Wrong Place Right Time

I thought I'd cocked up this morning, Friday, when I looked at the river levels. When I looked on Thursday morning the Ouse was Falling and the Derwent rising. When I looked this morning the Ouse had risen nicely from just after I'd looked at the river levels and should of been ideal. The Derwent had fallen while I was fishing it and blanking. Today the Ouse was falling again. It went down by over two feet while I was there. When I got to the river the path was still covered in water, but shallow enough to paddle through rather than having a long walk round. There was three other anglers fishing. Which, given the height of the river, limited the number of swims even though there are allegedly thirty three. The first angler, piking, hadn't had any luck, but the second had had a small barbel and reckoned not much had been caught Thursday.

I dropped into the fist swim I could find with a reasonably level bit near the river instead of several feet above. I decided to fish pellet feeder under the willows downstream and ledger lob worm out in the current mid-river. Although a bit of a chuck it and chance it tactic can pick up the odd decent fish. It used to be quite good at picking up the odd decent chub. First out was the pellet rig as I'd have to change he other to a large hook. When I switched the baitfeeder on it kept giving line. I started to tighten it, but the current wasn't that fast on the inside. Assuming I'd caught some debris I started to wind in and something pulled back a bit. I thought, all the way to the net, I'd hooked a bream. I was quite shocked when a barbel popped to the surface. A decent fish of 7lb 1oz that fought like a bream? Apart from looking washed out it appeared quite healthy. It certainly was five minutes later when it tried to swim off with the landing net.

A size four hook loaded with three lob worms and a 100g lead was chucked out upstream and came to a rest opposite me. After half an hour I got my first bite and in came a little eel which spiralled around my wrist leaving slime everywhere. Thankfully it was lip hooked. Quite often eels have swallowed the hook before registering a bit. Apart from having the worms stolen on a couple of occasions, signalled buy a vicious wrap of the rod tip, that was it for the worms.

Right at civil sunset the tip on the pellet rod went round and I was in to a very feisty fish which shot about all over the place. A very healthy barbel, a tad under 5lb, soon graced the net. A nice way to end the evening, and my holiday. The wind had got up again and it was getting chilly, so I called it a day, especially as the banks were still covered in greasy mud from the previous day's flood and I didn't want o end up in a fathom of cold fast water in the dark.

Back to work early Saturday. Next fishing trip will be the end of next week.