The combination of a mandatory day off from work and bright sunshine and warm water called
for the first mission of the year to the chub spots.
Now it was way to early as the chub probably would not yet be in their summer haunts or surface feeding but it tried anyway.

What gave me hope was the fact that numerous mayflies where hatching, such a big morsel would surely be tempting for any chub.
I checked out one of my summer haunts and found it completely void with life, no fish at all.
My break came at a bridge where several fish where moving about.

In the surface tiny bleak where feeding, on the bottom I spotted chub and dace.
A dace was the first fish that I caught, on a small mop fly.
I spotted chub following the mop fly but only hooked a small one.
Next I tried the squirmy and again I hooked a chub this time a little larger.

Obviously it was not yet the season for surface feeding fish.
The last stop was a wide shallow spot at a weir and on a positive note I spotted a large chub.
But… there was also a pike and it messed up the scene as it was in attack mode.
Then I spotted an even larger pike moving in the shallows.

So next I tried for the pike but the trace on the leader was so heavy that I only caught weeds.
The only hope to get something larger was to fish the deeper pools of the fish ladder.
Weapon of choice was a small black streamer with an orange tungsten bead.
I dropped the streamer in the fast flowing water and retrieved it slowly.

Suddenly I got a hit and it was something big.
At first I thought it was a big perch but when the fish came to the surface I noticed that it was
a nice size chub.
After releasing the chub I tried the same spot again and to my surprise I hooked another big fish.
Turned out an even larger chub had taken the streamer.

My day was made, mission chub was a success.