B is for Barbel

They say there is no such thing as a free lunch... however today is the exception which proves the rule. In the interests of customer service (following a lost booking for my birthday and some effective complaint correspondence from my wife!) the management of the Priest House at Castle Donington offered a complimentary meal, and being fathers day we met the inlaws there to take them up the offer. The food was fabulous and the service (this time) excellent. One of the reasons I have been so keen to come here was to take a gander at this stretch of river. It looks like fishy heaven, with a deep pool on a bend of the river and a steady downstream run. Despite its great looks the polaroids revealed a riverbed thick with streamer weed... I dont think that there was a single sq metre of gravel visible between the swaying foliage.  Needless to say at this time of year fishing here would be almost impossible. Perhaps with heavy enough gear a bait dropped into one of the tiny gaps might bank a fish, but its not a style of angling that suits me.

  Anyway after walking this bit of river in the sunshine my appetite was whetted and since I seemed to have a free evening on my hands I gathered up my fishing gear and headed back to the same stretch that I had fished on wednesday.  It was early evening as I made my way towards the river. I passed a couple of guys loading up their car "catch anything?" I enquired, "just the sun!" came the reply. Yep, once more it was a hot and bright sunny day and deep down I was expecting a repeat of wednesdays (lack of) success.

The river was much quieter than earlier in the week, I couldn't see anyone fishing my bank, although another angler was 30 metres ahead of me walking downstream carrying his gear. I was watching him like a hawk thinking "dont turn left! dont turn left!" as he approaced the spot where I'd be cutting through the undergrowth to get to barbel alley. Thankfully he pushed on downstream, and as I pushed through the foliage I could see that the top spot I missed out on last time was free.

The first rod was tackled up with a 2oz running bomb and a hairrigged size 10. I baited the hair with a 10mm halibut pellet balanced with a chum mixer,  the hair was a couple of mm shorter than I'd have liked making it tricky to get the pellet stop into the loop, after several attempts and some cursing I though about retying the hooklink, eventually a pair of baiting needles made enough space to wrangle the extender stop in). I set up the landing net and flicked the bait out onto a crease to my left, the crease marks the edge of a steep drop into much deeper and faster water when the river is at this level. I flicked the fightin drag on my reel to the left and balanced it against the force exerted by the flow, then turned my attention to tacking up the second rod...

The bait can only have been wet for 30 seconds before the clicking of a slack clutch giving line signalled a take. Using my index finger as a brake against the spool the rod doubled up and I was confident the hook was in as the fish charged downstream on its first run. Tightening the clutch, with the rod was fully loaded up the fish turned and drifted across the flow, before it stripped another 10 metres of line with another downstream run. "decent fish" I thought to myself as I pumped it back upstream towards me in a three steps forward, two steps back fashion. I was therefore disappointed, but perhaps not suprised once the fish was close enough to get a look at it that it was just a young un. I didnt weigh the little blighter, I guess 3 1/2lbs or so but they do fight well at that size!

Still, I'd reckoned on blanking again so this was an encouraging start, and my A-Z quest was now underway. The fish went back and the hair was rebaited with the same combo and dropped back into the same spot while I resumed tackling up the second rod. This rod was given a 3oz running lead to hold bottom closer to the centre of the flow and a size 4 hook baited with a ragged piece of bacon grill. As the sky clouded over I felt a little more optimistic and I didnt have to wait too long before my next bit of action.

 At about 6:45 the meat rod hooped over and another fish was on. This time there was the characteristic deep slow dogged fight of a big barbel. I got very excited as i saw a big golden flank turn deep down in the crystal clear water. "it's huge" I thought for a minute or so, until I got it onto the surface. It wasnt a bad fish, long and lean it will certainly make double figures in the autumn, but the scales would only give me 8lb 9oz but I was happy enough anyway.

Unfortunately the auto settings on the camera didn't do a particularly good job at either focusing or exposing the pictures correctly - There is a tendency for fingers to tap the touchscreen on the back while positioning the camera and since I usually put the fish back before checking the pics.... this was the best one.
I settled back into the swim and repaited and replaced both rods, switching them this time with bacon grill dropped into the downstream crease and the hair rigged rod moved to fish upstream in the middle of the flow, this time with two 10mm pellets.  After half an hour I switched the pellets for a 10mm tutti frutti boilie, and it wasn't long before at about 19:30 the rod tip lurched over and I was into another fish, again the fight was deep, slow and strong, but it didnt take long to get the last fish of the session into the landing net.

 This one weighed 8lb 5oz .I fished through the rest of the evening without any further bites, switching the locations of the baits around and alternating between pellet/biscut, double pellet and boilie on the hair-rig. Packed my stuff aweay and headed home at 21:15  just as the sun was setting.