Red Letter Morning.

 Barbel are firmly on the radar of late due to the favourable conditions, the milder nights has kept temperatures up slightly higher than late-February would usually experience and with the warmer weather I had a tasty 48 trip planned for the Trent, a river I've really fancied getting on for a few years now for reasons that are pretty obvious, I want a shot at a ludicrously big Barbel.

 Let's just say that trip will have to wait, a couple of issues had arisen which prompted me to change my plans, the main issue was the sudden change of weather, the arrival of storm "Doris" brought with it winds over 90mph in the North and over 50 mph across the mainland, these sorts of conditions made me think differently and decided to stay closer to home and on Sunday morning I ventured out on my bike for the first in many years, I felt like I was 13 again!

 I fancied a really good go as well seeing as I had the entire day at my disposal which doesn't happen often, with my Barbel head on I hoped that I'd find some feeding fish and down south the conditions were slightly better with the winds in the morning only forecasted to reach 17mph which I can deal with but by the afternoon it was predicted to gust at 35-40mph. I walked to a nice spot I haven't fished in years, unfortunately it looked a little pressured with plenty of foot traffic so I didn't stay long, plus with plenty of little hideaways that I have I felt my time would be spent wiser elsewhere.

 Once I arrived at the first fishy looking area I ran a float along a far bank crease that ran along a fallen tree, no free-bees were thrown out and just the second trot through the float buried itself in a flash, I struck immediately into a heavy fish, the beginning of the fight was punctuated by a powerful run upstream past me and for a few seconds I was winding furiously to gain line on the fish, I was in no doubt that a Barbel was the culprit. The end of the fight resulted in me sliding a big Barbel into the net, I was pleased as punch and it looked awesome too.

My first double for a couple of months. 10lb 3oz.

 A fish that looked almost as if it was a summer Barbel as was the stunning colour. It was going to be tough to back that stunner up, so it was a case of trying. I'd already had a great start in that area so I decided on a journey downstream as I felt the fish were holding up in slightly deeper water. Within thirty minutes of moving I was in again, another good quality Barbel weighing 8lb 7oz lay in the net awaiting it's picture taken, then the quality fish continued to come to the net as I then had three more fish weighing 9lb 5oz, 4lb+ and an 8lb 2oz fish. It was a spell of no more than an hour but it was so prolific that I think it all happened in the space of maybe nine or ten trots! Most of the time was spent reviving, photographing and weighing the fish then moving up and down to locate more feeding fish, something I wasn't having much trouble with.

8.07

7.02

 I wanted to get a photo of the 9.05 but it wasn't having any of it and to not cause any issues I slipped it straight back, a lovely fish though and at that size I will always be chuffed, a double though is the sort of fish that we leave home early for, I was one very happy angler indeed! and the sport didn't die there either with the capture of one last Barbel ( around 6lb ) before the conditions worsened and made me decide that with the trees starting to creek under the force of the wind it was time to go, it was however a great morning's fishing and topped off with the capture of six mint conditioned Barbel.