20 mins per swim

With alot of liquidised crumb left I decided to venue to the river close to my house for a couple of hours in the hope of snagging a chub or two. I only had a couple of hours so decided to keep very mobile employing a 20 mins per swim rule, if nothing happens then move on.

I had the same set up at yesterday with a 12ft feeder rod, my small bait runner and 8lb Guru line, to which I had a 20 gram cage feeder paternoster linked with a hook link of about 2 feet to a size 16 hook. I connected this with a Korum quick bead so that i could easily swap the hook link if required.

I started at a favourite swim in which I have had some success in the summer. It is a deep pool which is situated at the end of a fast narrow run. It also has some cover from the trees on either side of the river.

I introduced a couple of small bread balls which I hoped would trigger the fish into feeding, making them want to search out my piece of flake.

After about 10 mins I had a few small taps on the tip then it bounced back then hooped around, fish on! Taking my time to manoeuvred the fish through the reed rafts I slipped the net under a chub.

Not the best at the self timer photo!

On the scales it weighed 3lb 20z which pleased me as I was looking to start the year with a fish of over 3lb to kick of my chub challenge.

I moved swims 5 more times but nothing fancied flake on a hook! Will be back down there with some lobs!

Though I was aware that larger chub have been caught by other members of the challenge it has been my plan to get something in all of the boxes then work on improving them.

Having entered my weight into the table I was amazed to see that my chub registered the same percentage as Jeff's cracking canal pike at 33%., might be a chance of scoring a decent percentage on the chub.....