On these hot days, it’s nice to spend the evening by the river and yesterday (Friday 25th June) was one of the evenings.
Sad to say I’m bored by the TV of late, it’s either football, football or repeats of football, or Wimbledon, Wimbledon, highlights of Wimbledon. They’ve even taken Corrie off air so what is left of life?
Get out more! So I did, took the dog for a quickie across the fields, got my gear in the car and went fishing. The weir looked promising, but she can deceive and hope may always turn to despair. Still, there’s nothing else better to do so why not wet a line?
My rig is a John Roberts boom with a 1oz weight attached, a fairly short hooklink of 12lbs Fox Mega Silk with an Owner Iseama BL size 10 hook and hair. It’s simple enough and the Mega Silk can waft freely in the current moving the bait a little, hopefully. The bait at first was a Sonubaits 16mm S-Pellet.
I had a small pluck from a fish, struck and pulled it straight away. My guess was that is was a chub that had merely lip-held the bait and pulled to see if it was edible and not attached, wily fish are chub! So when I struck, I simply pulled the bait out of it’s lips, the hook never having been close enough to it’s mouth to have a chance of hooking it.
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| The simple (?) rig with the Chubby Chops bait |
At half time, about 1½ hours later, I thought further about that chub, looked in my bag and remembered I had some Quest Baits Chubby Chops to test for a review (later). My hair was too long to mount the bait sideways so I decided to mount it lengthways so the hook would sit right on top of the bait. This might give me a slightly better chance of hooking a chub if that’s what it was nibbling my previous bait.
A chap turned up making enquiries about the fishing and having told him it was members only and restricted to a mere few ‘select’ people (although having me as a member casts doubt on that statement). We talked a while though and he seemed keen so I told him who to write to and maybe next year, who knows. He then disappeared leaving me to my peace.
I usually reckon that the fish will bite between 10 and 10:30, but that time passed and nothing happened. After 11 pm I start thinking of packing up, another fruitless night. It’s early season though and often like this, but Keith Arthur had a barbel on opening day, one he’d caught 12 years previously and weighed it in at 11lbs 1oz. One of them would do me!
What I hadn’t accounted for was BST (British Summer Time) and the 10-10:30 became 11-11:30. At just after 11:15 the rod went crashing over and at first I thought a piece of jetsam, a sunken log perhaps, had caught my line, the rod (my Free Spirit Specialist Advanced) went dead. It’s a good strong rod well capable of handling fish even though I’m not too keen on it’s action without a fish on, but it was locked up solid.
After a few more seconds I started to feel the bump-bump of a fish on the end, but how much was fish and how much was weed I had no idea. Eventually it started play, diving deeply it made it’s way typically upstream as the barbel do down there. I knew it was a good fish, but when it broke surface I nearly had a fit it was so huge; why didn’t I bring the bigger landing net?
I managed to get it in the net although it’s head was poking out of the top, I knew this would be a new personal best for me. Onto the mat, remove the hook and prepare the weight sling.
Scales were zeroed and I lifted the fish to see the digits flashing up – 10, 11, 12, 13+, back to 12 : 12, back to 13:02, then dodging between 12:14 and 13:00, I was actually wishing it didn’t go to 13 and thankfully it settled and locked at 12lbs 15ozs. Some people might think my wish strange, but an 11½lber would have pleased me, now at just under 13lbs I am going to have to settle for that as a PB for some time to come, I expect.
Would you know, whenever I catch a new PB I never have a camera with me. TIP: If you want to catch the fish of a lifetime, leave the camera at home. I used my mobile for the shot at the top, but it is far from satisfactory. It may have worked for James Bond in Quantum Of Solace but at night on a river bank taking pictures of a fish it’s next to useless.
The Release
This is now the reason I am really writing about it, releasing the fish. Because of the size of my landing net and the strength of the flow, I didn’t have time to allow it to rest before removing it from the water. Now, I can see she is a female and only recently, possibly in the last 10-14 days (unless anyone can predict better) had spawned, you can see the redness still around her oviduct where possibly the swelling and other males rubbing against have caused some soreness.
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Nigel Connor releases an earlier |
So, I must get her back and ensure she is OK. As always there, I release her in the ‘quiet’ swim where there’s hardly any current, a decent depth of water, and the water is still very well oxygenated from the weir. I held her by the tail for 6 or 7 minutes and out comes the air bubbles from her gills, a couple of minutes later and she starts to push away so I release her. As is also typical, she lies in 2-3 feet of water resting, but I can see she is managing to maintain her balance so after a further 5 minutes I go and pack my tackle up.
Well, how do you follow that?
Packing up takes me around 5-8 minutes and I go back to see how she’s doing. She is still there, gills performing nicely and still maintaining her balance, but in the light of my head torch she now starts to move about and into slightly deeper water. I wait and after what must have been half an hour since putting her back in, she slips off into the deep.
The talking point is: Is this the better way to release tired barbel, into slack, but well oxygenated water where they can rest without having to work hard to maintain their position? Or should you release them in faster water where I have seen them come back onto the surface before now as they still cannot hold station in the stronger current?
Everyone has their own way of doing things and if you’re happy with your method and haven’t noticed any losses then fine. I see from a post that Ray Clarke likes to use a keepnet properly staked out and I have no problem with that; far better than giving them just a minute to recover then pitching them into a strong current. The best, I will admit, it to rest them for 3 or 4 minutes before you remove them from the water, or as one person said – 2 minutes before is worth 4 minutes after, I think it was Ray Walton, but not sure.
What do you think?
