Summer small river Perch and Chub

I managed to sneak in a couple of hours on a local river this morning for a spot of Chub and Perch fishing.

I arrived 'early-ish'  about 7:30am after stopping on the way to buy a loaf of bread for Chub bait.

Getting to the swim was a challenge in itself as there doesn't seem to have been many anglers down here so far this season.

Across the endless Jungle !

I set up a simple paternoster rig with 2 SSGs on 6lb mainline and a size 4 hook on 12" of 4lb hooklength coming off the mainline 18" above the shot,  fixed by float stops either side of the swivel (rather like a long  helicopter rig).  A nice juicy lob worm, collected from my lawn back in April, was placed on the hook and the rig was swung out adjacent to the nearside vegetation into a small pool on a bend in the river.

Within a minute the tip bounced and pulled down.  I struck but got  'bare hooked'.  The second worm was swung in, with the same results!  Contestant number three was hoisted into position but this time I cut it in half to see if I could get both bait and hook in the mouth of whatever was managing to 'do me' every time. 
Less than a minute later and the tip pulled down, I struck and the rod hooped round as a reasonable fish was hooked.  The chub headed for the nearest bunch of streamer weed but I stopped it snagging me up and forced it to the surface through the waving strands and into the waiting net.

 

I carried on fishing the swim after releasing the fish 30 yards downstream away from the shoal, but only caught small perch.  I saw a large fish grab something from the surface on the opposite side of the pool  but the shoal were now proving more difficult to tempt.   I had one more significant pull on the tip but the strike was met with another bare hook.  Finally, I decided to move on after an hour in this first swim having only given myself limited time to try other spots on the stretch.  It was obvious the fish were getting spooked in the first pool swim by now.   I tried two more areas but only caught one more small perch.

The final swim produces another greedy small Perch

Fishing these small rivers can be a challenge, and fishable swims are usually limited but there are some real surprises lurking in these waters if your brave enough to give it a go.

There's lots of unfishable parts at this time of year

There have been some great pics of Damsel and Dragon flies appearing on some blogs recently , here's my effort a male Calopteryx splendens - Banded Demoiselle.

This third and final swim failed to produce any chub, I think the bright late morning sunlight was forcing them well under cover by now, so I packed up and was back home by 11:00 am, ready for my family duties.  As for them, well,  they were still getting ready for the day ahead!