Super Shoal

Date fished 16/2/2019
0830 till 1830

We caught fish! Literally! Some I juggled but caught again. The target was Chub and Grayling and we caught both! We lost lots of fish, we laughed, lost tackle, we smiled but we caught fish!

This trip was "sponsored" by ridge monkey as I recently acquired some of their buckets, in both sizes and one with a seat. We were gonna see if they helped us catch fish, as that's what we were out to do.

We decided to fish the Swale at Northallerton, and the spot? Well, obviously our usual spot!!

Meeting at 0730, a quick double sausage and egg with a hash brown was devoured to give us sustenance. After a quick chat with a local dog walker, we headed to our swim. The river was up 6 inches and clearish. It looked great.

Settling into our swims, I cast in my ledgered cheese paste, straight into the bush on the far bank. Snagged, line break, lost the lot! Ellis provided some encouragement with, " it can only get better!"

I re tackled and cast into the water this time, and sat back on my comfy bucket with seat and back rest and waited. Two, maybe three minutes passed and my rod twitched, then hooped over. I struck and was in! The fish was un chub like, darting about quickly in a head shaking way. Suddenly, it was off. We would never know what it was....
More encouragement from Ellis came in the form of " let's just hope at 1830 tonight, we are not sat here talking about the only bite after 3 mins!"

Ellis now cast, straight into the Bush! We were good at this, honest! Maybe he is better at giving encouragement!?

After no more action, we switched to float fishing with maggots. We were targeting Grayling, but I think both secretly hoping for chub! Ellis started the day off with a Grayling, quickly as ghillie, I landed it. This was the routine all day, we were a team and it's easier having someone net your fish, especially when it is a little dark!

I soon had a Grayling too! This was my first ever Swale Grayling, so after a quick pic and juggle it was back in the cold water.

We were feeding maggots easily with the wind assisting us to get to the far bank. If anything it was too strong and every catapulted maggot ended up miles too far! The wind did help with the trotting though, blowing upstream it enabled us to control the float down the swim.

Ellis had full control until his float buried and this was no Grayling! On 2lb line and a size 18 hook, he took his time to play the fish and after a short battle, I slipped the net under his first float caught chub. It was a cracking fish, about 4lb, and we hoped would kick start a match like ambience!! It certainly did after a few hours, but I was not going to be winning the match!

We switched between the float and ledger. We missed quite a few bites. Me missing 2 in about 2 mins whilst ledgering was probably the highlight. Finally my float buried and as I struck, a trout lept out the water.

Ellis was trying his new and improved cheese paste with garlic,  not sure if it was this or the few pieces attached to the hook with pva tape but he was suddenly attached to a chub that was owning him! It nearly owned his rod too, but that's a story that remains on the bank! On the heavier ledger tackle, this chub had eaten plenty of cheese but also spinach! A great fight and soon (ish) I was landing another chub for Ellis, this one going 4lb 8oz!

Ellis encouragement exclaiming " I never catch 3 chub!"

A little time passed now. Float, ledger, missed bites. We were still trying and enjoying it. We sat behind the ledger rods, cheese paste in the spot. Ellis having left his phone in the car, needed to know what else was being caught on the Swale, so it was up to me to have a quick look on the book of faces.
Yes, you guessed right, at that moment my rod hooped over and bounced away, I was in. This fight seemed familiar, but it was on cheese paste! Jumpy, jagged, a big brown trout the culprit. This time we did know it!

As the day turned to evening, we had decided to both target chub on the ledger. Again missing bites, the fish were on the feed. Ellis moving to casting further down stream, he caught 2 quick chub. His never catching 3 chub had turned into 4! He must have found the super shoal!

He let me nip into his swim and have a cast too! After a few mins, my rod twitched but I missed the bite. Soon as darkness fell, the river awoke. Fish were moving about and we were in the right place. Finally I hooked and landed my chub. I say chub, but it was more chu. The fish must have had a run in with a predator as it's tail was deformed and it was about 6 inches shorter than it should be. It's fins were down the end of its tail like a pike.

As darkness took over, I missed more bites. We really had the fish feeding. It was however time to go. As good as the buckets were, they still needed to be carried back to the cars.

Commenting as we left, we had over 20lb of fish between us, including the trout. We will have to read the match rules though, cos am not quite sure you can fish as a team, but today we were the perfect team!