we'de had a talk a couple of days before and it was a toss up between the dee for some grayling or the ribble for some barbel
we headed for the tickled trout and payed our money to the fellas in the petrol station after swapping storys of fishing in africa we were off to the swims
with so much water in the river it was high and bombing through...but dropping off
because it was so high we coudnt actually reach the 2 swims we wanted as one of them was under about 4 foot of water and id not brought my chesties
ade plonked himself down and i got in about 10 yards down stream, both were difficult...ade was fishing in a quagmire and i was 8 foot up from the water and in a parrot cage unable to get a proper cast ....happy days
ades swim
we both had the same tactics big feederes ( 200g jobs...thats 7 oz in real money) filled with pellets and fishmeal to bind with hair rigged drilled pellet or monster crab boilies, cast as far as A) it would hold bottom or B) how far i could get it with an underhand cast without snagging the trees
we gave it a couple of hours without a proper bite between us but lots of visits from these little fellas
things were getting trecherous underfoot and it was only a matter of time before one of us would end up in the river so a change was decided on, we moved a bit further down the river onto a sand bank, well i say sand it soon turned into a mud bath, ade falling flat on his oops just getting onto it
a couple more hours with similiar tactics and it was looking like the old blankety blank pen was comingh out to play, the only thing could of been the drop in temp last night has put them off the feed so we decided to go for plan B and target the chub, i had brought some 2 year old smelly cheese paste and after changing over to a straight lead and finer hook length we chucked thes rigs quite close in to give us a chance of holding bottom
by this time it was just getting dark, and just as i said..."anytime now" my rod rattled and swung round in the un-mistakable chub bite
this little fella was soon in the landing net
as we were weighing it and taking pics ade noticed his rod had bent over aswell saving his blank and giving him a similiar sized chub
happy days, that was it for the action, we stayed till dark and the full moon came out ...
but nothing else graced the landing nets, a good day out full of laughs and jokes , spotted some deer on the opposite bank but by the time i grabbed my camera they were in the woods and hidden
first time ive had a chance to get out fishing and really enjoyed it, pity no whiskers came out to play but in all honesty with the speed of the current and the already heavy feeders we had to use i doubt if we would of got many if any in
Well worth the mud bath 
However what a report 
