Here I was thinking that I’ve got 6 hrs spare (the Misses was having her hair done) the river being up and coloured and the barbel should be feeding. Normally I don’t venture out too much on a weekend but the conditions looked too good, even if it was a short session.

I arrived in the fishery car park to find just the one car there, what a surprise! I slowly loaded the tackle and walked across the field to the swims I wanted to fish. Both produce large barbel over 10 lbs. Both of them were free so I put a few pellets in the area where the barbel feed.

The river was a little higher than it’s been over the previous few weeks and had just a slight colour. I could still see into the depths of the river, but couldn’t quite make out the barbel shapes (if there were any). I settled into the first choice swim and lobbed out the bolt rig in the area where they would feed. I had the normal end rig size 10 Drennan hook 12″ of  ESP sink braid with a pva bag of 10 pellets or so.

I was going to give each swim 40 minutes or so each and keep rotating between them. Well after exactly 40 minutes in the first swim I thought I saw a barbel’s tail sweep around in the baited area. Sometimes it can be a small fish moving about however I was reasonably certain. Sure enough after 5 minutes the rod hooped over and I was playing a barbel. This was the swim where I had lost a very big barbel about 1 month ago. To be fair this wasn’t the monster barbel and I had it under control quite quickly.

On the scales it went just over 6lbs. I seem to be stuck on this figure wherever I fish for barbel. However I’m not complaining as it avoids that blank.

I decided to rest the swim and move to the other swim. Out went the identical rig into the area where these barbel feed. The storm clouds were starting to gather. No rain had been forecast so I thought it was going to be a short shower which it was. As I sat under the umbrella on the unhooking mat another angler passed by. I continued to fish for 45 minutes in this swim without a bite. I peeped out to see the other angler in the swim I had caught the 6lber. As I walked towards the swim I could see it was my mate Shaun. We had a chat as the shower persisted about the fishing. I told him I had one in there about an hour ago. With the clouds getting progressivly darker he said he would take his chances and sit tight. I moved back to the swim swiftly as the rain was really starting to fall heavily. Then for about an hour the heavens opened with thunder and lightning and there I was sat under the umbrella. Still no bites. Shaun caught a 7lb fish so we wasn’t blanking too.

So that was it for the afternoon 4 hours fishing and one small barbel.

I’m not going to mention the O word today in this blog. My wife though was very impressed with the photo’s and video and knows about the O word and how I feel, she could see the damage on the fish and also the poor ones that didn’t get away. But she still doesn’t like […]

I was woken at 2am by the rain hammering down on the roof of the car and this continued until 4am, then it started again at 6am. The fields were really soaked as I squelched my way to the river. I fished another swim where I had seen some good chub, but would they take […]

This was to be my first visit for the year on the middle reaches of the river. My plan was to fish for 3 days in an effort to locate some of the large chub that swim in those beautiful crystal clear waters. The weather forecast was for plenty of rain on the Tuesday and […]

Well after yesterdays downpour of rain I was expecting to see the river up and coloured. Guess what 24hrs after it stopped the river is as clear and low as before. Where did that water go? I was going to fish for 4 hrs today, 14.30 to 18.30hrs. The stretch I had chosen has been […]

Well here I was taking Dave out again fishing. I took him out fishing earlier in the year for tench where we managed a good few to just over 6lbs. He said that he wanted to catch some chub and barbel from the river in August and sure enough the time approached. We agreed to meet […]

I was just thinking today that I could manage a few hours fishing. I spent lots of time looking and only cast out a four times. The river was still very low and clear and I had this feeling that I would struggle. I fished every swim which contained barbel but only caught chub. It’s not […]

First a joke I recently found out a friend of mine is addicted to brake fluid. When I confronted him about it he said he could stop at any time. Andy and I met in the car park at our allotted time. The day was cloudy with a hint of drizzle in the air and […]

Today I only had a window of 6 hrs, so I was on the water quite early. The weather was going to be dry, bright and sunny for the day not the best conditions. I had in the back of my mind to fish the same swim where Andy and I saw the barbel that […]

I don’t normally like to fish on Mondays as you are never aware of what bait has gone in over the weekend and which swims have been fished. I had arranged to meet my mate Andy Cowley for an afternoon session and hopefully show him a few of the good swims. The weather had changed […]