You know how it is you have a cracking session when you least expect it. At midnight last night I got the text from Carpman on one of our club lakes: jst hd crakin comon, can u cum and take pix?
Sac it, b there at dawn was the reply, in the language I knew Carpman would be able to read. No doubt he was still up polishing his stainless pod, three of a kind big pit reels and his Ballista somethings..

Scrambling from the warmth of my bed at 6.30 am - well there was no sense in going any earlier due to it still being dark - I thought I might as well have a couple of hours on my little local stream after photographing John's fish.
In the car went my 1952 cane, the Allcocks Lucky Strike, a 1930s Youngs 'pin, a small bag of bits, a few slices of Hovis white from the bread bin and the shrinking leftovers of fortnight old maggots from my bait fridge in the garage.
Twenty pounder duly snapped, I arrived at the meandering stream, barely an overflow ditch from the Grand Union Canal. And despite the rain, it was averaging just nine inches deep and seven feet wide. The main early morning residents were grazing cattle, by mid morning the labradors would have taken over.

My bridge swim which had looked after me with the odd chub and roach during the summer was carrying a little over 12 inches of water with a thin centre channel of perhaps 14 to 18 inches in places. This once ran over clean gravel and streamer weed when I was a boy some 35 years ago but nature reclaims its own, and after 30 years of decreasing water flows it's all rather silty. Once it was a proud stream with the word river in its name - the River Bulbourne, a tributary of the River Gade which also rises in the Chiltern foothills just minutes from home. So, a quick two hours fishing before taking on the weekend domestic chores
What does constitute a Red Letter Day?
A huge specimen fish you have been targeting all season? A new personal best? A hundred pounds of bream or silvers in a club match?
Well for me, any day out on the river bank is a day to remember, whether it's for the fish seen or caught, the hobby or red kite hovering overhead, the speedy kingfisher or the waterside flora. And my idea of a specimen fish? Any fish of any species that is considered large for the water. So, I thought, as I set up an ultra-fine rig for the crystal clear trickle, a three-inch minnow, a four ounce roach or a pound chublet would satisfy my angling desires. A pound plus bottom, size 20 on a 2.6 mainline with three-inch vintage balsa float was finished with a tiny pinch of breadflake or single wilting maggot.
Such was the non existent flow it took a full eight minutes (seriously..) to trot the 30 yards under and through the bridge it was almost still water river fishing.
A dozen run-throughs later I'd had eight bites and connected with six, emptying the swim in the process. five chub (with not a chublet in sight) to three and half pounds and a lone redfin of 1lb 2ozs. And every one a specimen for the tiny stream.

David Carl Forbes would have been proud, for I only finished reading his Small Stream Fishing for the umpteenth time earlier this past week.
I don't normally hold fish in a net, but in such low, clear conditions it made sense to avoid spooking the chub.
And am I pleased I did - I'm still looking at the pictures 12 hours later
I'm not into music - but I've fallen in love with Chubby Chevins and the Fat Fin

Gary Cullum

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