As I left work this afternoon to nip to the tackle shop to get the bait it was snowing quite heavily! This was not going to stop us. "If it ain't snowing, we ain't going", a saying taken from my brief stint with the Royal Yeomanry. Nothing was going to stop us. I purchased 2 packs of lobby's, and some other none necessary bits (I am a right tackle tart). For the first time ever i got to have a look in the Walkers of Trowell gun room, there is some "proper" toys in that shop! I had to talk myself out of a new .22 air rifle (as well as a drop shotting set up!). After a long chat with the lads in the shop I returned home, hit the gym, sorted my tackle out, and tried to sleep (too much excitement).

 Friday morning was bitterly cold with a centimetre or two of snow on the ground. The trip to pick Chris up was full of "brown" moments, but i made it. We packed up the car and played AC/DC - You shook me all night long on the slow trip out to the Devon. As soon as we hit the M42 there was no sign of snow! The flurry the night before had missed that side of the county, luckily. We arrived at the church around 0515 and sacrificed an entire pack of worms to the fishing gods (my entire pack of lobworms were dead!) before we loaded the gear on our backs and made the yomp over the muddy field to the start of one of our favourite stretches.

Sunrise through the trees on the river Devon.

When we made it to the designated "brew stop" we unloaded, and stuck the Ghillie Kettle on. We watched the sunrise through the trees while we set up. I absolutely love this river, you can go an entire day without seeing another soul. 



Chris with the first fish of the day, 3lb 2oz.

The first fish fell to Chris early morning on a juicy lobby. A savage bite wrapped Chris' drennan medium feeder right over, and I got the usual "JAMES!, GOT ONE!!!!". 


3lb 5oz
Around an hour after it was my turn. The peg that this was caught out of was a "textbook" chub swim. It took a while to tempt this 3lb 5oz block head out, but it finally fell to my vintage cheese paste.

Chris had run out of lob worms around 1400. Me being nice gave him some cheese paste to try. Chris isn't keen on cheese paste. He's more of an angling "purist", he'd choose a more "natural" bait over anything else. I don't disagree with him. If i had to use one bait for the rest of my life i'd choose lob worms, but I don't think that "artificial" baits such as boilies, cheese paste, and halibut pellets do bad.

3lb 6oz fell to cheese paste, the biggest of the day so far!
Within ten minutes of using my ridiculously smelly cheese paste Chris hit the biggest fish of the day so far! 3lb 6oz of muscle almost pulled his rod into the river (I was pretty jealous at this point).


Chris' photography skills.

An hour passed and I had not even had a nudge. Morale was low, the only interesting thing that had happened for a while was this photograph Chris had taken. I would compare him to Hugh Miles, his skills are out of this world...

But then..

Right at last knockings i had a small touch on my tip, then it bent over. I had almost missed this bite due to my creative side, I was carving some "bank art" out with my knife and a stick (sharpening it). On the other end was a superb 3lb 15oz river Devon chub. My personal best for this river. Perseverance caught me this fish. I jumped up and down like a child on Christmas day when Chris scooped this into the net. A perfect end to a cracking day.

My river Devon PB, 3lb 15oz.

It is days like this we will remember for the rest of our lives. One of those ones you bring up into conversation after 5 pints. The best thing is, there will be more of these.













The photograph of the day. Named "AH.CHUB."