Along with Eddie Cardus I made my third barbel fishing trip of this season and used the rod presented to me by FishingMagic’s members when I retired from full time editing this web site.
We went to a stretch I knew on the upper Trent, one that I hadn’t fished for several years and one I visited only infrequently as it had very poor access, so poor in fact that if it rained for several days it was almost impossible to negotiate the farm track other than in a Chelsea Tractor.
But for some reason I fancied it, the good news being that the ground was dry, the bad news was that the river was low. Better news was that the dreaded loose weed that hangs itself like washing on a clothes line, that is often so bad you can’t keep a bait in the water for more than five minutes, was tolerable.
The upper Trent
The swim I had fished a couple of times in the past was long gone, floodwater eroding the long, sweeping bend and washing away the ledge on the high bank that someone had dug out at the time. Another swim, 30 yards or more upstream had been made, and I plonked myself in that while Eddie chose one yet another 50 yards or so further upstream that was less comfortable but certainly looked the part.
It was 4pm before we were settled in and fishing, full of the usual hope and anticipation. I fished my usual semi-fixed rig, using a blockend feeder filled with dampened mixed pellets, along with a 2ft long 11lb Kryston Incognito hook length to an 8’s hook. Bait was 12mm halibut pellet in a bait band hair rigged to the hook.
I used a 2ft fluoro hooklength
The conditions were bright sunshine and windy and with the clear water we didn’t expect to catch anything until the sun had fell away.
And that’s how it worked out. I hadn’t had a bite at all by the time the sun was disappearing, although Eddie had had a couple of enquiries but none that developed.
My feeder rig (minus the silicon sleeves)
I decided to try a boilie, one of Chris Roadknight’s Waka boilies he’d supplied me with last year. They were crab and liver flavour and at least smelled the part. I hair-rigged the 14mm boilie and cast out. Within no more than a minute of it hitting the water the rod nodded, I lifted it, and soon landed a chub of around 31/2 lb.
This was followed by two more chub of around 4lb or so in the next couple of hours.
Then I had the big bite, you know, the one that curls your toes and bends your rod to a full fighting curve and almost before you’ve realised what’s happening you’re fighting a powerful fish and the adrenaline is pumping through your body in a mad rush. It’s why we go barbel fishing and if you could bottle it like a bait flavour you’d make a fortune.
It took me a good five minutes to get it under control and bring it up through the powerful current. Eddie held the net ready and on the first glimpse of it when it broke surface I said those magic and poetic words. “**** me, it’s a double!”
And so it was. It weighed 10lb 10oz and was obviously destined to be at least a pound heavier from late autumn onwards.
Try as we might we couldn’t get another bite. But the hope and anticipation for our next visit, wherever it is, is running at divorce level.
