River Jor & New PB

Wednesday I continued my hunt for a Ure barbel with a bit of new information. I spent some time casting about with a float rig and a lead trying to find a feature I'd been told about and sure enough, after a hour and half's work I found it. A shallow depression about two thirds of the way across the river. At nine inches deeper than the surrounding river bed it doesn't really show up by counting a lead down. Only by running a float rig though the area did it show, not he easiest thing to do with barges trundling up and down and a slowly falling river.

Having found the hole I tossed a pellet rig out to it with a mesh bag and a lob worm with a groundbait feeder on the top of the shelf near the inside bank. There they sat for a couple of hours, into darkness, with out so much as a twitch. Well so much for the hot tip.

Due to an evening commitment on Thursday I fished match hours, 10 to 4. Fishing the same swim as Wednesday I dropped a lob worm and brown crumb feeder in on top of the shelf again. Before I could cast the second rod the tip rattled and a little perch  was swung in. On the second rod, cast to the hole, I was using an 8mm halibut pellet and for the first few casts a mesh bag along with a feeder to get plenty of bait own. About an hour into the session both tips started to rattle. A small chub on the worm and a roach on the pellet. Not long after this the first of the heavy rain showers blew through.

 









 








It was well into the afternoon before I got my next bite. The tip on the pellet rod slowly bent over, as if some debris had caught the line, before i jagged about. What I thought was a skimmer turned out to be a rather chunky silver bream of 1lb 8oz, a new PB. Not the barbel I was looking for, but rather pleasing never the less. I then suffered a rather silly half hour of bite offs. First a pike took a liking to the lob worm. Going through the line as it turn away from the landing net. A pike then grab the pellet as I was winding in, having initially looked like it was going for the feeder. It looked a good double figure fish as well. Another, even bigger pike, then grabbed a small chub as I was ready to swing it in. The final fish of the session, a chub of around 2lb, had me all excited as the bite looked for all the world like a classic barbel bite. It even felt like a small barbel initially as it gave a very spirited fight before giving up halfway in.

 








As I was packing up a couple of anglers had a natter and assured me it was the right swim for barbel, but. That but was the fact the river had been up and down like a yo-yo and hadn't fished very well since the start of the season. Just after I left the river rose  three foot in a couple of hours. They'd only managed the odd decent fish, no barbel, in among some reasonable bags of roach. Float fishing had been a waste of time as even when the level had nearly got back to normal it was still pushing through. So, the hunt for a Ure barbel continues.