Avid small stream fisher Gary Cullum blows off the excesses of Christmas Day by donning his waders, grabbing his 50-year-old Lucky Strike cane and heads off to his local stream in search of an elusive pound roach before breakfast...

I failed gloriously this morning.. just like the England cricket team having
their Ashes spread down under. And now I am back at home preparing the
bubble and squeak to accompany the traditional Boxing Day lunch of cold
meats and pickle. I have to say I prefer this lunch to my Christmas Day for
several reasons...

However..to the fishing. I have never been fishing before on Boxing Day
ever, but today it was crisp, though not overly cold, and was somewhat
overcast with a layer of low cloud. Perfect weather indeed to tempt a pound
redfin from my local stream.

Tackling up with 10 feet six inches of my favourite split cane Allcocks
Lucky Strike rod, a super small stream tool, and an exquisitely engineered
Witcher Avon Elite pin, I only had a few slices of two-day old bread..but it
was good enough and a small pinch stayed on a rather small size 18 ok.

I sat and warmed my hands over a coffee while flicking a few pellets of
flake into the current - well, if you could call it a current. This is a low
flow chalk stream in the water-starved Colne Valley (where we are still on a
hose pipe ban) that only exists today as it carries overflow water from the
nearby Grand Union Canal.

Nothing first run through using a sixties balsa stick float, three inches
long and shotted with just four number eights, but quite capable of peeling
line from the reel to amble down in an almost non existent current.

Second trot and the biggest resident chub I'd seen when I arrived registered
a mere dip of the float, but it was enough to strike - a pleasing three
pounds four ounces, huge for such a small water course.

Sometimes the biggest, most wary, chub sit at the back of the swim and make
few mistakes. But sometimes, just sometimes, they become the chubbiest
chevin by being first to the food, especially in my little stream where the
natural larder can be a little thin on the ground at this time of year.

I spend much of the winter feeding the roach and chub with an occasional
hand full of maggots, garden worms and bread flake perhaps twice a week to
keep them in fine shape - and close to the few fishable swims so I know
where to find them.

Three pound four ounces? That's a bit precise for someone who doesn't really
do personal bests, or tend to weigh his fish. True, but I weighed this one
for not only was it a fine looking fish, but I do weigh chub that look over
three pounds and roach that top the pound from that particular stream.
Mainly because they are specimens for the stream that on average is between
nine to 12 inches deep. And it's a way of keeping track of the health of the
fish. A three pound chub from the stream is as pleasing as any five or six
pound fish I have taken from the Upper Great Ouse, and, in a way, they are
'bigger fish', if you see what I mean. And if you do know what I mean, we
are of kindred spirits.

There are specimen anglers and there are specialist anglers - I know which
of those I am, and why I am, but that's a debate for another day.

That lovely Boxing Day chub was followed by another of around two and a half
pounds and a brace of redfins - a most beautiful species of fish - with both
around the half pound mark. I lost another and finished with a third chub.

Five Boxing day 'specimens'. A lovely Christmas present from mother nature.
But the pounder failed to show.

What a glorious way to fail...

Postscript, December 28 : returned to swim with ultra fine tackle including
a 1950s Hardy Sheffield Style Lightweight cane wand and banked a lovely chub and a pristine redfin in a 90 minute pre breakfast session. The
redfin..oh, it was bigger than the Boxing Day brace ...scaling in at a
magnificent 10 ounces. Failed gloriously again!

Post Postscript Dec 31: Last chance of the year for the pound redfin.. Local stream running rather full and choco coloured after torrential storm yesterday; needs a day or two to fine down... as a result no roach or chub showed... but 17 obliging perch of enormously small size!

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