40 Rivers Challenge Update.

 

 As we have now amazingly crept into December already I have had a cursory glance back at what has so far been a pretty lean season in terms of fishing, Barbel included. 

 The first six weeks of the season I drifted between the rivers Blackwater, Nene, Bourne and Wye. Incredibly over those seven trips I only managed three Barbel with the Wye only producing one fish in what was a seriously disappointing period.

 The back end of July through to early September actually proved to be even more baron where not even a single Barbel hit the back of the net, that period of the season I do often find brilliant for sight fishing but this season was poor!.

 As September began I found myself back on the banks of the R.Nene for the seventh time and by the end of the day river number 25 of my challenge fell in the shape of a stunning 12lb 8oz specimen which bought closure to my time on what is a lovely river, the following day I tackled the R.Soar, a river many had told me would be a very difficult river to tackle and with good reason, but somehow I managed to unearth another nugget of luck and around 24hrs after my Nene success I had nestled in the net a rare Soar beast, she was a "dino soar"! weighing an extremely pleasing 12lb 9ozs.! 

 That result had me beaming from ear to ear, not that the Nene fish already had me on cloud nine. 

 My next two trips were to the R.Wye where I once again opted to try my luck and on the first trip I only had an afternoon's fishing where six hard fighting fish came to the net. However the following trip 4 weeks later concluded in a very different fashion! Well into darkness my rod hooped over after hours of inactivity and very quickly I knew it was a big fish. The power and determination of good Barbel in flood water is why you do have to step up the gear! 

 After 10 visits to the Wye equating to nearly 200hrs of angling ( mainly last winter ) I had achieved something on the Wye I hoped I would but didn't think I'd do it in 10 trips, a period of 5 years and 30-40 trips was more or less what I had assumed I'd need to achieve my target but am chuffed it came good!

 The magic number had been achieved, but only just, 10lb 1oz.

 Since that fish on the 3rd of October I have only been out once for Barbel and that was the other day on the Kentish Stour where the Barbel once again remained totally elusive.

 The stats so far this season read....

- Mileage : 2561

- Sessions : 14

- Blanks : 8

- Barbel : 14

- Doubles : 3

Doubles % to sessions : 21.42 (so far)

NO 25: R.Nene - 12.08

NO 26: R.Soar - 12.09

NO 27: R.Wye - 10.01

 

Trotting Heaven.

 

 Whenever temps start to fall one of three things happen, one we know the shortest day of the year is approaching, two I'll still be wearing shorts and t-shirts to work and three Grayling will be on my mind! 

 Once again I had been invited to fish the river Wylye for Grayling by Mike and I could not pass up the opportunity. I had a sleepless night on Wednesday owing to my youngest being a tad poorly and the excitement to get back on to big Grayling territory. 4am I was up and by 5am I was leaving for Wiltshire.

Let's go! 

 I arrived in the murk and got myself suitably dressed and armed with 3 pint of maggots to drown, could that 3lb specimen I've been seeking for a few years now finally be found and landed? I was certainly going to try and early on I found a couple of willing fish which were held up in tight pockets. Within the first 2 hours I had managed 4 fish with two weighing in at 2lb 5oz and 2lb 1oz, a cracking start and could only hope things would continue in that manner.

2.05

 Fishing oddly was hard in areas as I suspect a combination of the heavy floods condensed the fish and then freezing temps kept them there because once I had located shoals the bites came thick and fast, some were Grayling and some were Trout which at times were so hard to get through, so I deepened up to try and get through water column faster and give Grayling a chance and this did work in parts. 

 A number of young fish between 2oz and 1lb 8oz came to the net but found it challenging to get any bigger fish and going on catch reports since the grayling season opened it has been slim pickings largely. Finding the shoals weren't easy but once achieved I was catching and around 3pm I did manage a couple more good fish of 2lb on the nose and my best of the day of 2lbs 6oz, a really nice deep bodied fish which hung deep throughout the fight which was very satisfying and nervy in equal measure.

Best of the day, 2.06

 Just before those two 2lb fish were caught I did hook a very heavy fish that I do feel was a Grayling but was unseen, once it hit the main flow the strain on the hook hold was clearly too much and it slipped away, that said I am very impressed by the new XT maggot pattern from the new hooks that will be launched in the spring from Drennan Int', I've been using various patterns this season and I am, currently very happy with their performance and also now been using the Acolyte Specimen Float rod "15ft" and again has performed very well with some very powerful fish on the light gear, if you are looking for a lightweight but powerful float rod for Chub, Grayling, Barbel etc then this rod is most certainly what you are looking for, its a stepped up version of the acolyte float rods including ultra. 

