Autumn Barbel.

 This morning I was torn between a dawn session for Pike or Barbel, but with a quick look at the weather forecast and cloudless skies predicted the latter was the only choice and the Pike can have a week off, so I packed light and headed off at dawn to hopefully catch a Barbel, trotting for Barbel I find is so effective and allows myself to cover so much water.

 Yet another busy week just gone and another approaching I just wanted to get out for a couple of hours but I do have Thursday to look forward to as I will be attempting to catch a Zander with only one previously caught which was on the Thames many years ago. But back to the Barbel and I was amongst the action fairly quickly as I connected with a small but powerful Barbel which was around the 4 1/2lb mark maybe a little over, great fun on such light tackle and it wasn't long before my 5BB float sailed away again but this time I was met with a considerable amount of force, more than that of a small one hammering around, after an initial scare when the fish went solid as it went under the far bank I managed to play out the rest of fight in relative comfort, I slipped my net under decent a specimen of what looked to be around 9lbs.

Between 4.8 and 5.0.

Biggest of the morning at 8.15.

 My first call turned out to be just one ounce out as she settled on 8lb 15oz but she could go bigger for sure come the cold depths of winter when they lay dormant between feeds.

 The action didn't stop there either as I headed down stream further with one more Barbel to add to my morning's tally to take it to 3 which is good going with the latest addition around 3.8 which wasn't weighed as I sought a larger specimen which caught my eye during the scrap, but for as much as I tried to keep the little one from thundering around the swim unfortunately it put the remaining fish on high alert and no more interest was shown and although it wasn't the end of the session it was curtailed as I clambered out of the river to head further down when I lost my footing on the slippery tree roots and slipped thus losing my balance and the rod in my right hand slammed the deck which smashed the top section of my rod into two more sections, the session finished there and then, but it was a good short mornings fishing and I went home fairly happy and its only a rod, I can just buy a new one, Bury Hill are you ready to show me a surprise??.