End of Season Review.

 

 The 2024/25 season was certainly one of the quickest, I can not believe its over already but it was pretty good! 

 Highlights of the season are fewer than I would have hoped for along with only one new personal best set.

 My Spring angling was not easy but topped my Bream campaign with a 15lb 10oz specimen PB, I had a fair few doubles too in the aftermath but the 15lb barrier was always my target. 

 The summer seemed to come and go very quickly but the capture of my first 3lb river Rudd was most certainly the cherry on top, there was a couple of cracking back-ups too but barring that it wasn't until early September that things on the Barbel front kicked off.

 That trip up to the Nene in early September bought an end to a 6 trip drought when a 12lb 8oz torpedo slipped up as darkness fell amongst large swathes of cabbages where I found a gravel run which no doubt is used by the fish as a highway between areas, but the Barbel I had the following evening off the Soar was certainly not expected but sometimes thats how angling goes! 

 To be cradling a 12lb 9oz Soar Barbel was much more than I could have dreamt but as I said the angling universe works in strange ways. Rivers number 25 and 26 had been completed inside 24hrs!

 Next up was the Wye, a river that certainly gives up its fish, just not big ones, early October that all changed, when that rod went over around 10/11pm I knew it was a big fish, yes it only just made the cut but they all count! 10lb 1oz and river number 27 had been completed.

 For the majority of the autumn and winter I was on the tools and only fished a couple times, some nice Grayling were caught and Chub, it wasn't until recently on the Dorset Stour that I finally had another proper result when a day spent hunkered down in foul weather was rewarded, not only was it river number 28 completed but weighing 15lb 6ozs it was the 4th river I have had a 15lb+ Barbel off of, a figure I want to increase over the duration of this challenge as a sub-plot.

 And the STATS are in....

 Sessions - 20

 Blanks - 12

 Barbel Caught - 18

 Doubles - 4

 Mileage - 4120

 Only 20 sessions for Barbel in 9 months, now that is poultry! Next season I shall have to do more! and the majority of that was the Kentish Stour.

The Dying Days.

 

 Well, the lead up to the end of the season didn't go as planned, unfortunately the weather wasn't great but still wanted to try. First off I planned to get myself up to Yorkshire for a go at the Y.Rother, a river I had purchased a ticket for back in the summer but it wasn't until 7th of March that I finally got up there! 

 203 miles of tarmac had to be covered and it was my new vans inaugural journey! sadly my trip ended up with a blank on that river, I arrived at 4pm and fished until 4am but had one little chub wrap and the temps had dropped so much that my confidence had ebbed away and opted to leave there at 0430 and yes there were loads of other options such as the Swale, Idle, Y.Ouse, Y.Derwent, Wharfe and the Aire but the conditions up there were very different to the south, so opted to drive back 203 miles to home, not a wink of sleep for 39 hrs, once in overdrive I can do long spells without kip but I do pay for it later on as when I do get to sleep and finally wake up I suffer with really strong headaches where I sleep so deep.

It's hard industrial past on full show.

Not seen waste as bad as this before, eye opening
amount of plastic littering the trees.

 However, before I did that I drove to a secluded woodland in Kent as I had gotten wind of a very rare "legitimate" small population Large Tortoiseshell butterflies, for me it was one I needed as I look to complete my list, as I ambled around I bumped into Terry Hearn who was also searching for the LT so we had a chat about things fishy and fluttery and after 4hrs of searching we came across what we were looking for "species number 53" was in the bag (not literally), success! Now with the gear in the van and a 20 min drive across the beautiful Kent countryside could I finally get that KS Barbel I so badly want?

YESSSS!!!! Finally got to photograph one, lifer.

 Nope.....of course I didn't....again. But, I did see something else that was mind blowing, 3 Beavers! just 20 metres away from where I was fishing, I couldn't quite believe it. Oh, and I also had a nice chub of 5lb 9oz and 3 Bream to about 4lb.

5.9 Chevvy.

Barbel' friend, shame no Barbel seem to exist here :) 

Beaver dental work

ditto

yikes 😳

 After that on March 12/13th I arranged to take my Dad down to the Dorset Stour as we looked to go for a big end of season Chub and Roach, I knew of areas where they were present so we targeted them, another stroke of misfortune meant that neither of us caught across both days! It was not easy at all, but at least we had a good catch up! 

