Very Weedy River

[sebn]

I wonder if anyone would care to offer me some advice.

 

I have recently been fishing a beautiful stretch of the Hampshire Avon, the club i belong to have rights to quite a long part of the river.

I have been employing quite a few different methods in attempting to catch various species. I have had great success in targetting Dace whilst trotting maggot with a centerpin, but now i am wanting to target some different species, namely Chub and Barbel. For the time being i am somewhat ignoring targetting Barbel and trying to tempt a Chub into my landing net. I have been using breadflake with a couple of SSG on a link ledger, or alternatively an open ended cage feeder with bread crumb. I believe these are both sound tactics for catching Chub (please correct me if i'm wrong)

 

Now to the "issue at hand"; the river currently is incredibly weedy, its brimming with the stuff, i believe that it is "streamer weed". It is coming above the surface in a lot of places and just below the surface along the majority of the river. There are very few places where there isnt any weed, and even if i am able to get to some gravelly patches there is thick weed all around, between the gravel and the bank. I am very concerned about hooking something and instantly getting snagged and potentially harming a fish.

Obviously this isnt a problem that is unheard of, but i am just wondering, "How do other people deal with this situation?"

 

Another issue that i am experiencing is bite registration, i am keeping my rod tip high so my line isnt laying across the weed but it is inevitablly making contact with it somewhere. The tip of my rod is pretty much in constant movement when the weed is moving in the current and i am finding it hard to regocnise genuine bites. Any advice on this issue?

 

For reference, I am using a John Wilson Avon rod 1.25lb with 6lb line straight through when fishing bread flake on a link ledger. When using a feeder i step down the hooklink to 4lb-ish.

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

Seb

 

 

[ayjay]

To land fish in areas thick with streamer weed, the easiest way is to pull them downstream; for larger fish like Chub and Barbel it needs planning, you have to know in advance where you can land them, place your landing net by the first one of these spots downstream of your swim before you start fishing.

[Phone]

sebn, ayjay,

 

Chub easily fall to shallow diving and surface lures. Landing them is a different matter in as much as they will be in the 5 lb range.

 

Phone.

[Mark Wintle]

I'm in one of the big clubs with Avon fishing though I tend to fish the Stour much more now. What I did do some years ago on the Avon was fish hemp and caster in a blockend feeder - 3 casters on a forged 14 to 6lb line, 8lb mainline - fishing upstream onto gravel patches. I would fine tune the feeder with strips of lead. It needs the right swim and accurate casting but I did catch a lot of chub and barbel. Bites are easy to see - dropbacks - and you are pulling the fish with the current and out of the weed. I still lost some fish but not that many. I did use a lot of bait, 3 pints each of hemp and caster but it did work. I spent an entire summer doing this, memorable fishing and great fun; best bag of barbel was 8. People nowadays more generally use large drilled pellets, 12mm or so, feeding 6mm or 8mm.

[sebn]

Thanks for the replies guys, I went for a quick session this evening on a different stretch that i hadnt been to before, found a lovely deep bend with very little weed. I managed to catch a Chub! Unfortunately i didnt have any scales with me, nor did my mate, i would estimate that it was around 4lb, it fell to bread flake on a size 8 with a small cage feeder with breadcrumb. It put up a great fight. It was the first time i caught one so a new pb this evening was great!