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!