 Last day of the season was spent with Brian who I knew was in London owing to his hospital commitments, with that I opted to fish super light and went about searching for fish in any nook and cranny they may have been held up in, by the end of it I had landed 10 glistening chalk stream Barbel to 7lb 2oz and Brian managed 10 also to 7lb on the button, it was good fun and a far cry from the rigours of my 40 Rivers Challenge! 

7lb 2oz, best of 10 😜

Who says you can't celebrate a draw!

 Roll on June 16th, we go again!

Not So Sweet 17....

 

 After my trip to the Dorset Stour on the Thursday I opted to head home for a good nights sleep and woke up on the Friday morning fresh and raring to go for river number 28 had been completed, could I do the unthinkable and finally make a trip to the Kentish Stour and catch a Barbel? 

Gnarly and foreboding, like my chances of a KS Barbel.

Liquid shit looks good on those branches.

Looks nice, without the liquid shit on the surface.

 Well, I didn't and not through the want of trying. I fed little bits to try and get fish to come up into my area but that didn't work, I sat in spots for 2-3hrs at a time to allow fish to find me but that didn't work, 4 swims and 10 hrs later I gave up, the river started to rise fairly quickly owing to a deluge of rain in the morning. 

Bored.com

 Cold water coming in after a mild spell and an increase of debris coming through is never a good time to target Barbel so I packed up and buggered off. As I got my gear to the top of the bank I knocked my bucket over and rolled down the hill where the lid flew off halfway down the hill....bait went everywhere...just great....no Barbel and lost around half a kilo of pellet and handful of boillees...I was done, the rats could have it. 

 Anyway, I had a great result on Thursday, the KS sucks!!!!! 17 trips now on this river...hmmmmm.

No, that's not a KS Barbel, but one day, I might get one.

Dorset Stour Double, That's A Wrap!!

 

 The stars align once again.

 They say with age comes wisdom and in this case that sentiment rings true. Weeks on end of cold nights and near frigid daytime temps had my Barbel challenge sidelined, in fact I've barely fished at all. However, once you have gained enough experience you know when the time is right and watching the 5-day forecast likes a hawk for weeks noticed that from Thursday the temps were due to shoot up owing to a nice stiff SW/S system sweeping the country, that could only mean one thing. Barbel!

 Constant water temps on the Dorset Stour of 4.5c to 6.5c (around 6 weeks) I knew any increase in air temp would translate to warmer river temps, I had to go! So late Wednesday evening I got the gear ready, loaded the car and at 0430 the following morning I was on my way down to Dorset, I just had to be there.

 I arrived to find no one else fishing which was bit of a surprise so had the choices of areas to target, but knew roughly where I wanted to go. I got myself set up with two static rods as the wind was pretty strong ( between 18-35mph ) and driving / horizontal rain all day, so trotting was out of the question as was rolling meat. I armed my two 1.75tc Drennan Barbel specialist rods and fished one with a big chunk of garlic luncheon meat and the other with the ever faithful 15mm source with loads of crushed boilee and a few 4mm pellet in PVA netting to create a scent trail to entice anything that fancied feeding.

 Roll on 6hrs, patience was starting to wear thin when I got a bite on the boilee rod which finally went which resulted in a 4lb+ Chub, that gave me confidence fish were beginning to feed, so I opted to stay put and started to increase my PVA contents to hopefully spur more fish into feeding, an hour later bite number two came along in the shape of a porky 5lb 2oz Chub, a nice fish and once again proved to me that there were feeding fish and all day the water temp continued to increase, 7.25c when I arrived by 1pm it was 8.8c, it all pointed in the right direction but those were my only two fish in the daylight hours, but if I was going to get a Barbel the hours of darkness I felt would be my best chance....

 Dusk came and went without incident, then around 7pm I got a couple of taps on the rod tip ( boilee rod ) that were out of sync with the wind whistling through and buffeting the rods, that peaked my interest and I remained vigilant, a minute later it did it again, this time my thoughts were that this fish was hooked and just sat there on the bottom totally unaware of its mistake, I picked up the rod and held it and felt the line where I felt a couple of subtle plucks, that was enough for me, I checked the clutch and bent into it, fish on!

