Fishing spot obsessions……

This one is a little wacky. But bear with me it is going somewhere…. I think at least.

My first ever cast with a lure into fresh water was immediately met with a surface take from a chub that I would have been chuffed to bits with with on any bait or method. But it spat the lure out right in front of my eyes and might as well have swam off screaming “I am warning all my mates”. As for the next 3 years tempting a chub on an artificial lure or fly just wasn’t to be for me.

I have tried fishing for chub on the fly rod on several occasions only for them to spit the fly before i could set the hook. I tried fishing for chub on many different lures for them only to be spooked and swim away hastily. I have tried in creeks, canals and rivers but nothing seemed to work for me. I had the occasional follow. A splash here and there and fish mouthing the lure in front of me just to really make me utterly sick at times but nothing swimming off downstream with a hook in the lips and a bend in my rod.

In the middle of all this I moved location and found a spot near where I live where the chub are simply not even slightly catch-able and this has driven me bananas to the point where I am obsessed with catching from this spot.

Now this shitty little stretch of stream which is under a road bridge across from a railway station and a pub is only about 6 inches deep in most parts and if full of litter. Bicycles, traffic cones and whatever else the scum of our earth throw into it on a day to day basis. But I consistently see fish in this stretch and I’ve now spotted perch, chub, pike, barbel, dace, bleak and some kind of loach here at different times as well as a vast array of birds, dragonflies and some very very rare species of people haha.

So how can I not keep coming back to it. I’ve had a session here where I have caught a perch almost every cast and I’ve hooked and lost (what i think is) the same pike 3 times. But to this day I cant seem to tempt the most common fish I see here, the chub .

I tried fishing about half a mile downstream and on my 5th cast had my first ever chub on a lure which I followed up a few sessions later with another.

Now with a little confidence I returned to my favoured swampy bridge for some more torture.

Of course I started to blank and haven’t even managed a perch in my last 2 hours (combined) of fishing from the spot.

I keep telling myself to move on and stop fishing the spot but I cant stop returning again and again trying different angles, lures, speeds, depths, weights etc. Changing anything I can to trigger a response from one of the resident chub.

I know that when the perch are present that I can catch them but it’s the simple fact I have seen these chub so often that is driving me positively barmy.

Help!!!!

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