It’s strange, but few anglers venture out on a badly swollen river, even though that can be the best time of all to fish for barbel. So it came as no surprise to find our chosen stretch of the Dove completely deserted. The river was racing through, the water, the colour of cocoa, about 4 to 5ft up. Logs, dead animals and other debris were floating past and, it has to be said, appearing about as inviting as a visit to an operating theatre. To the inexperienced eye that is, but Dave and I knew that if we’d caught it just right, we could be in for a nice fish or two. That turned out to be one hell of an understatement.
We walked the stretch and found two decent looking spots, about 100yds apart, where we could drop our baits down the side, out of the main flow, and away from the flotsam. Where, we hoped, the barbel would be foraging for all those fresh goodies being swept down by the current that was now scouring the previously dry banks. Me and Dave have an understanding where we take turns to choose a swim first and it was my turn, having given up my turn on the last visit anyway, being as he had been having a hard time lately. The swim I chose had a great looking slack in this little cut-away bay behind the big willow tree. Dave’s swim looked good too, except that the slack was a lot smaller. I fed the swim with some loose pellets and just three small balls of my feeder mix of soaked pellets. Then I tackled up a Harrison Chimera rod with 12lb Krystonite main line and 12lb Suffix Invisiline hooklength, with a feeder stopped 12ins from the size 6 Owner Chinu hook. I just made it in time to get my Brotel up as the heavens opened and it lashed down with stair rods of rain. There was thunder in the distance but, fortunately, no sign of lightning.
I was fishing with my rod almost parallel with the water as I needed the line to get down on the bottom being as I was fishing less than a rod’s length out. With that in mind I’d also stripped a yard or so of line off the reel after the cast so that it would curl round a little rather than being in direct contact with the feeder. There was enough current circulating to keep the line tight. Even though I sat with my hand on the rod, I engaged the Baitrunner, for past experience has taught me that if barbel take off on a butt-bender on such a short line, they can have your rod in before you realise what’s happening. I baited up with my new home-made 11mm Expander pellets I’d made with the Vacuvin Coffee Saver/Pellet Pump the other day, sliding one onto the hair. I wondered if I was doing the right thing trying a new bait in dicey conditions (dicey in that with floodwater it’s usually muck or nettles). But I no need have worried for within minutes I had a quick tap on the rod tip. I picked the rod up and slipped my fingers round the line between butt ring and reel. Nothing more happened. Were the pellets too soft? Had the fish pulled it off the hair? I reeled in and checked. The pellet was still on. I replaced it with a fresh one, re-filled the feeder, and swung it back in to the same spot.
In one movement I engaged the Baitrunner and lifted into the fish, which had dived into the rushes on my left. I walked to the rushes so I was right over the fish and bent the rod into it. It came out reluctantly and headed off for mid-river and held there, just very, very slowly making its way upstream against the heaving current. I let it do just that for a minute or so, thinking that holding against the sheer power of the current would help to tire it. By this time I knew it was a big fish. There had been no scorching runs and it was typical of a big fish to hang in the current, slowly heading upstream.
But enough was enough. I gave it some extra bend and made it come towards me, which it did a lot faster than expected and dived into the rushes again some 10yds downstream. Again I made my way down to it, Dave tagging along with the landing net. Again I pulled it from the rushes, and that’s when we saw it. It was huge. It was skidmark size. A great paddle of a tail slapped the surface as it headed for mid-river again. This was no scraper double. This could be a new PB. It could be the 12-pounder I’d dreamed about. I had to make myself not take a step back and pussyfoot around. I had to do my usual thing and just lay into it and get it into the net in the shortest possible time. So I put all thoughts of poor hookholds into the back of my mind and bent the Chimera into it, brought it close enough to net. Dave held the net while I brought the fish upstream of it and just let the current drop it right into the gaping mesh. Dave took the rod off me while I grabbed the landing net and lifted the fish out. “It’s a good double,” I said. “Easily a double, in fact it’s at least a big eleven. This could be a new PB.” I carried the fish reverentially to the top of the bank and realised that it was heavy. It felt like the heaviest barbel I’d ever carried in a landing net. And when we laid it on the unhooking mat we couldn’t believe it. It was big. Very big. And this was the River Dove. Not the Ouse, the Trent, the Ribble, or the Lower Severn. This was the Dove. ‘Our’ river. And this was a fish with hardly a mark on it and no sign whatsoever of it being hooked before. At least not recently.