 The only downfall with this time of the year is the short days and by 1620 I had lost almost all light and that bought down the curtain on yet another thoroughly enjoyable days fishing!

Trotting heaven.

Stiff as a .... sock 

Chub Day.

 

 Last weekend I finally got the chance to do a decent amount of fishing, a whole day has been hard to come by of late and armed with a loaf of bread and some maggots I made the most of my time.

 After weeks of heavy rain it was nice and settled, which did bring its own challenges but with some knowhow chub are willing beasts. The river was very low and very clear, not terrible conditions for chub if you can find them. I knew where they would be held up but catching them was proving to be a proper challenge, my first half an hour proved completely baron, I turned my attentions to my approach and stepped down my hooklength from 6lb flourocarbon to 3.3lb, dropping the float and hook size too.

 Within three trots the float slipped under and I was latched into a hard fighting chub which put up a good account of itself. Once in the net I started to ball up tiny bits of white crumb to keep the fish occupied, on the scales this one went 5lb 1oz, not a bad start at all! Once the keepnet was erected I got to fishing the swim a little harder and the bites came more readily, infact my next 20 or so trots after making that seemingly enormous changeup twelve chub came to the net and lost another two! I could not quite believe how tightly packed they were, but once they were confidently feeding they were hanging themselves.

 Amazingly still once the swim slowly died off as the fish wised up and a couple more came to the net the first fish was the best with most in the 4lb bracket, given that number of fish I was hoping there would be at two to four 5's or maybe even a 6+ amongst them but it wasn't to be, just glad to get a bend in the rod.

 After exhausting that swim I went for a walk downstream around half a mile to another run that looked good for trotting and once again it took a good twenty mins or so to get a bite which resulted in a chub, that was it for that spot and a few more moves resulted in nothing. 

 With the sun dropping by this point I went back to the swim I had the single Chub from and opted to fish maggots instead of bread and fed the swim consistently and within my first five trots the float darted under and was met with some serious resistance, the kind of power chub simply can not generate, so it could only be a barbel or a rare carp! five minutes or so passed without seeing the culprit had me wondering if I was actually going to see it! Then a couple of minutes later, out of the depths a barbel appeared! 

 It really was turning into a great day on the float but nothing big, to be honest it was nice just to get out and do some fishing.  

Filling In the Time.

 

 Fishing of late has taken bit of a back seat recently owing to my constant hectic work schedule, so in this episode of James' Angling Adventures we re-cap on the highlights of how my season has gone so far and I have to be honest given how little fishing I've done the rewards have been pretty good! Work as always gets the blame for curtailing my angling but also when faced with a little bit of time to go fishing I find myself too tired to get myself going and get the car loaded and set off. I don't know if that's normal or if I'm just getting lazy as I ticked past my 37th birthday last Monday.

Where I was sat there is currently 4.4m underwater.

 The Spring kicked off in fine style with a hat-trick of Bream on my first trip with fish registering 11.13, 13.7 and a new personal best of 15lb 10oz which to my amazement came after a pretty tame indication but the fight for a Bream was awesome. Link to session here --- Dream Bream Trip

 The subsequent visits for Bream either ended in blanks or scratched around for bites but did get one more decent trip in before they began to spawn. Link to session here --- Another Good Bream Trip.

 Once the Bream spawned my attentions turned to the start of the season that wasn't far away and amazingly on my first trip for Rudd once the season opened I managed to achieve a milestone that I had been longing to reach in 8 years of angling on the Fenland waterways, that milestone was a 3lb+ Rudd which was achieved by the finest of margins! Link to session here --- Dream Rudd Start

 Once I had achieved that my desire to get back on the Fens waned somewhat but with the rivers now open Barbel would soon be on the agenda but it did take me quite a while to resume my 40 Rivers Challenge and after a few sessions flitting around the country my long wait for a R.Nene double ended in fine fashion as a beauty weighing 12lb 8oz slipped into the net after a tense battle amongst the pads. --- Link to session here --- Nene Double Delight!

Bottoms Up!!

 The very next day with little time to bask in my success on the Nene I managed to do the unthinkable and caught a brute off the R.Soar just 24hrs later, like London Buses....my journey home was one of pure joy. Link to session here --- Soar'ing High!

Kentish Stour Stealth.

 A week later I went back to the R.Wye in search of a double and get myself up to 27 completed rivers but with a decent effort applied I was not fortunate to do so, three weeks later I went back with renewed vigour and after a total of 168hrs spent over 10 trips I at long last got the fish I had been searching for but only made the cut by a gnats whisker! but that was all I needed, I felt I had deserved that fish absolutely! Link to session here --- Wye Wonder.

