Been out on the river twice this week, managed to get a good 5 hour session in both Wednesday and Thursday and I managed to catch a few!
Headed out to a secret spot that I have on the River Idle on Wednesday, took a mate with me as needed help netting and photographing, but that's if anything good were to come of it...
Fished tight to this overhanging bush to start with - 3 balls of white crumb and hemp went in 3 different spots around the bush followed by a few small chunks of meat over each spot. I fished a free-running 1oz flat pear lead with a 12in hooklength down to a size 10 Kamasan Barbel Maxx hook with a lump of meat on it.
First cast resulted in a cracker of a bite, but I struck to late and missed whatever had a go. Initial thoughts were a chub as that was all we could see down there, but the bite was far too savage... it was quite nice to know that there must be barbel down there. Five or ten minutes later the rod rattled around on the rest and I bent into what turned out to be a really nice chub.
Well at least I didn't blank! On the next cast, the bait must have only just hit the deck when another nice chub ploughed off with my bait into the bush. Fortunately, I was set for barbel with my 1.75lb top and 10lb mono straight through so these rogue chub weren't too much of a problem. Another nice chub and a second fish after what could only have been 15 minutes. The lad I was with said "I bet you could go home happy now you've done that!" Well, my answer was very yes and no... I can't complain with a couple of nice chub like that but I had gone there to catch a barbel. I didn't care how big or how small it was but I wanted to prove to myself that this spot I'd found can produce. An hour or so went by with no interest on the bait, so I moved it slightly further under some reeds and left it there for a while. Then out of nowhere, my baitrunner screams off and the rod flies of the rest so I hit into it and... locked. Not budging at all. Whatever had it had managed to shake the hook and snag
all of my end tackle around something, so the line had to be cut.
mg:
I'd travelled light and (literally) only took a couple of leads with me, the weed was terrible in the river on this day and I'd just lost one in the far bank snags as well as another lead that locked up in a chunk of weed that floated down (my fault, wasn't paying attention - bad angling). So this was my last lead, I prayed and prayed that the weed would stop too as it was dragging my bait all over the place and under the great big strips of weed on the bottom. I placed the bait where I wanted it, followed by a few free offerings and then I sat back and watched the tip as if it was a matter of life and death! It was about half an hour till a bite came, and it happened to be while I was relaxing and smoking my ciggy...
Classy.
Had a bit of a merry dance with this barbel, it just kept ploughing off for the far bank snags - real arm aching fishing on these small, weedy rivers! Eventually got it in the net and weighed it at just short of 7lbs. What a fish! My mate managed to get a quick snap of it while it was just starting to get a bit rowdy with me so we left it at one slightly crappy photo and put it back.
Now I was smiling...
Could've happily gone home after that fish it was only about 1 o'clock so I decided to stick it out for a couple more hours. I had only a dozen cubes of meat left but that (should) last an hour or two. Another bite came around shortly after, but it was another that managed to run my bait to the back of the reedbed again and get fully locked around the reeds and whatever else was there. No more leads... A friend of mine had been having some great success on the Idle with freelined meat, so I thought I'd give it a crack.
I was casting it to the right where the bush overhangs so that it sank and rolled along the bottom, then popped out into the eddy in the gap between the reeds of the left. All the way along here I had seen barbel moving around all day so I thought it must be worth a go... Lost of them came up and nosed it, and freeline-newbie over here was striking every time they even looked at the bait! Eventually I figured it out and started getting things right and each cast consistently rolled along exactly how and where I wanted it. Hope was slowly fading though as I'd used most of the meat I had left and had 2 pieces remaining. I cast out again and saw the meat pop up in the eddy and swirl around a little, then I saw just the fat head of a barbel emerge from the shadows and suck the chunk of meat in. I struck as fast as I could and I was hooked into a lovely fish! It put up a great scrap and, if I'm honest, it fought harder than my PB of 8lbs 10oz so my heart was racing... it took a good five or six attempts to get the net under it, it just kept screaming off for the far bank. Finally, the net slipped under it and I was a little disappointed at the size of the fish when we weighed it, especially after the fight it gave!
7lbs 12oz - a cracking fight for a cracking small-river barbel!
My first barbel ever on freelining tactics! Ended up packing up and relaxing watching barbel, chub, pike, bream and perch all swimming around in front of us. My spot prevailed!
Yesterday saw some good fish too, unfortunately no photos as it consisted of me on my own, stood in the river for most of the time I was out. First spot in the morning resulted in two barbel out at 5-2 and 5-13 followed by one lost to a snag. Then the next spot produced three chub of about 4lb each, I then moved downstream to an overhanging tree, I snagged up in the hanging branches a few times when striking and missing bites, decided to get in the river so I had a better angle at the fish a managed to pull out four from this one swim! The biggest two were 6-12 and 7-0 as well as two others that were around four or five pounds each.
In the two days I fished approximately 10 hours, resulting in around 52lbs of barbel and some bonus chub... Out again on Saturday, trying to get the double still!
Tight lines.
