Drennan’s Ryan Hayden started his chub fishing off in style this season, landing an impressive fish of 6lb 14oz on his very first session on a new stretch of the River Ouse.

With temperatures still quite mild and with the water relatively clear, Ryan chose to bait his chosen swim with a dozen boilies and wait until darkness fell to make the first cast.

“10-minutes after flicking the rig out into the swim I received a few tiny plucks, which I thought may have been crayfish. A couple of minutes later I had two more taps, this time unmistakably a chub, then bang. The rod tip hooped round and I lifted into what felt a decent fish. The fish charged immediately for cover in the shape of a fallen tree, but with steady pressured applied, the fish was carefully steered away from the danger zone. After putting up a very spirited fight she eventually slid over the waiting net.

I like to use a large 36″ Specialist Landing Net for my chub fishing, it allows me to push the end of the net pole into the bank and rest the fish safely in the margin while sorting out the unhooking matt and scales.”

The scales swung around well past the magical 6lb mark and settled on 6lb 14oz, a new personal best for Ryan and a great start to his chub fishing campaign.

Ryan used his Drennan Series 7 Specialist Avon/Quiver rod with 10lb monofilament mainline loaded onto a BR 9-40 Specimen reel. His rig consisted of a simple running rig, but rather than being completely free running, Ryan used a single Grippa Stop with a buffer bead 2″ above the run ring to create a bolt-rig effect. A 2ft braided hooklink tied to a size 8 Super specialist Barbel hook with a single 16mm Tange-Marine Special Hookbait wrapped in matching paste presented on a very short hair to complete the rig.