So today was my first day back on the bank in 2011! I had a spare hour before I had to pick my lad up from nursery so headed to the small river I had success with at the end of last year.

It was a relatively mild day (I only had 3 layers on!!) and was quite sunny but cloudy.

As you can see from the picture above the "river" is only about 6 meter wide and is about 3/4 foot deep. Today is the deepest its been in the couple of times I've been and was pretty clear. I was fishing at the far bank beneth the tree branches. The flow was pretty quick and was swirling around a lot which made it pretty difficult.


I got there around 2pm and as the river is so narrow you can only really fish with a whip. So I pulled out my 15 year old Silstar red 6m whip. I didn't see much point in buying maggots to fish for an hour so nicked a slice of bread from home and a bit of corn to feed.

It was very quiet with no sign off bites in the first 30mins, I kept changing my depths and alternating between corn and bread on the hook but it wasn't looking good and I was starting to regret not get some maggots!

But then at 2.46pm the float went under and not because of the current this time! After a little fight this beauty came to the net, caught on breadflake.

Not sure if it's a roach or chub, but I think as its so long its a chub? Either way a nice fish to start 2011 off and that was that! I ran the float through the swim a few more times but nothing so packed up and head to the pub for a swift half to celebrate the start of hopefully a good 2011!

Hoping to get out on Tuesday for a full day and to use my new feeder rod and reel (more on that to come).

Thanks for reading and good luck for the weekend if you're planning on wetting a line.

All the best,

The Maggot Dangler.