We weighed it three times in three different ways on the Salter digital scales. Twice we made it 14lb 1oz and once it went exactly 14lb. I settled for 14lb. We weighed it three times because we were having trouble accepting that here we had a 14lb river Dove barbel. We had never had a 13 or even a 12 from the river before. Not even seen one. We took a few pictures and I held it for a while in my slack swim while I made sure it was recovered enough to swim off strongly. I would normally have carried the fish to another swim to return it, to make sure my own swim was left as undisturbed as possible. But I didn’t care. I’d not only seen, but caught a 14lb barbel from the Dove. A new personal best fish. It just didn’t matter if I never had another bite. “Give us some of those pellets.” Dave said. So I tipped him a handful and off he went back to his swim, as pleased as I was. This was like a dream already, but even more so a few minutes later when Dave Shouted, “I’m in!” I reeled in, went down to him and got hold of the landing net. He was bent into a fish that was, like my ’14’, just holding in mid-river.
“I can’t do anything with it.” Dave said. “It’s just holding there and I can’t move it, what should I do?” It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to do. Dave’s an experienced angler and just wanted some help in making a decision. No way! If he lost it then it would be my fault. “You can go away.” I said, or words to that effect. So he gave the fish some more bend and see-sawed with it for a minute or so, before it was close enough for me to slip the net under it. Now this is when the story gets right into Peter Pan territory, for the scales told us the fish was 13lb 3oz. Yet another PB. Now you just don’t go seeing fish like that from the Dove. One in the odd lifetime, yes, but not two in the same day, caught within minutes of each other from two different swims. After the fish was photographed and safely returned we just looked at each other and broke into big grins, and then shook our heads, walked around in circles. We just didn’t know what to with ourselves for a while. This was unreal. It felt unreal. What was happening was what makes you waken up in the night and mutter, “I wish.” Eventually we started fishing again. I caught a small one of 5 – 6lb, then Dave had one of about the same weight. Then he had one of 8.15 and yet another small one. He followed that with a beauty of 9.12. All on my new home-made pellets.
The river had dropped a foot by then, even though the rain was very heavy. My swim had lost that look about it that had made me choose it in the first place. It had become more boily and I hadn’t had a bite for what seemed like ages. I decided to move, even though it meant I would get wet through in the process. Who cared, you have to make the most of a day like this had been so far. I moved into the next swim downstream, about 50yds closer to Dave. The swim, which I’d looked at when we first arrived, looked much better now that the river was slightly lower, a lovely little slack in the gap between the rushes. Again I fed it with loose pellets and a couple of small balls of my feeder mix. I lowered my bait in and sat back to dry round my neck with a towel and enjoy a hot brew. But not for long, the rod lurched, the Baitrunner sang, and a fish took off for mid-river. Let’s cut to the chase. This one weighed 12lb 15oz. Dave then caught another small one and followed up with one of 12lb 6oz.
I then had the last fish before we packed – 11lb 2oz. We were wet through, tired, hungry and we got stuck for over an hour in a traffic jam on the A500 caused by floods. Normally we would have been cursing and whinging like two good ‘uns. But not that night. Not when Dave had caught two PB’s of 12.6 and 13.3, as well as two other good fish and some smaller ones, and I’d had three doubles, one a PB (and one would have been had it been caught before the 14). How can you be anything other than ecstatically happy and able to tolerate all the crap in the world when you’ve just caught something that should belong in a fairy tale? We’re still taking it all in, just what we caught. I suppose the reality will hit us sometime next week. |
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