Short afternoon session

 So I'm back down the river for another go after my amazing trip up here last friday and wanted to see if the Barbel were still about as the warm weather continues to hang around, so today's plan was to do my usual roving beat whilst using my centerpin and light match rod for the ultimate pleasure of playing a Barbel.

 I set up and got into position and organised myself, set up the camera on the tripod and unpacked the scales as i had a feeling today was going to be pretty busy, if I got it right of course!. But after about 8 trotts and no knocks or follows I was'nt feeling confident, so I sat down and flicked a couple free offerings in and waited for them to settle and watch the Barbel and Chub nose the baits and back off, these fish seemed very wary and that was making my task today a bit more difficult so I had to try and work out what the best action was to take so I threw a few more offerings out and sat for about 15 minutes while the fish gained confidence.

So having been at this swim now for about 30 minutes and no luck I decided to try again, so back to the trotting and first cast was into a very good Barbel, the wait paid off and after a good scrap my first fish of the day was safely landed.

  

Good start 7lbs 8oz! ps I found someone else's

 size 8 barbed hook in its mouth still. (now removed) 

 So my patience was what the Barbel wanted and it wasn'nt long before I had another take, which resulted in a nice 4lbs 3oz Chub and then followed by a very powerful little Barbel at 4lbs 2oz, which incidentally fought just as well if not better than the 7 pounder. Great sport.

 But the day was only going to get better as I had caught 3 fish in the space of 15 minutes they were truly on the feed and within 10 minutes of releasing the little Barbel I was into another one and this was big, as soon as I hooked it i knew it was another double figure Barbel, 1 all season until last Friday and now 2 in 4 days, my gosh!, but i had not landed it yet and certainly didn't want to come in, every time it got close to the net it would tear line from my centre-pin again nearly ripping the rod out of my hand on a couple of occasions, so with this one I had to be careful but after negotiating with the fish it decided on coming in to get weighed, photographed and getting released properly was best for the both of us, so once in the net I smiled once again at achieving the feat again, this being my 10th double in 6 years and 3rd this season and just confirming that the scales read 10lbs 6oz of pure muscle.

February is turning out to be kind to me. 10lbs 6oz

 A very happy chappy once again but as the fish were feeding quite well i decided to carry on fishing and try to catch at least 1 more Barbel and next cast with the bait just glancing the bottom in the current, I was away again but the fight was very short and scrappy, so it was no surprise when a Chub surfaced roughly 3lbs. But after the Chub, the swim went dead and it was time to move on, dusk was approaching fast and if I wanted another Barbel then I had to get set up quick or my window of opportunity would close, so I had to put some shot of the line to keep it on the bottom and feel the line with my finger to feel for any bites and within 20 seconds of the bait hitting the bottom, I was in and was no doubt a Barbel, for about 3 minutes it charged around the pool looking to snap me up on whatever it could find but it was mine when it gave up and another fine fish for the ever growing collection of Barbel at 6lbs 5ozs.

A great end to the day!!!