Looking upstream toward a favourite chub swim
The 2014/15 season was very exciting, as I wanted to try to catch the chub of my dreams; spurred on by my capture of my first ‘six’ the previous year. The Dorset Stour is famous for producing mega chub, with several chub over 8lb reported in past seasons. Consequently, it was not unrealistic to aim for a 7lb+ fish. Of course, that would be an aspirational fish, I was more than happy to catch any size chub, a step closer to maybe one day weighing that special fish.
The stretches that I spent time on, had a good track record for producing the goods and although I’d only caught seven from these stretches the previous season. I had put the groundwork in by walking and prebaiting likely swims during the closed season. My hook bait of choice was a boilie. Mobility would be key, a few baits in each swim, leave it to settle and rotate swims. I never sat it out unless I’d missed a bite, which more often than not I did! Unless I felt there were chub in front of me. Opening day I did a dawn start on the weir pool. Bream were the first catch in my net, I added my first chub of the campaign (a modest upper 4lber that evening) from a stretch where I would spend a lot of time over the next few seasons.
Brace of bream on opening day 2014
A good start 6lb 2oz June 2014
6lb 5oz September 2014
During this season, I was also starting to spend more time fishing the same tactics on a stretch downstream (which had produced my 6lb 10oz chub in March 2014). Again this stretch had a great track record for producing big chub, this 6lb 5oz (pictured above) was the best of three in a 4-hour dawn session fishing a shallow run with the other two weighing 5lb 9oz and 5lb 10oz. Great fun when you can see them hoovering up your bait. To cap off a good session, I then returned to a stretch upstream and had a 5lb 2oz in a short stint at dusk. Great fishing!
The best of five chub spotted and caught over a few sessions in a swim I’d been prebaiting – 6lb 8oz September 2014
Fish Tales From The Riverbank 