Last Knockings

I put the phone down and swore: my plans for the last week of the season were in ruins. Until the phone call the only appointments in my diary for Friday were with the barbel in the Swale, now I had to go to Peterborough. I’d also pencilled in Tuesday afternoon for a short session, if conditions were good, but now it was to be my last session of the season. I knew that conditions would be iffy as the mild conditions of the previous week had given way to cold rain, and frost at nights. Even barbel fanatic Mick Wood had gone pike fishing over the weekend! Today, Monday, the Swale was a metre up and the water in it was likely to be chilled from the sleet and cold rain that fell on Saturday night. Cold, coloured water didn’t bode well for catching a barbel!

I had an early meeting on Tuesday morning and bad traffic on the M62 meant that I didn’t get home until 10.00am. The nice lady on Rivercall told me that the Swale at Crake Hill was a foot up and steady, which meant that some of the colour would have dropped out of the water., but it would very likely be peat stained. I bumbled about for an hour, undecided on what to do, before I pulled myself together and threw the barbel gear into the car. By the time I got to the Swale, after a pit stop in Boroughbridge for some excellent fish and chips, the dull morning had given way to a bright and breezy afternoon. The river was the colour of weak black coffee and a freezing north easterly breeze was ushering it briskly towards the sea. The thermometer gave me more bad news: water temperature 5.5C (42F). Not looking too promising then….

A cold and breezy Swale

In these conditions barbel aren’t going to move around much so careful swim selection is vital. After a quick look around I plumped for a banker winter swim. The river narrows here, scouring out a deeper run and a large fallen tree provides far bank cover. I decide to fish 2 rods, one with a maggot feeder and one with pellet, both fished on the same line about 3ft out from the fallen tree. I sprinkle a few pellets along this line just to get a bit of a scent trail going, then cast the feeder out to the head of the swim and put a pellet wrapped in lumpy paste about 10 yards downstream. I’ll recast the feeder every 10 minutes or so, but the pellet will stay out until I get a bite. It’s now 2.00pm; I settle back in my chair, huddle down into the warmth of my fleece collar and wait. A couple of hours pass, before a quick rattle on the rod with the feeder results in a small gudgeon. Shortly after, I get what looks like a bite from a small chub on the pellet rod, so I retrieve it, wrap it with some more paste and recast.

Don’t tell Deanos!

By a quarter to five, with about an hour and a half of daylight left I decide I need to do something different. I start to catapult maggots out to the tree and I switch my rods around, fishing pellet at the top of the swim and the feeder at the bottom. I’m now feeding half a small pouch of maggots every 5 minutes, the theory being that this steady trickle of bait will draw fish out from the far bank cover. If nothing else, it might attract one of the large chub that haunt this part of the Swale. At 5.30 I grab a sandwich and a cuppa, but I still keep up the steady trickle of maggots into the swim. By ten to six I’m starting to think I’ve blown it when the tip of my maggot rod pulls slowly round about 6 inches and holds. I lift into what feels like a good barbel. The cold water means that the fight is a dour affair with none of the pyrotechnics of a summer encounter, but it’s still a good 5 minutes before I can net the fish. For a brief moment as I pull it over the net rim I think it’s a double, but when I see its length my heart slows back to normal. It’s one of the fattest barbel I’ve seen, 11lb wide but only 7lb long! I unhook it and leave it in the net while I recast and get the scales ready. I weigh her at 8lb 4oz and take a quick snap before returning her. Before I’ve got time to slump back into my seat I get another good pull which turns out to be a chub of about 3 1/2 lb.

11lb wide and 7lb long!

The light is now fading and the wind dies. As I relax back into my seat the great orb of the full moon peeps over the ancient earthworks on the opposite bank. The temperature is dropping, but it feels a full coat warmer now the breeze has gone. I decide to give it another hour, mainly to enjoy my last evening on the bank until the Summer. I lean back in my seat and watch as the moon slowly rises, its rich buttery light gradually bleaching to silver as it climbs. The birds gradually settle on their night-time perches and silence settles over the silvery landscape. The beta light on the rod tip remains motionless and I slip into a waking doze until I’m roused by the farmer driving along the bank in search of the rabbits that will nibble his Winter wheat. He doesn’t see me, but I decide enough is enough and I gather my gear together, not needing a torch in the bright moonlight. It was a close thing, but success came at last knockings – not a bad end to the season.