Attempt 1 – Middle lane
I headed to peg 27 on middle lane in the hope of getting into the river (on my box) and fishing the stick/bolo in deeper water with the hope of some Roach.
I noticed, from the cow-pats, that the cows were roaming the bank so I would need to hide all of my stuff (powered wheel kit, rear wheels, rod bag etc) in the trees out of reach of the cows.
The river was very slow moving and I was only able to go about about 2 metres into the river before it dropped off sharply.
As I was setting up, strong winds appeared and the sky darkened. It wasn’t long before heavy showers began. The wind was upstream (good) but was so strong/gusty that it prevent the float moving in the slow flow.
I stuck it out for about 2 hours and only got a single bite that I missed. I then started thinking about heading back to the Cricket Field (peg 13) as I knew there were fish there and fancied fishing it with an upstream wind. So, I packed up and headed for the Cricket Field. I would not have even entertained this before getting my powered trolley.
Attempt 2 – Cricket Field
As I was walking to peg 13 I was sure that the wind was now downstream. This was a result of the meandering of the river that I had not taken into account.
It was about 5pm by the time I got to the peg and was ready to fish. I had fished this peg the previous evening and decided to pack away my float rod due to strong winds and rain. However this cleared and I had a very pleasant evening with very light winds. However I has already put the float rod away and was determined not to do so today. By the way, I had not had any Chub or Barbel the previous evening.
Stick float
I started to catch fish almost immediately. The 1st fish felt quite decent but I pulled out of it so never saw it. I was using my 17ft Drennan Acolyte, not because of the depth (it was very shallow) but the extra length allowed much better control of the float in the gusty winds. I did manage to catch a small Roach or two and lots of Dace and Bleak but no Chub.
Onto the big baits
I fished the stick until about 7:15 but it was apparent there were no bigger fish around so went onto big baits on two rods. I got very few signs of fish until the downstream rod, on a big piece of meat started to twitch. I was amazed when I reeled in a decent Roach – never had one of meat before: –
The sky had cleared so was able to fish past 10pm. At about 10pm the meat rod shot round and resulted in a Barbel of 8lb: –
What an amazing start to the season. I have had 4 Barbel in the first week and have already beaten last years total Barbel weight. The fish were much smaller last year and I though I had been spoilt by the large average size of the fish I caught in the 2020 season but looking good so far this year.
