With the rivers rising steadily on Thursday after the previous days rain It seemed like a bit of barbel fishing would be a good idea. Common sense would be to head to one of the known barbel spots, but not wanting to be common I headed to a stretch I'd only ever caught one barbel from.
The river hadn't risen as far as I'd expected it to when I got there, but was moving through at a fair old rate. I suspect sluices were being opened to run water off. Ledger rigs baited with a pellet were dropped in close to the nearside bank. One upstream, one down.
The upstream rod was soon abandoned as the debris coming down, mainly leaves, just dragged the lead back towards me. Even with 5oz of lead.
One thing I noticed after a while was the lack of bird song. There's normally something making a noise down there. After a couple of hours I got my first bite which I suspected to be a chub. To my surprise a hand sized roach had taken the 8mm pellet and really whacked the tip round.
That was it for the day. Once the lovely sunshine disappeared the big coat was out. I fished on to dusk but just added to my collection of leaves.
A lovely roach
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