Last winter I tried my hand at the River Medway, probably not the best time to target such a river owing to its nature. In flood I have never seen a river so violent and unforgiving, two to three metres of flood water can rush through the valley in what seems like a heartbeat, a couple of times I have either been fishing when the river has risen without warning, others I have arrived 1 or 2 days after heavy rains just to find roads impassible and entire fields under a metre of floodwater, so seeing it in a placid state was actually quite strange, this is what I was met with the other evening.
A quick journey down as its now my most local river was taken care of and within minutes the rod was set up and ready to go. After a half mile walk to my first swim completed it was time to get a bait out.
Having just received some new bait from Darren @thehookbaitcompany I opted to pop one 18mm BigSquid dumbbells on and await the action, baring in mind I hadn't yet had a bite or fish out of the Medway yet after five trips over the winter and this being my second visit of the new season, so maybe my confidence was born out of hope rather than expectation.
Forty five minutes had slipped by with only a small liner to keep me interested in the peg I choose to begin with and my faith was repaid as my rod tip slammed round in typical Barbel fashion. The fight unfortunately didn't last long owing to its size but knew the location was right owing to some good intel, it was just a case whether I would get lucky with a double, this one was not threatening that at all, knowing fish were feeding and rig was fishing well was good enough for me.
5lb 5oz the verdict and not a lump, but I know I'll have to kiss a lot of frogs to get my princes on this challenge!
The rest of my evening didn't provide anymore fish, the odd liner kept me honest and certainly coming back as I seek a fish twice the size of that one above, if it were to happen the Medway will be complete.
No comments:
Post a Comment