Little Catch-Up of Recent Ventures.

 

 Fishing has been a little thin on the ground of late, I have managed a couple of shorts sessions out for Barbel with no joy which is hardly surprising given the venues I've been targeting, no joy in the summer I don't expect it to be any easier in the cool of winter. I know double Barbel exist and I also know there aren't many around so the task set out for a R.ColnBrook double is going to be possibly one of my toughest foes. 

 On the stick and pin the other day I had a good morning where I choose a peg that had a decent inside slack behind a fallen tree and on close inspection a few days before I could see silvers turning on the gravel, so I knew that would be a good place to start my Dace fishing. Once valentines day is out the way Dace are firmly in my plans as the Hens start to gather with spawning in mind around early April. The window of opportunity looked to be quite short on Saturday too as the stiff winds looked to return, bringing with it heavy rain for about 4 hours in the middle of the day.

 So once I got in to the peg I began feeding white maggots every 30 seconds for around 5 minutes before my first trot and fish came from the off. A couple of small chub and moderately sized roach slipped into the net early doors where I then had to continually alter the depth I was fishing at to keep the bites coming, also at times I needed to rest the swim and keep feeding as bites did at times dry up, this tactic worked wonders and enabled me in the end to amass a bag weighing 13lb 7oz of quality Roach, 1x Dace (8oz), 1x Rudd and a couple of small Chub. 

Best Dace in two trips so far.

 Then the rains came which shifted the water level up quite rapidly, losing my spot where I was standing to get my trots in thus having to weigh in and move. Unfortunately for me the river everywhere just became unfishable and with the water table already full the levels increased faster than I'd anticipated, but not a bad couple of hours to start with, I will be back at least a couple of times, I haven't had a monster Dace now for a couple of seasons. A pound plus fish is certainly a possibility, it has previous, so I must keep trying!

What A Sh*t Show.

 I thought a trip up to the Severn would be a good idea, the catch reports I had access to all pointed towards an upturn in sport, thus choosing to make the 360-mile round trip. The journey up there along the A22/M25/M40/M42 was nice and smooth at 6am, once I arrived in Shropshire thats when it all went downhill.

That and meat have been doing the job of late on the Severn,
Not for me though of course.

 The forecast didn't look promising later on in the day so I opted to move around to try and find the Barbel. I tried various swims on the opposite side to Knoll Sands and hoped I would get amongst some fish. To begin with I got the odd chub knock on maggots but bites were hard to hit and as I made the switch to static or rolling meat the bites just got more forceful but still far too quick to hit, I sensed the fish were not in a particularly feeding mood and maybe the hard frost they had out in the Shropshire countryside maybe had something to do with it. This morning I learned that the river temp dropped nearly 3c in 48hrs and rose over a foot, that was never going to be a good combination to target Barbel.

 As the day wore on the thought of moving stretches played louder in my mind and by 6pm with dusk long gone I thought enough was enough and I had gave it a fair crack. So I loaded the car and began to drive out of the field I was in, what I didn't factor in was that the ground was hard and dry, but with a persistent days worth of rain the surface became boggy and for my Audi that's front wheel drive only I found getting out very difficult and as it began to loose traction I tried to pack out the soft ground so I can drive onto slightly higher ground where there should be less water and firmer.

 Problem was I just couldn't get there and after an hour of rocking the clutch, trying different ways to get to the higher ground and also climbing various trees and shaving off sharp parts like a 6ft 200lb monkey! 

 After that hour however I had to admit defeat and give a fellow angler who lives down there to try and get someone to come down and get me out, pissed off no end by now I awaited the arrival of the farmer to tow me out which he did, only just! in his shogun and charged me £80 for the pleasure! That was one expensive lesson well and truly learned and I knew in the back of my mind I shouldn't have driven down to the river and walked it instead. Dumb ass!!!! 

 I sit here writing this now just as fuming as last night as I sought out the rescuer in the pouring rain and driving 20mph winds and branches snapping off around me constantly, once out I just put my foot down and got the hell out of there, with not one iota of fishing desire left it was an easy decision to make the 180-mile home with muddy gear, £150 lighter and a big fat blank to add to the last one. 

 Note to the fishing gods, you're an ass too!