The Hidden Swim

Thursday morning I had a few little tasks to perform. These seemed to conspire against me and took longer than they should, so it was late afternoon before I got the tackle together. In the rush to get up the road before the traffic built up I forgot to put the hemp and sweetcorn in the bait bucket. I'd decided to return to the same stretch I'd been fishing as a few barbel had come out during a match at the weekend and I'd found a swim last week that looked nice. I'd first seen this swim in winter. It looked like you would be able to run a float down the inside by the over hanging willows. When I came back here two weeks ago I had looked for it, but was looking to far upstream. Last week I found it as somebody had trampled the vegetation down that lead to it, hiding behind the now leafy willows. Sadly somebody was fishing in it. He'd had some nice roach and a couple of barbel on ledgered pellets. When I got down to it this time it was clear the floods had remodelled it somewhat and cut he bank back, but you could see down the tree line OK.

 

With only pellets, and some Peperami, to fish with my options were a bit limited. I set up a 4BB avon to fish alongside the willows, but there seemed to be no flow along side them. As I pondered what to do a bailiff found me, he'd seen me disappear into the swim. Having checked my credentials he confirmed the barbel caught in the match, but added that this peg had be left out because of a big snag in the middle of it. The chap last week hadn't mentioned one. As we were talking a few leaves flowed down and showed the current was turned away from the over hanging willows leaving a slack on the inside. I had a chuck round with a lead, and apart from a little bit of weed couldn't find anything. I set up The feeder rod to fish the slack by the willows and a float rod with a 4g avon to fish down the middle.

 

I put a bit of Peperami on the feeder rod and alternated between Peperami and pellets on the float rod which was fished about 6" over depth. It took a little while to get bites. These were from roach around the 8oz mark. Occasionally perch would follow the spinning pellet in, but never went for it. Apart from the odd twig I never did find the snag. I ended up with about a dozen roach all from just after the weed bed where I'd calculated the loose fed pellets would hit bottom. The feeder rod didn't do a thing even when dropped out in the middle while I had a cuppa.

 

I think this swim will be reshaped again come the next flood as the bank was crumbling away while I was fishing. It's just several layers of sand an leaf litter which isn't the most stable of things. Apparently last year it was an island when the river came up, but the bigger floods had filled the back of it in. I had thought of fishing into dark, but a bit of bank behind me collapse as I moved appeared to be a hint that this was not a good idea. 

 

I like to have a target for the year and I've diced this year's is to catch a barbel on float from the Derwent, Nidd, Ouse, Swale, Ure and Wharfe. I've managed the Derwent and Wharfe. The Nidd should be too hard as I've caught most of  float fished barbel from there. The only one I've never caught a float fished barbel from is the Ouse. I have lost a few in the past, but never landed one.