John's Fishing Blog

Chew has been open for over a week now and it has seen some incredible fishing!  Even on the coldest of days, buzzers have hatched all over the lake and the Chew trout have been feasting on them.
I have been fishing dries whenever the winds have dropped and even though the first week was very cold, these last few days have seen the air temperatures rise to over 16 degrees, with water temperatures over 10 degrees.

Lots of anglers have been fishing DI3 and DI5 lines with blobs, boobies and nymphs and they have caught well.  Others have used straight lined nymphs on floaters, washing lines with booby and nymphs and some of us have been targetting rising fish with dries - amazing!

It was the washing line that accounted for John Tabor's cracking 3lb plus Chew rainbow - overwintered and fin perfect.  John and son Anthony had a good day on the trout, even though the winds were freezing and the day was interspersed with rain storms!

The pike fishing has also been pretty good for the time of year and all of my clients have landed pike on the fly.  Best results to date go to first time pike on the fly angler Olly Seymour, who boated pike of 8:04, 13:08 and 18:08 yesterday.  I also chipped in with one of 24lbs to make it a real day to remember!

If you havent got a Chew boat booked yet, then my advice is to do it as soon as possible!!!!

On Tuesday my guest Neil Leaver boated this beautifully marked 32:08 pike - his Personal Best by a long shot!
Neil was fishing with John Synnuck and I on the second day of the 2014 Spring Pike Trials.

The previous day, all boats were cancelled due to the very strong Southerly winds, so John and Neil were forced to return home to the London area and drive back the following day.  My boat was cancelled on the Monday and they had a boat booked for the Tuesday, but they had no hesitation making the 300 mile round journey twice in as many days - and thank goodness they did!

Neil's fish took a floatfished mackerel deadbait in Villice Bay just after 12:30.

I then decided to have a fish and threw a few lures in the vicinity.  Within 10 minutes, a cracking 27:10 pike took my soft plastic lure and made it a great day to remember.

Since then, the boats have again been cancelled due to the high winds on the Wednesday, but bank anglers continued to do well and this culminated with Chew's biggest ever pike coming out at 44:06 - what a monster of a fish and congratulations to it's captor.

The next week of trials begins tomorrow (Monday) and I have a boat with my good friend Daryl Hunter.  Let's hope that the winds drop as they are forecast and we can cover lots of water using lures rather than deadbaits.

I truly believe that Chew Valley will produce a record UK pike for some lucky angler in the foreseeable future - and personally, I hope it comes out on a fly.  Now wouldn't that be amazing?