 A heavy weight was immediately felt and a steady mid river battle ensued for 3/4 minutes before I got it on the surface, when I saw it my suspicions were confirmed, it was bloody huge! with that she bore back down to the bottom and continued a dogged battle, no frills, no erratic runs, just using its weight against the flow and knowing how big it was I took my time and allowed it to tick off line when it wanted, I wasn't going to rush this fish! 

 Around 8mins into the fight she came into full view again about 5ft out where I shipped the net out and my Dorset Stour quest had come to an climatic end, what a way to come to conclude my DS efforts, this was a big fish and when I lifted it up I honestly thought my personal best of 15.12 was in serious trouble!

River number 28 ✅ WOW.

 On the digitals she weighed an extremely pleasing 15lb 6ozs, alas my PB remained, for now. What a special fish caught in foul conditions but just had that gut feeling something was going to happen, that 230 mile round trip was well worth the effort, the early start, the rubbish conditions were all forgotten, this was special! 

 On to river number 29, can I reach that milestone of 30 completed rivers before mid-march arrives? I will give it everything I've got to make it happen.

 Video of the release -----) 15.6 Release

Chalkstream Winter Barbel.

 

 Given the current colder temps and poor conditions my angling has been pretty limited, the times I have been out is just down the local to see if I could find a Barbel to feed in the frigid waters. My first short trip I met up with Ade Busby after work and we chatted whilst trying different swims in search of Barbel and to be fair whatever else fancied munching.

 Not too long into the session I got a very tentative tap on the rod tip and fishing meat in this conditions can often pick up a fish out of nowhere and it would prove to be the case, a few minutes later I got another gentle tap and this time I wasn't going to wait, I gently lifted the rod to which I was met with the force of a fish bearing downstream, surely it was a Barbel and as the fight played out any suspicion of a chub was quickly extinguished. Not long after a skinny winter barbel in post spawning condition was resting up in the net. 

 With dusk closing in on us we both made the decision to carrying on checking out pegs, prospecting for another fish. Third swim in we both got a bait out and settled down to give it twenty minutes and with me being impatient to get a bait out I rested my rod on an arm of some brambles whilst I got my bankstick into the stony ground and noticed out the corner of my eye the bramble arm move, either the rod slipped a bit down the arm or it was a bite! 

 Intrigued by that potential action I picked up the rod and felt the line, sure enough I could feel a slight tightening of the line on my finger, without needing a second invitation to the party I struck and once again was met with the force of a good fish making its way across the river into the faster flow, this fish certainly felt a bit better.

 Once safely in the net it was clear that it was a nice fish and at 7lb 10oz it was a worthy prize for any cold winters day. As the evening wore on and dusk had long gone Ade was soon into a nice fish himself which gave a great account of itself in the deeper water. I think it was fair to say it was a success.

 A couple days later after that trip out with Ade I popped out again. Once I had dropped off the kids to school I opted to get back down the river for a bit more action on the float and rolling meat, unfortunately for me the forecast wasn't pleasant and had to endure lots of rain, thankfully the river didn't respond too much to it and still caught, much the same as the previous trip I had some great sport with the Barbel catching another 3 all on the float and pin with a bread accounting for two of them. They weighed 7.02, 6.10 and the smaller one below which is the only one I could get a pic of as the rain was sideways for the other two, all in all a good couple of short trips, pretty much after I had that third Barbel it was time to pack up and head back to collect the children. Not bad use of little windows of opportunity.

Pleasure Fishing on the Itchen.

 

 To kick off the year I paid a visit to the Itchen with my younger brother Rich and the plan was to drown some maggots and catch what we could. The river was up a bit with some colour but absolutely fishable, the plan was to move around and trot areas where I know fish hold. The main target was Grayling but hoped to locate some Roach which I know frequent a couple of areas.

 We woke to find the car enveloped in ice and took 10mins to get the car loaded before leaving, the patterns are pretty awesome!  