 And since that trip to the Wye / reccy on the Teme I haven't wet a line, over two weeks ago... anyone who thinks being self-employed means you'll be able to have more time off don't get it twisted, you'll end up doing more, the money is too good to turn down and you'll find yourself busier than ever before.

Northern end of Windermere.

 Anyway that's my fault :), I hope you enjoy this little catch-up and hopefully we can catch a fish of our dreams and pray the rains ease up so the rivers will be more accessible than they were last few winters.

Teme Tiger Recon - Part 1

 

 Following on from my big result on the R.Wye and only 36 miles from the R.Teme it seemed to be the logical next step, at 7am I was cruising up the M50 bound for a date with a Teme Tiger, a Barbel from here is reputed to fight harder than any other Barbel in the country, that was a reputation I wanted to test. Having seen the Teme for the first time I was keen to get started and I was warned about the banks and they weren't wrong, steep, very slippery ( mainly owing to the recent floods that were running off when I got there, possibly 7ft had already dropped away with possibly another 3ft or so to come off ), it made fishing difficult as there wasn't many pegs to target as they were very unsafe, but I got to work on the ones I could. 

 The swims looked perfect where I could fish, but there really wasn't much to talk about during the daylight hours as I didn't have a touch and darkness didn't bring much else barring a couple of Chub, the one below and a slightly better one of 3lb or so was all I had, the rods were pretty quiet and around 11pm I decided to call it a night and headed home, I will return when conditions are good again.

River Wye Double, That's A Wrap!!

 

 AT. LONG. LAST.

 This part of the challenge was always going to be a difficult owing to the amount of Barbel and indeed Chub present. I have spent over the course of 10 trips (including this trip) 168 hours of angling with 62 Barbel caught, the 62nd being the one I was after, everything in between has been enjoyable and testing in equal measure. 

A wonderful part of the world, what a vista.

 Learning a river that was in flood 9 trips out of 10 had presented a challenge in itself but with my experience increasing with every trip I never once felt out of my depth and conversely enjoyed the fact it wasn't a gimme.

 The river had been up to a shade under 4m and I was keeping an eye on the river as I only had 2-3days available, fortunately for me my planned days were forecast to be bathed in sunshine, not ideal for Barbel but at least I wasn't going to get wet, so with the level at 1.98m when I arrived I felt like a couple of Barbel would be possible. However...the Chub were ravenous and made fishing difficult, every spot I dropped in the Chub made themselves known, missing many but landed 26 Chub with the best possibly a 5-pounder which went unweighed, that said it wasn't all Chub as 3 Barbel also got in on the act, all three were around the 5-6lb bracket which were great fun in the pacy water off the slacks.

 Once dusk had come and gone I thought the best time had gone so I decided to drop a handful of small boilees and pellet in a swim next to where I was cooking dinner and let that rest whilst I filled my face. The plan for the night was to give it until midnight - 1am and then grab some sleep and arise around 6am to get back on it.

 A few hours passed by with the odd knock on both rods but put it solely down to debris coming downstream, around 2240 I got a steady pull round on my downstream rod which grabbed my attention momentarily, I thought it was more rubbish collecting on the line but with a 2oz lead on in the margins I hoped it wouldn't move out of position, I began to sit back down when it pulled round a little more forcefully by which point I felt it was now dragged out of position, I picked up the rod and lifted it up and BANG! the rod slapped round, that gentle pull round and hold twice must have been now what I was latched into and it felt like a big fish straight away, very slow and deliberate in the flow I knew it was a good fish so I played it sensibly and within 3-4mins I caught glimpse of it and was very confident it was the double I sought! 

 Soon enough the fish slowly tired and slipped over the cord of my net, it surely had to be the fish I desired, it looked a double! 

River No: 27 ✅ Get in there!!!!

 Once I had set up my camera, tripod, laid out the mat and got the scales and sling set I lifted her out and felt like a double all day long, on the scales it was a lot closer than I thought it would be, she settled on 10lb 2oz but weighed her again just to confirm and actually settled on 10lb 1oz the second time around, so I went with the lower of the two weights, but it didn't matter, it was my WYE DOUBLE!!! 

Excellent !!!!

 The cheesy grin told you all you needed to know, plenty of effort 290mile round trips, enduring very cold nights, long periods without a touch last winter, this was my reward for the efforts pumped in, Barbel  number 62 was the magic fish.

