Monster Rudd

An early season trip out chasing rudd with James in the boat. I always intent to take a photo of the boat but in the excitement we were off. Working our way up the river we could just about squeeze the boat through the overgrown reeds, had to push through rafts of debris and the prop jammed with weed every 3 minutes.

We were soon into the rudd however, tempting them up to the surface with bread and then floating a crust with a hook in it down to them - great fun watching them nail the bait off the surface. Averaging 10-12oz James managed one over a pound before we found some bigger fish and had five minutes of madness...

James hooked into a monster rudd, and although it found every weedbed on the way in the biggest rudd I'd ever seen found the net. While he weighed it my crust floated into the danger zone. A bite and a monster rudd for me too, I'd clearly cracked my 2lb target by some margin! A new PB rudd weighing in at 2lb 10oz (top photo).

What a start to the season. And I wasn't finished - more rudd up to about a pound before we watched another big rudd mopping up the free samples. In the slowest race ever we both trotted bread down to it - it nudged James' but then grabbed mine! Another two at 2lb 3oz was in the net - sorry James (not sorry). A brace of twos!

More rudd up to about a pound as we fished into the sunset and beyond - until we could no longer see the fish, but no more monsters landed. We had intended to stay and fish the next day - but a storm pushed us off the river. Didn't fancy being in that little boat with lightening all around us - but we will be back...


The second two of the brace at 2lb 3oz.


Mine (top) and James' fish, two rudd for over 5lb in five minutes!