Digital Diary – Embraced by the Mother River

It wasn’t that the Dove hadn’t been unkind to me, with three fish from 7lb to 9lb and a nice double of 11lb 3oz, but it was so low and clear and, more important, it just didn’t feel right.

Early season Dove barbel weighing 11lb 3oz

The Dove’s mother, the Trent, is a much bigger and deeper river and it would take a harsher drought to affect it as badly as it has the Dove.

Neither of us know anything worth talking about regarding the upper Trent. The only time I’ve fished it was 25 years or more ago when we used to stop off on the way to the fens to catch a supply of live roach for pike bait. And I think Dave knows even less than that. Apart, of course, from what we’ve read here and there, which isn’t much as everyone and his dog seems to be concentrating on the tidal Trent these days. And who can blame them with huge barbel beckoning and promises of better to come.

We toyed with the idea of rounding up some knowledge by contacting a few people who we knew would be able to at least point us in the right direction. And then discounted that option as we wanted to do it ourselves right from Square One. It would be harder, we knew that, but oh so satisfying if we cracked it.

Graham’s first double from the upper Trent at 10lb 1oz

So it will come as no surprise when I tell you that the first session was a complete disaster. Neither of us had a bite, and that included a couple of hours into darkness. But we did scout out the stretch below where we fished and earmarked it for next time.

And that’s where we went last week, where we fished a double swim, and Dave had a barbel on within two minutes of his first cast. Almost as though it had been waiting for the feeder to drop through the surface. That one weighed about 6lb. And then I nobbled a lovely fish of 10lb 1oz an hour or so later, which notched up a brace of firsts – first barbel from the upper Trent and first double from anywhere on the Trent. Both fish came to boilies with pellets fed via PVA bags.

There were other incidents that I’ll relate another time, but for now we’re priming the ammo and enduring sleepless nights while waiting to go back…..