About four years ago I started getting Coarse Fisherman magazine every month and reading up on barbel fishing. Up until them I had been puddle fishing for carp since my return to coarse fishing and had been quite happy having a day’s fishing, bashing out 30 or 40 lb of carp. I had fished years earlier for barbel on the Severn and the Trent catching, many barbel up to 6 lb, although I did lose a lot of bigger fish on the Severn. (One day I must go back and catch one of those). Anyway, to cut a long story short I decided to try my hand at barbel fishing, setting myself a target of a 10 lb-plus fish. I picked the Swale to fish and did a bit of digging to find out which stretch to try. I fished the Black Bull stretch at Topcliffe for a while but it was taken over by a syndicate, and the less said about that the better. So I moved my target section a little further downstream to Cundell. I had some early success but ended up losing some good fish due to the snaggy nature of most of the swims. I changed to braid, bought some new rods, but was still losing the better fish, especially in the kamikaze swim. It started to get personal at this point. I became obsessed with fishing this swim in the knowledge that in it lurked a 10lb barbel; maybe even a Swale record. I still hooked and lost fish into snags but eventually landed a 9.5 lb fish last year, ironically fishing a different swim in open water in a flood.
This year has seen me fishing for carp most of the time due to my wife being unwell, easy to keep an eye on her in the caravan while I fished. The caravan season over for this year I decided to try and get a couple of days in on the river. So it was back to the kamikaze swim a couple of week ago resulting in one fish of 8.5 lb. With the weather staying mild I took a day off work and headed off again, fishing from 7.30 in the morning to 4.30 at night without a single knock. But I had promised myself to fish an hour into dark. At that point it started to rain and I nearly gave in and went home. Minutes later the rod flew round and I was into a nice fish. The fish boiled in one spot, so with the clutch locked, the rod locked, and the rod tip low to the water, I tried to force the fish away from the snags. At last it turned and I got it to open water. With a big sigh of relief and an amount of amazement, it was ten minutes later when I slipped the net under what I hoped would be my first 10 lb fish.
I never like to keep fish out of the water for long so hurriedly I got it into the weighing sling, weighed it at 11 lb 8 oz. Then a quick couple of photos, which is never easy in the dark and on your own. Then back into the water with it. I took a deep breath, gave a big smile, and then it crossed my mind to check that my scale was zeroed properly. I didn’t want to get it wrong at this point. Half expecting them to read heavy I was amazed to see them 8 oz light, making the fish 12 lb. I nearly did a lap of honour! Tackle and Bait I fish 1.75 lb test curve Giant Martin Bowler barbel rods, Shimano 5000 GTE B Baitrunner reels (one of my best buys ever) with 20 lb Spiderwire main line braid. I was using 2 oz watch leads with 15 lb Fox Barbel Silk hook length to size 10 Raptor hooks. The bait I used was hair rigged 12mm halibut pellets and I introduced feed to the swim which was a mixture of smaller halibut pellets and chopped halibut boilies using perforated PVA bags. I have a lot of faith in halibut pellets, having caught several 100 lb plus bags of carp, tench to 6 lb, bream to 6 lb and chub to 4 lb this season alone. I’ve even had a few ide for good measure. What next? The pursuit of an even bigger barbel. It is obsessive. Maybe from the tidal Trent that Ron Clay is always going on about. I still think a bigger barbel lurks in the kamikaze swim – maybe that Swale record. I have also seen hooked and lost the biggest perch I have ever seen. This was two seasons ago again on the Swale and you guessed it, it was in the kamikaze swim. A fish well over 5 lb. I may well make a big effort to catch it next summer. I’m still smiling and cannot quite believe it. |
Welcome!Log into your account
