Owing to work my visits to the riverbank have been extremely limited hence the lack of posts this month and over the last couple of days I have been itching to get back out so last night I decided to get out early and at 4am my alarming sounded for it was time to try target my favourite species, the Barbel.
After a quick journey down to the river I quickly realised how low and clear the river was and most of the ribbon weed was just laying on the surface that would normally be underwater by around a foot or so, so with the lack of water flowing through the task of catching a Barbel was going to be very difficult but with the aide of my Polaroid glasses that are like x-ray glasses they can't hide for long, with around 2 hours of roving in and out of swims I had found a couple shoals of Barbel and Chub with some Carp as well but unfortunately were not interested in feeding so it was a case of leaving them shoals and locate pockets of fish that wanted to feed which I did eventually find, underneath a bridge I noticed 3 Barbel feeding under the bridge but just in sight which were all decent sized fish and chewing holes in the bottom and within my first cast I had a vicious drop back and I was in to a good fish not very long from what I initially thought but a fat one, a couple of minutes of later she was in the net.
After a quick journey down to the river I quickly realised how low and clear the river was and most of the ribbon weed was just laying on the surface that would normally be underwater by around a foot or so, so with the lack of water flowing through the task of catching a Barbel was going to be very difficult but with the aide of my Polaroid glasses that are like x-ray glasses they can't hide for long, with around 2 hours of roving in and out of swims I had found a couple shoals of Barbel and Chub with some Carp as well but unfortunately were not interested in feeding so it was a case of leaving them shoals and locate pockets of fish that wanted to feed which I did eventually find, underneath a bridge I noticed 3 Barbel feeding under the bridge but just in sight which were all decent sized fish and chewing holes in the bottom and within my first cast I had a vicious drop back and I was in to a good fish not very long from what I initially thought but a fat one, a couple of minutes of later she was in the net.
9lb 3oz
After spending about 10minutes reviving her after the powerful scrap I moved downstream to find some more sport and I finished up with 2 Chub to 3lb 7oz and I also had another Barbel at 5lb 10oz which again put up a great fight in the deeper water of the swim that I found it in.
Hello mate, what Polaroids do you use (brand & model pls)? i'm on the market for some and yours sound like they do the job! Ps thanks for your blog posts, nice to hear about a river I used to fish. Cheers Carl
ReplyDeleteThe glasses are an American brand that the bass fisherman use, rapid earwear, the river is getting harder every year, their getting smarter. Where did you used to fish on the river?
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. Mainly around Colliers Wood, never had as much success as you clearly enjoy, but had a few nice fish. Now in Walton and mainly fish the Wey...
ReplyDeleteNo problem, how is the Wey performing this year, I know a couple of people that fish the Wey, the Thames at Walton has chucked up a few cracking Barbel for me in the past, do you fish that stretch aswell? Kind Regards James.
DeleteHow do I PM you?
ReplyDeletePM? Whats that lol
DeletePM - Private Message i.e. email. Enjoy your holiday BTW! (i.e. By the way, lol!)
ReplyDeleteEvening Carl, my email address is jamesdenison.1987@gmail.com
Delete