Saturday mornings session was in search of Pike for my "Challenge 200"' unfortunately the Esox were not playing but there were some more accommodating species available to target and even though the rivers are all still in awful conditions, Chub and Barbel can be caught in less than favourable circumstances, the sort only ducks should be caught out in but no, us more than hardy anglers who brave all manner of weather will get their reward when time is put in.
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| Wet and wild, not for the fair weather anglers's. |
My attempt to catch a Pike was aborted and spent the first couple of hours stalking a winter Carp, after a while I succeeded with a 6lb + Common Carp caught on free-line meat, it was by far the smallest in the shoal, but through the ripples created on the surface by the incessant rain I couldn't see which one took it and struck as soon as I felt the line tighten on my fingertip.
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| A little winter Common Carp, feisty and fun. |
Later on in the day I gave up on the Carping as I went back to lure fishing for a Pike, I wasn't going to leave without giving it a real going over for a second time, but that attempt was futile too, so I decided to change tact and headed down to a very high and rough river with the cane rod to try and find one of these 'accommodating fish' and it didn't take long either, 2 casts to be precise, 3SSG's to get the bait down fairly quickly and even that was at a struggle but got there in the end, the first roll didn't settle and roll but the second did and it was down for about 20seconds as it bounced along the bottom when the rod wrenched down and around. Another Barbel on and in the extra water it held bottom for quite a while and it felt good to be locked into battle with one of my favourite species of fish, a few minutes later a nice Barbel of about 8lbs laid up in the net, Happy Days....
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| An honest man's 7 @ 7.15 |
...... After a couple of photos and a quick weigh she went back and headed off in search of another but after two hours of roving I didn't manage to find any more and no more enquiries followed, another success on another awful January morning.
Nice fish James, that barbel looks bigger than 7.15!
ReplyDeleteCheers Leo, it looked bigger when I netted it too, but it was light, quiet unusual for this time of the year, should have been an easy 8, but a Barbel in those conditions of any size was a near miracle, grateful of one any size. JD.
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