Cheers all.

Leaving for the last time. Diolch Afon Gwy.

Wye Not.

 

 Yes, Wye not indeed, I can't think of many places that I have fished that look so good whatever the time of year. This time around I didn't have long available. On my way over to the river I swung into the Drennan HQ to pilfer some goodies and chew the fat with Peter and the boys for a couple of hours, always great to hear Peter's stories of an era long before I was conceived! During my time there we also did a product launch video for the new collapsable specimen nets ( 28", 32" & 36" ), these will be available in all good outlets imminently.

 With my time in Oxford up I hit the A40 toward Wales. A quick swing around to Brian's to collect him and we were Wye bound, full of excitement at the prospect of a bumper day we got ourselves ready quickly...however, for me at least things didn't quite happen. I spent the first couple of hours scratching around for a nibble, it really was slow going with the Chub action even being eerily quiet, normally I'm cursing them but I wasn't on this trip.

Mmmm meat!

 Think my first Barbel came around 2-3pm to which a couple more followed but not big enough for weighing and pics but estimated them to be between 5&6lbs. Not bad fighting size and boy did they give it but I wanted something more substantial. Slightly more substantial I got, a couple of hours later I found another pod of Barbel which all weighed over 7lb ( 7.03, 7.10 & 7.15 ), the fish were better but a feeling suddenly came over me that my time on this particular section is coming to an end, as picturesque as it is, safe and secure and night fishing access it ticks all the boxes, I just don't know if I'm going to get that 10lb+ specimen. 

7.15

7.10

Brian latched into a fish that went 9.04

 I think a move is on the cards soon...however I planned to stay the night but as the temperature tumbled toward 4c I thought better of it and kindly Brian's folks allowed me to stay at their place. Cheers!!!

River Soar Double, That's A Wrap!!

 

 When I slipped the net under my 12lb 8oz R.Nene Barbel it bought an end to that campaign, immediately my sights were set on a change of scenery to begin another campaign, such is the design of my 40 Rivers Challenge.

 I had a pukka nights kip at my mate Ross' and after a freshen up and cooked breakfast I made the relatively short journey across to the R.Soar, another river I'd never seen, let or lone fished. I had done a bit of research on the Soar over the closed season and two clubs seemed to stand out above the rest, I chose one in particular and planned to fish it when the time came and stick with it.

 An hour or so after leaving Castor I arrived on the Soar to find a wide and slow stretch of river, treelined and navigable, it looked great. I opted to have a walk of all the water available to me first before choosing a swim to settle down in but the conditions were far from ideal with blazing sunshine and 26c, I had a sneaky feeling it was boom or bust from dusk onwards where I planned to stay to around 1 / 2am then make my way home. 

Ratcliffe Power Station.

And a bit closer, our last remaining coal fired power 
station which goes offline end of the month after
56 years of service.

 There were some great looking spots on both the main river and lock backwaters, but given the time of year and the better flow on the backwater that was my main focus, I thought if there were Barbel around they would be there. I know of a few anglers who have plied their trade on the Soar have all suggested the river isn't what it was for a number of reasons, the very same reasons that are hampering many other rivers, something that as a nation should be embarrassed about, the natural world that we are guests in should be respected more, but enough of that little tangent.

Not as toned as I was in my teens and 20's :)
I blame the kids 😝

  I spent most of the afternoon topless in the field laying on my landing mat as I thought my time would better spent adding another coat of suntan! As the clock ticked closer to 7pm and the suns power began to wane and drop closer to the horizon I got loaded up and made my way to where I thought I stood a chance. By 1915 I had both rods out, one rod out on my ever faithful meat and the other rod with a new test bait from Baitworks which myself and a couple of other anglers are trialing and twenty minutes later that rod began to nod and then pull round, my first Soar fish was a.....

...around 5lbs.

 Not what I was after, however one thing I've learned over the years is that Bream and Barbel often feed together, with this crucial piece of info I was happy to endure the constant taps and bangs as the Bream fed around my boilie rod, my meat rod remained dormant, that was until a couple of minutes before 9pm when my meat rod slammed round with no prior indication, I knew immediately what it was and from the off played it quite hard as there was a row of near side fallen willows which may have given me big problems, so I didn't give the chance to do me, a risky tactic but with total faith in my tackle selection I was happy to put more pressure behind it and it worked, soon enough in the torchlight I could make out a large frame, it was certainly the one I was after, my task was now just to get it closer in, enough to scoop it up in the net but she wasn't quite done, two more very strong lunges for an upstream willow were made but I was okay and soon enough I got this view 😮.

no:26!!!!

