A Sort Of Barbel Free Barbel Session

 According to the gauges the river was still rising and should be about a yard up, so it looked like it may be a good time for another spot of barbel fishing. When I got to the river there was only a couple of cars there which was a bit of a surprise and the river wasn't quite as high as I'd expected. I also saw my first egret on this stretch. I've seen the further down, but not up here. As I got my kit out the car a couple more anglers turned up. Prospects looked good.

 

I headed downstream and plonked myself in a swim. Halibut feeder upstream and meat downstream. The upstream rod just beyond the weeds and the downstream rod in the slightly slower water midstream. The faster section being on the far bank. This was to change as the river slowly rose and the distinction slowly disappeared. A 3oz feeder held upstream, but 4oz was needed downstream. After an hour or so the upstream rod tip sprang back and I was in. Initially the fish was reasonably cooperative before it decided to head downstream. Something didn't feel right though, as if I wasn't in direct contact with the fish. The line was pointing at 45 degrees to the water but the fish had taken a lot more line and was a lot further downstream. It had clearly got under a snag. One reason I'd chosen this swim was that it was normally snag free. After a few minutes of too and fro everything went solid. I fed out some slack line and waited a good ten minutes, but it was coming out. I went for the direct pull and the line snapped with the greatest of ease. The last ten yards of the 15lb reel line was seriously chafed so of it came. I re-rigged. By now the 3oz feeder wouldn't hold bottom so I put a 4oz feeder in instead which held nicely. I'd forgotten to put the super heavy stuff in the tackle box so if things got worse it would have to be a double lead job.

Twenty minutes later the downstream rod lurched over. At first I thought it was more weed or debris on the line, but it set off downstream far far too fast for debris. Eventually i stopped the fish in it's tracks and it just hung in the current before swinging into the nearside and into some tree roots. Again I gave it so slack to no avail. I tried poking the landing net in and around the roots as this sometimes  frightens the fish out. I then went for the big heave and the 12lb hook length parted. That was to be it for me. I had expect more bites later on as this is normal ion this swim. A couple in quick(ish) succession and then nothing for a while.

The river rose around six inches while I was there. An angler I was talking to at the parking spot had taken four and lost three downstream of me. Another who'd never caught downstream of the bridge managed two, one of which was a double. Oh well. As I pondered weather to pack up as rain was expected imminently a flash of lightening and a roll of thunder made my mind up for me. I wasn't quite quick enough though. Halfway back to the car the heavens opened. By the time I got to the car it had eased off, before tipping it down again as I drove away. No fish and soggy tackle. Not a great day.

That's All Folks

 Last day of the coarse fishing season on rivers and they're all in flood. The Ouse was still rising rather quickly and after yesterday I didn't really fancy it. So the Derwent it was. I'd spent a short time yesterday evening sorting the barbel gear out and rooted around in the bait bin and fridge for some bait. I had halibut pellets and paste, garlic spam, luncheon meat, and cheese paste. I'd also gathered up a collect of 90g plus leads and similar weight feeders.

Arriving at the empty parking spot it looked like I'd have the whole section to my self. Not that I needed it as Looking at the water level I knew where I'd be fishing. There are a couple of swims I've found work in flood conditions and one of them didn't require a decent down a slippy bank. The only problem was the very cold wind blowing into my right lug 'ole. This was soon rectified by using the brolly as a windbreak. The swim had two nice creases. One upstream and the other down. In the upstream crease I plonked a 90g feeder three quarters full of halibut pellets and an 12mm one as bait. Down stream I started with a 100g lead and a gobstopper size halibut pellet. I bit of halibut putty was placed in the lead as well. My intention, if I wasn't catching, was to cycle through the hook baits on the downstream rod.

Just before lunch a couple of mink came bouncing along the far bank before vanishing into the woods. The buzzards could also be heard behind the trees. By mid-afternoon I'd cycled through the baits and was back on the big pellet and had changed to a big 120g feeder three-quarters full of smaller pellets soaked in halibut juice. On cue the rain arrived, not too heavy but cold and unpleasant none the less. After half an hour the rain had stopped but the temperature was dropping noticeably. I'd resigned my self to a third blank in a row and decided it was time to go. I brought the upstream rod in first and having sorted that out and taken the brolly down the sun came out. There was no heat in it though. As I walked up to the down stream rod the tip bent slowly over. Thinking it was more debris on the line I just started winding in. Half way back the debris moved out into the main current. 'Twas a fish. A bit more pressure and came back into the slack. As usual with barbel the moment I showed it the net it made another attempt at freedom but a bit of bullying soon had it in the net. A chubby beats of 7lb 3oz. A reasonable way to end the season I thought. I could see no point in continuing, I'd caught what I was after so mission accomplished.

I'm quite pleased with the result, it seems a reasonable way to finish. What really surprised me though, apart from the mink, was that no other anglers has shown up. Previous years when I've fished the last day here there's a few turn up mid-afternoon to tea time. Eleven days until the trout season on the rivers. So it's fluff chucking and stillwater fishing for three months.

M'thud Fishing

 I'd decide some time ago to give the local still waters a go over the Easter holidays rather than battle the traffic to get to and from a trout water, especially as warm sunny weather was predicted. Arriving at the lake around 8:30 I was surprised to be the only one there. I'd expected other to have already arrived. Maybe they thought it was going to be crowded and had given it a miss. 

I selected a corner swim as I knew where the feature was that often attracted bream, my target species. I intended to fish method feeder on one rod and float fished maggots on the other. Despite owning several method feeders I'd never actually used them so this would be something new to me. First order of the day was mix up the groundbait. I'd been advised that a 50:50 mix of pellets and groundbait worked well here. I don't own one of those fancy branded mixing buckets but I do have a rather splendid blue two gallon bucket of considerable vintage. I believe it's getting on for fifty years old, but it's not been heavily used. I even know which shop I bought it from, or where the shop was more precisely. For bait I had a selection of pellets and some small bollies in various colours, flavours unknown. 

After a few casts to get the correct distance I clipped up and proceeded to fish. Recasting every three minutes for the first half hour to get a bed of bait down. After half an hour I was leaving the rod ten minutes, so with it resting on the squawk box I set up the float rod. This didn't go well. As I was threading the line through the rings I dropped it and broke the tip just above the next guide. It was still useable, which was a good job as I only had the one float rod with me. Actually I did have another, but it was a specimen float and way too stiff for flicking out a little 3BB insert waggler. After a spot of plumbing three balls of groundbait and some loose fed maggots were dropped on the chosen spot.

With the alarm on the phone set to go every fifteen minutes for recasting the method rod I proceeded to fish the float rod as well. Initially the signs were good. Fishing double maggot I managed to get every third bite and soon managed a dozen small roach before getting bitten off by a little jack that grabbed the maggots as I wound in. As I replaced the hook length I remembered I'd brought the keepnet so set that up, hoping for a nice bag of roach. This was not to be. I was then plagued by a string of unmissable bites. Single maggot didn't get any bites, but bites on double and triple maggot rarely contacted with anything. Meanwhile the method rod failed to elicit a bite. I'd changed the hookbait every hour, but nothing was to the bream's liking. Three more times I was bitten off by small jack pike. I ended up a few roach, a perch and a couple of hand sized skimmers.

A couple more anglers had turned up for a few hours both taking a few roach. There was quite a lot of alder beetle about and a tree creeper kept tormenting me by waiting long enough for me to get the phone set to camera mode before hopping round the back of the tree. The toads were also about, playing piggy back rides, but sinking away before i could get a photo. I did manage to snag length of spawn which took a bit of removing from the hook. It's incredibly sticky stuff.