Good Grief a Parking Space

The last few occasions I've thought of fishing The Derwent there was nowhere sensible to park as everybody on furlough seemed to have an overwhelming desire to wander along the river bank complaining about the mud. Friday however was very quiet and I could get parked for a short session. The river was higher and more coloured than I expected, ideal for barbel, probably.

With nobody else down there I had a choice of swims. After a bit of a wander I opted for one of the more consistent barbel swims. a nice slack/crease upstream and a gravel run the other side of the now hidden weeds. The usual tactics, but with heavier feeders as there was quite a flow. Not long after casting in the down stream rod started to rattle about before there was a sharp tug. I didn't contact with anything. This happened a again and again with the pellets getting smaller and smaller. There seems to be an increasing population of crayfish in the river. I don't know if they are native ones or those nasty foreign invaders.

I moved that rod to the inside between the weds and the bank and after a couple of minutes the tip whacked over and I was in. One lunge and it went solid. I gave it a bit of slack, but it didn't move, so I assumed I'd got a chub. One thing I've noticed, if a barbel goes into weed and you give it slack it will generally move off. Chub on the other hand seem to get themselves more embedded. With no tree in the way I made my way down to the next swim and was able to dislodge it, but didn't have my landing net with me. Thankfully I was able to lip it out. A solid fish of just, and only just, over 4lb. Despite it looking good for barbel that was the only fish of the day, apart from a foul hooked gudgeon.

I decided to take the back roads home as the main road looked excessively busy. This turned out to be a mistake as the agricultural vehicles were all on the road. Most of them only slightly narrower than the single track roads. I spent a lost of time reversing back to junctions and field entrances in order for them to get past.