Dog Days on the Dove

Saturday 10th July

I havent much chance to fish this week due to various work and family commitments but i had already decided on a bit of a change for my fishing this week. Saturday was to be fishing day for me and with the weather being so hot and dry (as the title of this piece suggests) i opted for a spot of early morning Chubbing on the river Dove.

It was around 4.30am when i arrived at the river and i decided to walk down to the bottom of the stretch with a view to working my way upstream back to the car. The river was painfully low but at least the sun wasnt up yet and it was still nice and cool.

My main line of attack was to be quivertipped breadflake with a small feeder full of liquidised bread. I made my first cast and straight away the tip pulled around only to be missed as i wasnt expecting it so soon. The next bite wasnt missed though and soon a lively little chub of around a pound or so was in the net. This wrecked the spot so i moved on upstream.

The new spot took a bit longer to warm up and after firing in a pouch of maggots and a couple of balls of bread, a couple of taps on the tip had my hand hovering. Seconds later it pulled around and i connected with a fish that went berserk. It repeatedly leapt out of the water but soon enough i had it netted. A nice Rainbow Trout of about 2lb.


Its the first of its kind ive caught for about 10 years so it made a nice change. I moved onto another spot and despite getting loads of knocks i only got a couple of hittable bites which were missed. Eventually the Sun got up and its heat could be felt getting stronger by the minute. This coincided with bites suddenly drying up so i soon found myself headed for the car and home.
That evening i headed for the Trent and hopefully some Barbel action but it quickly became apparent that the drifting blanket weed was horrendous, so bad that it was probably the worst ive ever known it. Needless to say i didnt last long and decided to cut my losses and leave.
Im at a bit of a loss as to what to do with my fishing now. So much of my early season plans revolved around the Trent but that weed is making it a nightmare to fish. Im not really fired up by anything anywhere else at the minute so ill just have to go with flow and pray for some rain.