Saturday, 5 July 2025

Back to the R.Blackwater.

 

 I have a strong desire to chalk off at least one river this month and with a toss up between a few the Blackwater is one river I think I will focus on, the Kentish Stour of course will always remain an option but not finding it easy on there as I've extensively documented on here.

 Yesterday afternoon I finished work and jumped on the M4 westbound via Chiswick A4. For an early Friday afternoon the traffic was very light and chewed through the 45 miles at a pace, a Barbel of any size would always be welcome but a double figured fish of course was my target.


 I walked this section for the first time and started dropping bait in a few areas that looked good for a bite and drifted between pegs, spending around 30-45 minutes in each before moving. Around 6pm I had a brilliant take on the pin and it screeched into action, straight away I could feel the weight and knew it was a very good fish, I started to get nervous and it took 2/3 mins of constant lung busting runs upstream and back down into the pool I was fishing before I saw it, I could have swore blind it was a Barbel, alas a few minutes later it revealed itself, a nice river Carp but I can't lie, I was a tad deflated if I'm totally honest.

 A couple of quick pics and slipped it back to whence it came and hoped the next interaction wasn't from a Carp or the pesky Crayfish that seem to be there in great numbers, annoyingly.

 I spent the following 6hrs moving between 5 swims I had baited and fished them on rotation until my eyes started to close, I knew I had to get away, still with 64 miles of driving ahead of me, of course I was fine to drive, just a motionless rod-tip was hypnotising me. I will be back soon enough for another go!

I do love a James Denison, very mourish.

Barb wire is your friend...mmmmm BEEF!

2 comments:

  1. These are the ‘bonus fish’ of the challenge. Nice one

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't bonus fish when they are what they have been! But I really want a Barbel, my time is coming soon!

      Delete

Struggling....

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