I used to think if you want to catch fish, you want deeper water…….. But the most productive fresh water spots I have found tend to be those that are almost swamplike. Shallow ugly spoilt wastelands! Might be just me…..
I started freshwater fishing in late 2016 with a few blanks in the river Thames. In 2017 shortly after renewing my licence I found a small tributary where I could see fish rising and taking flies on the surface. To me they looked like mullet (seagarer st heart 😎) but I was soon informed they were in fact chub.
I instantly decided to target them. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing but went out and started chucking lures in different urban stretches of the stream. Then after a few nights of wasted effort I flicked a little orange shad under a tree and the surface erupted as a decent size fish took my lure into its scissors before it instantly spat it back out. “F#€&!₩g $#!+”.
It wasn’t a chub but a small carp I think and to this day a still feel gutted that I didn’t strike and give myself a chance of landing that fish. A carp on a lure would have made for a special first fresh water capture.
I walked the same stretch many times over the next few months but never saw another fish so I moved on. I found a faster flow of water with many features as well as a good place to sit\stand further downstream towards the Thames and spent my next few sessions fishing here.
The first session, just before I was ready to give up I started to get bites whilst bouncing a 70mm Fiiish Black Minnow lure across the river. I re-cast over the same spot 2 or 3 times before finally hooking up with my first ever fresh water fish!
It was a shiny little stripey perch. to me at least, it was perfect!
Very small in hindsight but it was a big achievement for me and the confidence I needed.
I tried the same approach the next time I went to the spot and of course couldn’t find any predators willing to take the lure but I did see some chub. I was sight casting to them, swimming the lure over there heads, tried down stream, up stream, dropshotting, deadsticking and nothing seemed to actually tempt the fish to bite. So I did what I consider cheating and went to get some bread.
I was going to ground bait and get the fish feeding but the first piece I through in was engulfed the second it hit the surface so I folded a small piece around a hook, dipped in in the water in front of me to add a little weight and flicked it out into the same area.
It was taken immediately and before I could even think about striking, the fish had hooked it self and was running away and taking line from the reel. I tightened up the drag and reeled it in to my feet. Hardly a fight at alk considering it was a huge, huge chub! Had to be at least 4lb maybe even 5. I didn’t have a landing mat with me so I wont share the pic again as others have complained previously about laying thenfish on the ground forna photo. I have learnt my lesson and always carry one now!
Anyway this stretch of water is so shallow I can stand in it in wellies with no fear of getting my feet wet. There are all sorts of foreign debris such as traffic cones in the water and the features have been ccreaed by branches from trees being heavy enough that the flow isn’t strong enough to move them on and smaller debris had collected around the branches. It’s a real urban ‘swampy’ wasteland, unused or loved by anyone (except me), and full or rubbish. Yet here I was fishing it and catching my second species in as many sessions and having seen another species previously in it.
During the next year of living near this tributery I managed to catch plenty more small perch on lures and a handful of chub on bread. Despite my best efforts with a fly rod and lures, I didn’t manage a single hook up with a chub on an artificial which was heartbreaking at times as just like the mullet I confused them for, they would often mouth the lure, nip the lure, follow the lure bit just not give enough of a bite to set a hook in its lip.
Then in Autumn 2017 I moved house. My fresh water fishing for a whole year was based around targetting perch on the local canal due to its close proximity.
But then late last year whilst on a bimble from my house I found a new ‘wasteland‘ and could see the signature chub rising to the surface. Of course I didn’t have a rod with me but instead syarted to pick berries off of a nearby bush and start throwing them into the stream a few feet from the fish. After 2 or 3 throws they started rising and taking the berries off of the surface. The signs are good 👍😀👍.
I returned to the same spot, which happens to be under a road bridge, well lit for evening sessions and completely sheltered from any rain that might and often does fall.
I was armed with a fly rod and an lrf lure rod as well as a number of artificial choices I was hoping to present as delicstely as I can in front of the fish’s noses. But of course….. Not a chub in site.
I had a few casts anyway and realise quickly there was a slightly deeper patch of water on the far side which was probably still less than 2 feet in depth. But i started flicking a lure into it anyway and started to get bites. ‘Has to be perch’ I thought.
And sure as anything a couple of casts into the same are was all it took to hook up to my first of several waspy perch. Great fun, and from another really nasty piece of water where some passers by had informed me I was mental for fishing.
I returned several days later after a good few days of rain to find the stream flooded into its namesake of a river. As before I didn’t see any chub immediately so went about trying for the perch. To change up the challenge a little I tried with a fly rod.
First cast…….. Out of nowhere a pike swam into the swim and hovered by my fly. I paused and there was a 10 second stalemate between me and the pike as my fly floated towards it before it turned its head and moved about 3 feet away from the fly facing as it passed.
I tied a lure onto my lure rod faster than I ever have before and made sure it was one I had absolute confidence in with targetting pike. The ecogear paramax in pink.
A cast later, and a couple of hypnotising twirls of the brilliant paramax’s curlytail and the trance pike was under it’s spell and closing in for the kill.
One bite, one set, and the pike was hooked right in the lip in front of my eyes.
I grabbed my landing net and climbed over the railing ready to land the beast. The area under my feet unfortunately was only about 2 unches deep and I had a real struggle to get the net under the fish, on my 3rd attempt I managed to knock my lure out of the pikes mouth and free the fish. Gutted. No trophy photo for me that day.
The fish stayed in the swim to taunt me but nothing I tried including leaving it alone for half hour would convince it that anything I had to offer was worth the risk.
With winter months taking over, I haven’t seen any chub there at all in the 3 sessions I have been back or any signs of the pike which I have unfinished business with. But several small perch have kept the sessions fun and they seem to be consistently there ready to take small lures and provide some sport and save a blank.
As I haven’t seen a single other person fishing on this urban stream, I’m hoping that come spring it will really give me the opportunities to target chub on lure and fly I need to get that confidence and tick the species off.
Oh, and that pike owes me a photo!
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How To Trick A Fish 