 There was no doubt at all about its weight, built like a breeze block and not a particularly long fish in truth but it didn't matter.

 

12lbs 9ozs, River Number 26 completed! ✅

 Oh I was one happy chappy, what a 24hrs fishing I had experienced, it was that good when I released her I packed up, drove home and in bed just after midnight, BOSH!!!!

 Next week I am back on the R.Wye for two days and a night, I sure hope that this purple patch continues, that would be bloody epic, I think I deserve at least one more river to be chalked off before New Year given the effort put in so far this season. Not being greedy, promise. 

River Nene Double, That's A Wrap!!

 

 Well well well, I wondered if I was ever going to crack this one, there seems to be enough in the river to target but somehow I couldn't manage it. Whether it be luck, timing or whatever I simply could not engineer that moment that mattered most, that was until Thursday evening, I got that bite, that mattered.

 I started my journey on the Nene back in the 2021/22 season where I got off to a flyer with an 8.7 Barbel on my first visit, I thought it was only a matter of time that summer before I got another Barbel with the hope it would be over 10lb. Fast forward 3 whole years, 6 trips spanning nearly 100 hours, it turned out to be a river that would be a thorn in my side.

 On Thursday morning I had a leisurely drive up to Peterborough and opted to cover similar ground that I have over the previous years. I started by rolling meat to try and find fish amongst the enormous amounts of weed that is present, so many places for them to hide. For the first couple of hours all I could muster was a few Chub to 3lb. As I worked my way down I also fed a handful of pellet and broken boilies into areas that I liked with the view to turn to static fishing and spend 30/40 mins per swim. Soon enough I found myself dropping into to those pegs as the rolling meat offered no more action, unfortunately nor did the static fishing which I gave a good crack. So I opted to change venue again and head upstream.

 Met by a couple mates we made bit of a social of it and the plan was to fish up until kicking off time which was around 2130. During the evening I was plagued by small Chub and constant knocks on both boilie and meat, often the meat getting whittled off which was frustrating. As the sun had dipped beyond the horizon the regularity of knocks and taps eased off and around 2000 I had a bang on the meat rod out of nowhere and had my suspicions that it was a Barbel coming into investigate it. 

 Ten minutes after that I decided to bring it in and check my meat was on, to which it was, just whittled down a little by the hoards of hungry little mouths but big enough for me to be happy with flinging it back out. An accurate cast once again got the bait and lead onto a nice clear gravel patch amongst a sea of cabbages. Around 2045, BANG!!! The rod slammed round violently and I was on it in a flash and that still didn't enable me to keep the Barbel out of the cabbages! she was straight in there and immediately could feel the fish getting more and more solid which gave me nightmares, no way was I going to let this one go! I used all my experience to keep this fish from really doing me in.

 I walked through the thick marginal vegetation downstream and got some side-strain on the fish to try and bring its head out the cabbages backward, I released tension and put it back on and slowly but surely over 6/7min period my perseverance paid off as she slowly but surely became heavier and heavier on the rod and knew I almost had her out and then the line pinged a final couple of times and she was out, with that she realised she was out and no sooner had I got her out she ploughed, unavoidably straight into another set of cabbages to which I had to do the same all over again as I could feel less and less of the fish on the rod and it was only very faint vibrations through the line which told me she was still on, honestly this fight was incredible as it was a war of attrition, this fish had met its match and more. Many get lost in the cabbages but I was not going to become one of that negative statistic, once again I got below it and put more side-strain to again, slowly work it out, this time around she had used up a lot of her strength on the last bid for freedom and now I was winning a bit faster and within a minute or so she had come free and heading toward the net which I cocked up three times, I couldn't work out in the torch light where the fish was in relation to the cord of the net, thankfully I didn't knock it off and third time around she was at last in the net, this time I had finally caught and landed a River Nene double figure Barbel! 

Blooooody BINGO!

 I was in dreamland and after a pretty awful season for Barbel so far I had finally landed a double Barbel, my first since mid-February when I managed to catch an Itchen monster. This fish was not that big but an extremely pleasing 12lb 8ozs, the smile on my face told you all you needed to know about this capture. I had finally done it and shared the moment with one of the bailiffs Ulvis and my good mate Ross it was a great way to end my Nene campaign for a double figure specimen.

River no:25 - R.Nene - 12.08 Complete ✅

 7 Trips, 107 Hours, blazing sun, torrential rain and lightning, I've been through it all there but the conclusion of my campaign could not have been sweeter and with that I packed up and went to the pub for a pint and cigar!