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)
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| NO 25: R.Nene - 12.08 |
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| NO 26: R.Soar - 12.09 |
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| NO 27: R.Wye - 10.01 |
