Quiver-tipping For Barbel.

 On the Barbel front I have tried a couple of new areas when the opportunity has arisen, recently I have had them to 10lb 2oz but since that fish things haven't been plain sailing. The new areas that I have been targeting haven't really provided me with the outcome I was hoping for but it's still early doors, I can only hope that as the night's draw in and the temperature drops slightly will the Barbel really come on and catch rates improve.

 Tuesday evening I fancied a jaunt up river to target a couple of areas that I don't usually fish as access is very poor and when the rains come the banks are treacherous beyond belief, seeing as the conditions were mild and clear it was all good to go, Mr Barbel joined me for my short session for a little bit of moral support, really the idea was to have a good cameraman/ghillie on hand should he be required. We glanced over a couple of likely looking areas with the intention of fishing and proceedings looked good quite early on as I had a decent take off of a far side glide, the culprit at first felt like a small Barbel but as it approached the tell-tale lips of a Chub came up, not the target but at least it wasn't an Eel.

 Seeing as the Chub were active I thought it was time to move, recent cutting of weed and trees has made some areas fairly clogged up where they hadn't been removed yet so certain places were out of reach but this gave me the perfect opportunity to try a couple of other areas, so bait and wait was the aim of the game and after a quick response on the first cast I was confident that a fish would fall foul.

 I didn't have to wait long either, twenty minutes or so had passed and then out of nothing the rod slammed over and down the bank, had to be a Barbel and the beginning of the fight suggested it was although when fishing at night it's hard to put a size on it, I was thinking that it wasn't a big fish due to the flash of it's underbelly in front of me but then it lunged again upstream for a bank of weed and I was powerless to stop it which is one of the reasons why I love to target Barbel, when she finally gave up and it slipped into the net we both revised our predictions north of 9lb, she was a decent fish and looked pristine.

9.12 of stunning summer Barbel.

 After a couple of photo's and a ride on the wheel of fortune she sat in the net getting her breath back and then slipped off into the night as did I, all done for another trip, great fun.