Thursday 19 October 2017

Autumn Barbel: Hard Going.


 For nearly a week now I've been dropping bait in a few swims with a big Barbel in mind. Sightings of fish have become almost non-existent which leads me to believe they are leaving the shallower not so-weedy runs for some of the deeper runs, where they will hopefully start to fatten up, most of what I have caught in the last two months haven't been in amazing conditions, although there is always the occasional one which is built like a breeze block, just looking for a 12lb+ breeze block for my Autumn fishing, what ever else comes along in the meantime will be greatly appreciated, bites haven't been forthcoming.

 I had a two hour evening trip on Monday which proved to be fruitless, not even a sniff, but I got the chance to put a little bait out to hopefully get the fish moving into the swims I have been prepping, Tuesday I popped back out, the plan exactly the same but conditions were completely different, mainly due to the arrival of Hurricane Ophelia the winds were pretty strong, some gusts were making even the largest of the trees creek under the strain, this causing a huge amount of leaves to fall and the river was littered with them, not to mention sticks to whole branches were coming through every couple of minutes and pulling my tip around, keeping a bait in the water was tough.

 After plenty of trying with dusk just settling in my centrepin burst into life and the cane slammed around, no mistake in that take!. A staunch battle ensued against some far bank vegetation as it darted under to shed my hook, she made a good attempt but I wanted to land it more than "it" wanted to get away, a few minutes of continual lunges for freedom and she was in the net, dusk is the time, like a switch being flipped. Not a monster but 7lb 13oz is not bad, I'm in the right areas. The rest of the evening slipped by without another touch.


 Wednesday evening after work I was back down, with more bait put in the swims I am slowly starting to feel confident that the fish are going to begin to congregate in the knowledge more bait could be going in, just need to keep away from the Chub. A quick cast in one of the swims as I didn't have long resulted in a small Chub around 3lb, not quite what I was hoping for when the rod tried to disappear downstream, which incidentally crapped my bait all over the net and mat, someone was hungry!.

 Thursday, unfortunately finished work too late to get on the bank so it's given me time to do this post. I'll be back down soon, but before then the Avon Pike population are going to get some attention, followed by a 36hr session on the D.Stour, it's all go now :)

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