8oz and 6lb 1oz.
It slowed down after that as the fish backed off and became more cautious . I did pick off the odd fish through the day by resting and feeding the swim without casting.
However the best was still to come as the evening came in I had an idea to fish down the swim with the hope the bigger fish may be hanging back and it worked. On the first cast in the new area I had a violent take and the fish gave me a few heart stopping moments as it managed to get in under the nearside bank vegetation. With some luck the fish was persuaded to swim out and it was soon in the net and what a fish it was too. At 7lb 5oz it was my third biggest chub and easily a new summer PB - I was amazed to have one so big this early in the season.
I ended up with eight chub on the day with four 5's [best 5lb 14oz] a 6lb 1oz and the big one.
I went back to the river the next day and tried several swim and although I saw fish in all the swims a few errors on my part meant I didn't have any fish through the day. This was all to change just five minutes before I'd decided to call it a day. Again I fished well down the swim and feed with pellets and boilies by hand. This drew the small chub up and I hope left the big ones off the back - again it paid off.
After a thankfully uneventful fight I had another giant in the net - this time 7lb 7 ¼ oz - of course another summer and river PB. Also my second biggest of all time.
In two days I had an amazing run of fish, landing nine chub with four 5's a 6 and TWO back to back 7's “
