For the last couple of seasons I have fished three or four sessions each year in search of a big Severn barbel; big for the Severn being 12lb-plus. What little I knew about the lower river pointed to the fish being very nomadic and even on popular stretches no one peg or area seemed to produce above all others.
Because of this I hadn’t worked as hard as I normally would on location and had really been relying on little more than luck to drop on my target fish. What I had previously done was just to turn up when the conditions were right, chose a peg on the spur of the moment and fished. This year however I decided to put a bit more thought into swim selection. The new plan was that although I would still target an area where big fish have previously been taken, I would actually fish as far away from other anglers as possible, but narrow down my swim selection in advance of fishing. I decided, due to the distances involved, that I would only fish the Severn when it was in flood as this was when it usually produced its best results, therefore I needed to identify potential swims where I could present a bait when the water was at the point of coming over the banks. To this end I visited the stretch in early summer and took extensive notes of those swims where a gentle underarm lob would have my bait on the existing riverbed. Due to the height at which I expected the river to be when I returned in winter, I also made sure no bushes, small trees of other snags would be hidden from view when the river was at its peak. In Late January I returned, the water temperature was hovering around 44 degrees F and the levels were almost 3 metres above normal summer levels. Dropping into one of my chosen spots I dropped about a dozen balls of trout pellet and ‘Mr Wriggles’ aniseed flavoured particle mix into the swim, wrapped around a 6oz watch lead. Once this had settled I attached a Halibut pellet paste hookbait, again made by Mr Wriggles, to the same rig and lowered it into position over to top of the free offerings. It was an hour into darkness before the rod tip finally juddered and lurched over and an obviously big fish slowly moved into mid-river whilst continually hugging the bottom. The 1.75lb TC rod combined with 10lb line soon took it’s toll and as it rolled just short of the net my headtorch illuminated its huge girth. It was probably the most thickset barbel I have ever caught and I wasn’t in the least surprised when the scales confirmed it to be a new personal best at 12lb 12oz. It’s always nice when a plan comes together and it was extremely satisfying to think that those early season trips had certainly reaped their reward. |
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