River Avon – Pony Fields above Christchurch Harbour

  This will be a short story about one of the lowest points in my fishing history. I had always thought that I knew my fish having caught just about every type of fish swimming in and around our river and still water systems. It just goes to show you can’t be too careful when identifying a species as it could be the difference between life and death for them.

One of my fishing mates, Brian Duckett and I were doing a practice session for our next Winter league Match to be held on the lower Hampshire Avon between Ringwood and Christchurch Harbour.

 We had already practised in the harbour and just above already, so we thought that we would try fishing the Pony Fields sections of the river. This section was located about three quarters of a mile upstream of the harbour. There were a few swims on a very deep and acute bend on that stretch and we thought that we would find out what they were capable of producing in the way of species and weights. The bends obviously forced the flow from one side of the river and then forced it back over to the opposite side. This caused a number of deep holes where the flow had scoured into the side of the banks and causing undercuts.

These areas had the ability to produce some good specimens and were home to some quite big shoals of roach, dace and chub.  On our walk to our swims we had noticed a huge shoal of mullet making their way upstream from the harbour and open sea. I know we would be very happy to draw one of these swims and thought they would be reasonable candidates for section wins and even an outside chance of the whole match if they fished to their potential. We both caught good bags of fish and were drawing near to the end of our session.

With about half an hour left and the light fading, I hooked into a heavy fish on my hook baited with bread flake. I saw it break the surface and I felt sure it looked like a mullet.

 I landed the fish and weighed it at just over 5lb. I thought to myself that as it was a sea fish and not a freshwater species, I would take it home to eat. Just as I was about to dispatch it with a heavy bank stick, Brian came over to see what was happening. When he saw me about to kill the fish, just about threw himself on me to stop it happening. He shouted at me “ That's a massive chub, you idiot”!! When I looked down at it a bit more carefully I could see that he was indeed right. It was a chub. I felt really sick and very guilty at what I had almost done.

I don’t quite know how long a chub lives to attain the weight but I knew then it was the biggest one I had caught in 20 years of fishing for them, so I felt really bad about the situation. Since that catch, I still haven’t caught a chub bigger than that in a further 30 years of trying. Food for thought I am afraid.