 The banks were just as cold too as the lines froze with every cast, that made the first 2 hours very difficult, I must remember to bring glycerine to help! 

 It took a while to finally get some fish on the bank and the first fish of 2025 was a 1.8 Grayling, on the Wylye these are below average, for the Itchen these are good fish! The Grayling came at decent intervals with the average being below a pound but was just happy catching, Rich struggled to get bites and the line lay for him was a constant struggle as when he did get bites he wasn't able to connect owing to the pick up costing him tension, I wanted him to get more on the bank but he battled with his own presentation as well as fleeting taps on the float, I combated this issue early on as we started on the same 7BB floats but switched over to a 5.6g titanium trotter where the additional bulk made the taps more pronounced and hittable but Rich didn't want to make the change over.

My best of the day, 1.10 but that dorsal fin!!!

 It just shows ringing the changes makes a big difference. As the day wore on the fish came steadily with more Grayling but very few Trout, the consecutive nights in the minus digits must have slowed them right up. As dusk approached the fishing ratcheted up a couple of notches as I opted to fish bread as I knew where we finished up held Roach, soon enough the Roach and Grayling started to come with another 4 fish of 1.6-1.10 coming to the net and two lovely little Roach, typical that happened. Dusk came and went with little time to extract their bigger shoal mates but know where they are and will return on the tip. Just what the doctor ordered :) 

2024 Review.

 

 The past 12 months have really been lean in terms of angling opportunity, being self-employed was supposed to mean more time for me (potentially), that has not turned out to be the case, my last 10 years have flown by and expectedly busier as that time has marched on, now time is very sparse when work and family have been taken into account, that said I think it has been a calender year that has surpassed expectations.

 January consisted of a trip to the Wye where I managed five Barbel which included 2x 9's as I turned the screw on my 40 Rivers Challenge in less than ideal conditions - 25hrs of fishing across two days ( blog here: Jan Wye trip )

Best @ 9.2

 February is always a random month, never know what conditions are going to prevail, but sometimes, even when the conditions are rubbish something tells you you should get out and make an effort, them gut feelings are almost always right and learned to listen to them and bloody glad I did, because I caught a fish I'd worked very hard for and represented possibly the best fish of the year. The month of February could have been even better if it wasn't for the last minute loss of a river Wye double just a few feet from the rim of the net, the sense of loss was epic which haunted me for weeks. ( blog here: River Itchen Giant )

River No 24: 15lb 2oz

 

 March was once again lean in fishing time and only managed one trip for Grayling where I had fish to 2.6 and one trip to the Wye to try and put that previous loss to bed, unfortunately for me that didn't happen and scratched around for bites, seven Barbel in two days with the best only going 7lb.

 April was going to be the start of my Bream campaign where I had a certain water in mind, the target a 15lb specimen, I didn't think I would crack it on my first trip! 15.10 to be precise and what a fish it was. It began to cement my thinking that the Bream when they feed in big weather systems feed off the back of the wind rather than follow it, this did lead to additional fish as a result. PB Bream time!

 May only had one trip on the bank and that was back on the Bream trail, unfortunately the fish began spawning a bit earlier than the previous spring so I will bare that in mind! I did catch six doubles up to 13lb 2oz, those big ones had other ideas, this spring I will start my bream campaign as soon as the river season ends. More Bream!

 June came along with many plans in mind but the re-occuring theme of limited came to bare once again, but it didn't stop me achieving something I've wanted to do for eight years! I've had many "two pound" Rudd off the various fenland waterways but that "three pound" specimen eluded me, until the 17th of June, 3lb on the button and my season was made already, anything else was / is a bonus. 3lb River Rudd

 During July I made a couple of trips to the Blackwater and one to the Nene in search of Barbel of course but the prior resulted in just a couple of five pound Barbel and my Nene resulted in a blank but possibly should have been a lot better, but I'll learn from that mistake.

 August is usually a very good month for stalking with the long summer days but this time around I was met with poor barbel conditions on the Wye and the Aire / Wharfe trip was a total blank as the Wharfe was un-fishable where i planned to head and the Aire didn't produce a bite for me.

