Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over four years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff so if you are new to fly fishing or spinning these are the ones for you).

03 November 2006.

Chub on a plug.

As the river was fining down and the forecast was for a dramatic fall in temperature I decided to have a couple of hours plugging for perch, chub and what-have-you. It was a lovely, sunny afternoon and all was right with the world as I tied on a J9 Rapala with a short trace of 20lb knottable wire. As I walked down to the bank a chap with a video camera on a tripod was coming back the other way. We passed the time of day and he said that he'd seen a couple of decent fish trying to jump up the weir. Encouraging! My first few casts in the race under the weir sill (usually a banker for a perch or two) produced nothing so I wandered on downstream. Half way down the weir pool was a little slack bay surrounded by reeds. I flicked the plug across and about mid-way across I felt a tug and saw the green stripey flank of a decent perch as it turned on the lure. I failed to hook it and got no more bites in that spot.

A bit further on in the shallow water at the tail I made a long cast across and, almost immediately, the plug was taken. This time a I hooked the culprit and as it heaved and splashed its way towards me I could see that it was a reasonable chub. Holding the rod with one hand I extracted the camera from my bag and took a few pictures as I landed and released the fish. Nothing else for half-an-hour then as I came back upstream I made a few casts directly up and retrieved fast with the flow in only a foot of water. Third cast I had a bite and a trout of about a pound leapt clear of the water and shook itself in the air before coming off. No more bites after that but the sun was still shining and I'd had a really pleasant afternoon's fishing.

Nice chub!

Hooked on the mid-body treble it obviously side-swiped the plug.

Tired!

Close to the bank you can see that even a modest chub like this has a big enough mouth to cope with a 9cm plug.

Ready to unhook.

The hook just popped out and although they don't fight much chub do look amazing..