Big Coat Weather

After a few bit of an Indian summer Wednesday felt like winter, with it's nasty Nor'easterly wind. A yomp down the banks of the Derwent soon warmed me up though. As did the walk back to collect the bait bucket I'd left behind. Nowt like a three mile walk to warm you up. The reason for wandering down to the bottom of this stretch was a tip off that barbel were showing and I haven't had one from the Derwent this season.

 

A double pellet, blockend feeder rig was dropped downstream under an overhanging willow. The other rod was was cast mid water, again with a blockend feeder full of well dosed pellets, but this time with a single 6mm pellet as hook bait. I'd been meaning to try this since last year when another angler told be about it. Rather than sit about bored waiting for a barbel to grab a big pellet or boillie he'd been using single 6mm pellets of boillies or double 4mm pellet. This has resulted in some nice roach apparently, along with barbel into double figures. 8-10lb hook lengths and heavy gauge size 12 hooks, while a tad heavy for roach, meant barbel could still be landed with out too much fuss.

 

I have to say the small pellet rig worked remarkably well. It wasn't long before the tip rattled about and a 8oz roach was on the bank soon followed by a couple more. It then went quiet for a while before a couple more, in the 8-12oz bracket were landed. This pattern continued into the evening. Two or three fish, lull, two or three fish, lull, and so on. Not sure how many I caught, but they were all like peas in a pod.

 

One though stood out from the rest and required a quick weigh. 1lb 1oz and in very good nick, lets hope it grows to be  a 2lb'er. In the meantime the rod under the willow hadn't so much as twitched. As it was now getting dark I started to pack up when round went the tip. A chub around the 2lb mark was quickly in the net. Even at that size it looked a bit lost in a 30" landing net.

I decide to stay on into dark, but nowt more happened. No sign of barbel, but some nice roach. A natter in the tackle shop, on Thursday, confirmed what I should have known, with my years of experience of the river. Barbel showing really means - I fished every evening for the past week and caught one, and only one.