 September was a whole lot better than the tosh of the previous two months, first trip of the month was spent on a fishless Kentish Stour (as per usual) but my next trip up to the midlands proved to be a roaring success! Two rivers fished on consecutive days resulted in catching my targets off both rivers which started off on the Nene and ending a three year stint when a powerful 12lb 8oz specimen was banked, not to be completely content I drove to the Soar the following morning and spent the day walking the stretch and sunbathing before getting the rods out just before dusk, the following hour and a half was epic, two chub, 1 bream and a old warrior of a Barbel weighing 12lb 9oz ensured this trip will be remembered for a very long time and as my challenge goes it was a pivotal 24hr window.

 Nene trip - Nene Double - 12.8  Soar trip - Soar Double - 12.9

No 25

No 26

 October is my birthday month and normally a great month for Barbel and so it proved! I didn't catch much else but a Wye double figure Barbel was high on my hit list and didn't expect it to happen as the previous 9 trips had just been a case of catching fish and hope for the best. She was close to the mark but my god I was stoked it made it having come close with one last season and losing a certain double last winter. Wye trip - Wye Double - 10.1

No 27

 November I managed two trips on the bank and had a lovely day trotting for Chub, a decent keepnet of skelly's to 5.1 warmed me up nicely, then a trip to the magnificent R.Wylye for Grayling where I managed my best haul to 2.6, a lot of younger ones coming through which is great to see!

 December consisted of two trips once again, one of the Kentish Stour resulted in a couple of Chub but the Barbel remained elusive, no such issue on the Dorset Stour though as I managed to pick one up on the maggots in very testing conditions but not a double, so my trips to the DS aren't over yet.

 I wish you all a happy new year, I saw my new year in with the mrs and friends with a hangover...another year older but not wiser, anyway, onwards we go, the best 3 months of the season for specimen fishing is upon us! Let's go get em.

 Total sessions over the calender year: 25! A shade over two trips a month, that is awful for me, but over the bloody moon with what I caught.

Back on the Dorset Stour.

 

 It's been a couple of years since I last visited this big fish mecca and it's been too long really, on Friday I put that right. The plan was made a couple weeks ago and that was to do three days down there. 

 My approach was to fish the float during the day and have a sleeper rod for Barbel in the margins with a big lump of meat, the issue with this plan was all of this was before I'd seen the river and found out the conditions were actually pretty poor. The colour was very heavy with no more than 3 inches and trotting maggots with that lack of visibility was always going to be hard, arguably the point that was even more challenging was the river 24hrs before I arrived was 11.4c and when I arrived on Friday morning it had slumped to 7.4c! sudden drops in temp, especially that sharp are never good omens for targeting Barbel. 

 Now I have got all the excuses out of the way as to why I wouldn't or probably shouldn't catch a Barbel I went and did just that, much against the odds. Having persevered with trotting maggots for 4hrs without a bite I opted to switch to two static rods but seeing as I had lumped out a pint or two of maggots I suspected if anything was feeding on them then I might stand a chance of picking it/ them up with it plonked on the deck! 10 white maggots impaled on a short hair and a PVA bag crammed full of white maggots was cast out just behind a dead/dying weed bed and that was the rod that stormed off within 40mins, my hunch paid off this time around and it was a brilliant take and fight in the pacy flow.

D.Stour 7.13 winter powerhouse.

 My heart understandably was racing as it felt like a decent fish out in the flow, but when it came up out of the murk I could see it wasn't a double but I could not be disappointed, I was just thankful to catch one in the conditions to be fair. Plus as it turned out that was to be my only excitement of the day and in-fact the whole trip, as I had weighed up my options given the fact the river hadn't risen much more than half a degree and the torrential rain gave way to clear starry skies and the temperature plummeted, by 11pm I had had enough and did not fancy my chances on improving on the one fish, I will return soon enough when conditions improve. Just thankful I didn't blank and drove back home and in bed by 1am.

 Lesson learned and this 40 Rivers Challenge is all about learning and pitting my whits against not just Barbel, but also the river that I'm tackling and the conditions which during the winter are often touch and go, sometimes the decision to go and fish is one of impatience but given how few my chances have been this season I had to at least try. Maybe next time I will come away with a prize worthy of the efforts put in.