30Lb of Tees fish

Date fished 06/03/2020
07.30 until 17.00

With the weather ruining a few weekend trips and the closed season fast approaching, it was time to get to the river and give it a last go.
With the day booked off work, a Friday seemed appropriate to target Pike and Chub on the stretch Ellis and I have been visiting recently.

Setting off earlier than sleepy, I arrived at the River a little after 7am. I walked to "find" a new swim.

I knew roughly where it was, I just had to find it. After a little walk and look about, I found a great looking swim. This will do, I thought.

I would alternate between Pike and Chub so set up accordingly. The pike rod with braid, float, bullet weight and a sardine.
The chub rod with 8lb line, 2.5oz cage feeder, and size 12 hook with hair rigged cork ball for cheese paste. I had bread flake for the feeder.

I decided to start with the pike, so cast to a slack area a little way down stream. About 20 mins ticked by and my float bobbed, rose up and sailed away. I struck straight away, setting the hooks. I was in. A quick scrap followed and a lovely looking pike lay in the net. I quickly transferred it to the mat and removed the hook. It was hooked lightly with one treble in the front of the mouth. I rested the fish in the net and called sleepy. He was still a while off, so I took some mat pics and unfortunately I did not have my selfie set up, so the below pic is the best I could manage. The fish had a few signs of spawning wounds along it's flanks.  I put the fish back to carry on with spawning. At 10lb 2oz, it was my biggest Tees Pike and a great start.

After only another 20 mins, my float did the same. I was in again!!
Soon another pike was laying in the net. This one had more obvious signs of spawning wounds along it's flanks.

Again I called sleepy and he was nearly here, so I rested the fish in the net so I could get a selfie picture.

This superb fish weighed 11lb 2oz. Once again a new Tees Pike pb.
With Sleepy now turning into Ellis, I vacated the Pike swim so he could fish there and I switched to the Chub rod.

We fed some dead maggots along the crease line to maybe encourage chub and toothy fish that eat chub into the area we were fishing.

A few hours past with little action, then Ellis decided to re cast his pike rod. He cast to exactly the same spot he had moved it from, and his float did not surface. It just sailed away. Instantly he was in. He played the pike to the net, and now it was my turn to net his fish. At 6lb, we had nearly 30lb of fish already and it was not even lunchtime!!

With both of us ticking off Pike, we concentrated on Chub now. Well, I did, Ellis turned back into sleepy and laid back on the mat in the sun to rest his eyes.

I wasn't sat quite this close when the fish took the bait!!

Sleepy aka Ellis

As I sat on the bank admiring the scenery, my rod hooped round and started to head towards the river. I got to it and connected with a strong pulling fish. We both thought it was a Barbel when it came close to the net, but it was not that flukey a trip. A lovely chub slipped over the net.

At a very small amount of cheese paste under 3lb, we allowed it to bring us to 30lb of fish for the day!!

We both now switched between the 2 methods. I missed another wrap around on the cheese paste and Ellis had a "thing" on the pike float. We are not sure if it was a take or movement from the flow, I think it was a fish, and he struck but it had dropped the bait. We will never know.

Thinking about it, there may be time to get another trip in before the rivers close, especially if it's like today.

It was soon time to pack up and walk back to the cars. As with all our trips, we chatted about life, work and had a laugh. Unlike most of our trips, on this one we stayed in the same swim, both didn't blank and neither of us lost any tackle!!