Opening of my Account for 2019/20 Season.

 Having recently joined a syndicate for a shot at some good barbel and chub I was all excited for the arrival of midnight of June 16th. I had the car loaded and the gear prepared before dusk had settled in. With a little light still hanging around on the horizon I trickled a little pellet into the edge of a drop off under my feet, I then awaited the moment when I could get my bait into the water and when the clock struck four minutes past midnight my Match Aerial screamed into life and the MarkIV registered its first River Colne Barbel.

 A good solid fight under the rod tip ended in the familiar fashion of a bulging net and I was very happy to have opened my account so quickly, not that I expected that to happen so easily everytime.

8lb 1oz and off the mark.

 With that barbel making a right racket I decided to move down stream a few pegs and kept little handfuls of 6mm "HookBait Company" Nimrod pellets going out in the margins and it didn't take long for me to become successful again as I received a brutal rip around on my split cane as another barbel made off with my Nimrod hookbait, first trip out with them and I was picking up fish and hoped this would be one of the bigger specimens that this section holds. 

 In the torchlight it became clear it wasn't to be, but another "eight pounder" to add to the account and I can't say I was disappointed. A nice deep hole in front of me allowed this fish to fight well and occasionally it would head over the far side to a gravel bar but with such good control of the fish the result was never in doubt!

8lb 3oz and getting marginally bigger.

Time to go home!

 As day broke I got confident that I'd catch at least one more but fish became very skittish in their appearance and trying to tempt another became tough going although three Chub and two Bream obliged. The best Bream went 7lb 14oz and the best chub went 4lb 6oz although the shoal I was targeting had fish well over the 6lb mark, typical I'd catch the smaller ones of the shoal!

 I will be back and it was a great start to my fishing on a river I'd never been on before.