A Gap in the Nettles.

 After opening my account on the Blackwater a few days later my next trip was beckoning. This time I was heading back up to the Nene where I hoped that my run of poor form was turning the corner, a 9+ off a tough river like the BW gave me a bit of confidence whilst making the 288 mile round trip up towards Peterborough. 

 A decent run up there meant I managed to get fishing before witching hour in a spot my mate Ross knows holds a couple of fish around late-summer, we hoped this would be the scene of success and finally chalking off my 20th river. We sat chewing the fat and as bite time came and went we wondered what if..., so many ideas running through our heads but you could only fish one spot at a time. At kicking off time we packed up with nothing to show for my efforts.

 The next morning I woke up at 0430 and headed over to a spot that I felt maybe worth fishing for a couple of hours but unfortunately someone was already in there and had THREE! rods out in a small mill pool, really not necessary but that's fishing, I felt he was doing himself a huge disservice having three lines out in what is a tight area and quite likely the Barbel were on high alert before he finished setting up.

 With that disappointment I went back to the car and drove about 3 miles downstream to another section where I static fished for around 3hrs in an area known to hold early season fish, but again I had nothing but a couple of tentative Chub taps. Once those 3hrs had passed I had decided to completely change tact and opted to stalk Barbel in the backwaters, only travelling with the basics. 

Wonderful looking bits of water.

 I covered some superb looking areas with numerous areas that I thought would hold Barbel, it wasn't until 2/3pm that I finally found a Barbel and it was my target fish, a long thick set Barbel came cruising downstream past me and held up in a clump of ribbon weed before coming up in the water and flanking twice on some clear gravel, this fish of about 12lbs was the fish I really wanted and it was within reach. 

Stealth mode activated.

 I rolled meat continuously until it became apparent that wasn't going to work so I pinched on a couple shot and allowed it to gently come to a stand 8-10 yards downstream, alongside a bed of lush ranunculus, a modest sized piece of meat was just waving enticingly on the gravel and as the initial minutes drifted by I was very confident of a take, as the minutes turned into my first hour my confidence that the fish was still in the area was on the wane. Given the fact I hadn't seen it I changed my tactic again, by replacing the meat with a 2ft tail of 10lb flourocarbon and size 10 hook along with a scaled down 15mm boilee and small PVA bag of 4/6mm pellet with a tiny lead to minimise disturbance and up stream put another rod out around 20yards to see if it had passed me by and was sat just above me.

The rolling gear :)

 I spent the next few hours hoping she would come back but after a good 4/5hrs I finally gave up and decided to try somewhere else for dusk which was the spot I fished the evening before. Unfortunately night fishing is not allowed on the sections I was fishing so I was reliant of the witching hour doing the business but there was a familiar lack of action and by 9pm it was almost time to call it and another visit to the River Nene ended in a blank. This wasn't before an Otter showed itself cruising the far margins in search of dinner. 

 Just to make matters worse my 1hr 49min journey turned out to be 4hr 20min as the Dartford crossing was down to 1 lane and when I was approaching the roadworks the signage and my App said 20mins delay, that I can stomach so decided to ride it out, WRONG! that 20min delay ended up being 2hrs 31mins!!!! I was fuming to say the least and when I finally got on to the bloody bridge it was down to one lane for one bloody van! Absolutely disgusting. It made what was a tough trip and blank even worse. 

 I think I'll leave the Nene now until next season and create a plan of attack for an earlier season leviathan.