My first trip to this Nene backwater having joined a new club this season. I was feeling under the weather after covid so didn't push things, limiting myself to a few swims and not too much walking.

I passed some prepared swims as I made my way along the stretch, the other sections of the bank being overgrown with wild vegetation. But this is quite normal on these small streams in summer. I stopped at what was probably the fourth of these spots, not too far but not right next to the entrance.

It was a reasonably open section of the stream with two banks of bullrushes a little way down, where the stream quickened as it narrowed between them. I started with bread flake, having first cleared up some discarded fishing line. The flake was taken almost immediately on my first cast, too quickly for me to respond. I then continued to get jabbing pulls on the quiver tip indicative of smaller fish, which I guessed were small chub. Eventually I hooked one and this confirmed my assumption.

I moved on to a second spot, again an open glide but in this case with a tree overhanging the near bank a little way downstream. After trying flake and once again getting jabs on the tip I swapped to cheese paste. This wasn't bothered as much by the smaller fish and I then missed a very firm pull. Another attempt with cheese paste saw the bait fly off as I cast so I swapped to spam. This eventually rewarded me with a positive bite and a better chub. Not huge but in superb condition.

The third spot I tried had more features with trees opposite and a lot of bank-side vegetation still in place. Once again bread flake produced jabs and a change to a fairly large piece of cheese paste produced a small chub that must have stretched its mouth to take it.

I then decided to walk upstream to seek out some 'chub holes' but there weren't any appealing swims along the way. There were a couple of possibles but the bank-side vegetation and reed growth would have made them extremely difficult to fish. I eventually reached the remains of a stepping stone crossing of the river that was no longer in use. A fallen tree had reduced the shallow stream to a small channel that then flowed out into wider water, passing under trees. I decided to drop a bait into the fast flow so that it made its way under the nearest tree. This was opportunistic and I'm not sure what would have happened if I had actually hooked a good fish. Perhaps it was fortunate that I didn't.

The walk had taken it out of me so I decided to return to a spot near the entrance to the stretch and spend the last hour or so of my session there. It was an easy swim that was clearly regularly fished. Faster water entering a much wider bay had formed a large back-eddy that appeared to be very deep. Meanwhile the faster water was channelled to the far side.

After taps on flake I decided to cast a largish piece of spam into the faster flow, just past midstream such that the bait would trundle round into what I hoped would be an area where fish were congregating to intercept food coming down with the flow. This produced a good pull that I missed but on a subsequent attempt I hooked a chub that while not large gave a good account of itself. This was to be my last fish but I packed up very satisfied at having caught on my first trip to this water.