Kevin Sanders: A June 16th to Remember

Specimen angler Kevin Sanders shares his successes from the opening day of the river season – June 16th

Kevin says…

As always It’s an early start for me on June 16th and I was ready to get on the boat at sunrise.

The plan for the day was rudd fishing in the morning, then switch to some lure fishing for chub around lunchtime. Then a switch back to the rudd for the evening into dark.

The weather conditions were not great with a persistent cold wind and drizzle although, it was forecast to get better through the day and thankfully it did.

Unsurprisingly, the rudd were not showing on the surface.

Waggler fished bread flake fished a couple of feet below the surface was the tactic I would use. The flake was given a boost with my favourite Dynamite Baits XL liquid Strawberry for mega attraction.

Action from smaller fish to around 1lb plus started from the very first cast which was a good sign. We then moved the boat downstream a couple of times searching the river and I hit into a better fish. It weeded me up a couple of times but I soon had a lovely rudd in the net that weighed 2lb 4oz.

Through the morning the action reduced and it was now time to switch to the upper river for some chub fishing. It would be sight fishing and casting surface lures to the fish and hope they would smash them.

My lure of choice was the Rapala X Liight Crank Shallow and I would plop it in front of any chub I saw.

I found a shoal of good-sized chub that were sitting mid water. After two casts I could see they would not take a surface lure. Luckily, I had a couple of buoyant craw baits with me for such occasions.

I fished it cheb style with a size 2 VMC weedless hook and dropped it a couple of feet in front of the fish. I bumped the lure along the bottom and a fish soon grabbed the lure.

The fish splashed around in the margin trying to shed the hook in some snags but it was not long before I managed to bundle it into the net.

It was a mint condition chub and made the change of species and tactics well worth it.

No more chub could be tempted so it was back to the rudd on the lower river. It was still a few hours until sunset so I decided to get an hour or so sleep as I was going to fish prime time into dark.

As expected, the rudd activity increased massively compared to the morning and afternoon. Rudd were now taking bread off the surface which they were not doing previously.

It was now dark so a waggler with a starlite pushed into the top of the float was used. You can see the floats from a good distance and bites were pretty obvious when the light slides under the water.

Again, it was a case of smaller fish and moving downstream until a better fish would take the bait. Eventually, on a long trot of around 50 yards, a good rudd took my surface fished crust.

It was a nervous fight getting the fish back to the boat from such a distance. Rudd love to bury themselves in the weed and this fish did just that.

After what seemed like ages, I managed to net the biggest rudd of the day weighing 2lb 7oz.