Barbeling for Bleak

Sunday's plan was easy, trotting for barbel. Start at the swim I was in Saturday, feed with copious quantities of hemp and dead maggot. Hack may way to another swim, feed as previous and then on to a third, feed and return to the first. Trot for 30-40 minutes in each swim while loose feeding live maggots. The only problem I could see was my nose was now streaming from hay fever and making it hard to concentrate. So I decide to ledger a 1/2" piece of meat to start with. 30 minutes in each swim produced absolutely nothing. By now, after taking another anti-histamine, my nose was under control. Time for some trotting.

Two live maggots and an artificial one on the hook and I was soon into bleak! If I got a bite it was a bleak, not a fish a chuck, but a steady flow of them taken well down the swim. If the float managed to get to the end of the swim the maggots were generally intact. This was repeated in the next swim. The third swim, though, only produced perch or gudgeon. This swim was shallower and pacier. than the other two. A change to a size 8 and half a dozen maggots did nothing except reduce the bites to zero. Perhaps If I'd gone bleak fishing I may have latched onto a barbel.

 
By now the rain clouds were on the horizon. I'd just got packed up when it started. By the time I'd got back to the car I was sodden.