Nene Drought.

 

 I had high hopes for my first proper outing of the season for Barbel. Thursday's trip up is my seventh visit and to be honest I felt I should have chalked it off by now but thats not the way angling works and this challenge has highlighted that time and time again. I'm doing the right things just not getting the fortune that I've been afforded elsewhere.

 After work on Thursday I made the 120mile journey north, battling the endless queues for Dartford tunnel and hold-ups on the M11 and A14, a 2hr 10min trip took over 3hrs, doesn't everyone realise I had fishing to do! How inconsiderate. 

Most of the spots that looked good, real stealth required.

 I had a few ideas as to where to target and opted to start at the end and work my way back up to where the car was parked, I only 4hrs on the Thursday to fish so got to business quickly by sending out my sleeper rod whilst setting up my proper rods. I unpacked both rods and began to line the eyes when out the corner of my eye my sleeper rod jumped up out of the vegetation and was headed for the bloody river! Talk about caught totally off-guard, I dropped my other rod and scrambled down the bank to fetch my rod and hoped what I am certain was a Barbel was still on but it became immediately apparent the hook had not set and this was a timely reminder that anything can happen at anytime!!! 

 I was so pissed with myself not being switched on and not to ruin the rest of the guff I was left to rue that mistake for the next day of angling. A take inside ten minutes and would spend the next 24hrs (minus 6hours that no fishing is allowed) searching for another opportunity, one chance at redemption which simply never came and wasn't through the lack of trying, I covered 10.62miles in 20hrs of fishing, an effort on 4hrs sleep which was broken up by the pain I've been recently suffering with a broken tooth and I've procrastinated in dealing with it and now it's clear with the pain being what it is that I need to do something! 

A healthy brood of Small Torts.

 Yesterday evening I packed up and heading to the car I made the decision call time, the plan was to stay until lunchtime on Saturday but my tooth was just too much to deal with and couldn't focus. I made the 120 mile journey back home with another Nene blank under my belt, I'm kinda hoping this one falls on my next trip or two. Watch this space.

 A little release video and a fighting video of some Chub.

Chub Release  (----- vid 1     Chub Battle  (----- vid 2

 Yes, I blanked for Barbel but did have some cracking Chub into the 3-4lb range and it is a wonderful place to spend time, watching young Red Kites taking flight, Kestrels hunting the fields, the odd Pike drifting around, one of them was pretty big ( Easily mid-double ).