back on the barbel

it was a lovely evening as I pulled onto the drive, changed, picked up the gear and set out for the river. I was travelling light, a bit too light as it turned out, I decided to leave coat and umbrella behind. Unfortunately I realised once I unloaded the car that I'd also left the landing net, only a short session and I didnt catch anything on Monday... but if it comes to it i'll have to get in to get a big fish out...
  The river was practically abandoned compared to the population here a few days ago, there were a pair of iffy characters fishing opposite on the Clifton bank, but aside from them there we no other anglers present. I set up, cast out, cracked open a bottle of hobgoblin & settled into the chair in the same swim I had fished last week. I noted one new bankstick hole and an empty fag packet, but it doesnt look like it got fished over the weekend.
The last remnants of the evening sun, which I had toasted... "to barbel!"... faded wth the last sip of my beer, menacing clouds had gathered...
The downstream rod, baited with a Spicy Prawn boilie rattled, maybe a piece of debris hitting the line, but probably a chub... whatever the cause it didnt happen again. The upstream rod, baited with a big bunch of maggots didnt get any bites either... at least none that registered... they were a bit ragged by small stuff requiring a rebait every 20-30 minutes. After I had been dampened by a small shower (regretting bringing no coat) I rebaited the downstream rod with two 15mm prawn boilies, one of which had been substantially chopped back to match the length of the hair. I whiled away a few minutes playing with my fishfinder. According to this the river is shallower than I thought. The flow is so swift you cant really use a marker & I always believed that it seemed to shelve off. Of course perhaps before the floods it did, but the fishfinder showed a very gradual drop from 1 m to 1.7, maybe 2 m deep in places,with a very smooth flat gravel bed and no weed beds it seems.
well there may have been no weedbeds but once again there was no shortage of weed, floating down from the weirpool it clogged into small rafts around the line, wrapped around the leads and caught on the points of hooks. After the umpteenth check and rebait i noted that he sky had radically darkened... heavy spots of rain began to fall, slowly at first, though each giant raindrop exploded like a waterbomb on the corduroy shirt.
Just as I had become what you might term "a bit wet", the downstream rod bucked and line was being drawn from the reel, inevitably it was at this moment that the rain decided to doubel, then quadruple its intensity.
Resigned to my soggy fate I played out, then brought to hand a 4 to 5 lb barbel, snapped a quick pic with the cameraphone then stood for a further 5 or so minutes in the pouring rain to make sure the fish recovered properly. As the fish happily scooted off I happily gathered my things and began the wet journey home. So the 2011 A-Z is underway with a Barbel from Beeston, next stop bleak... that shouldnt be too difficult...