Bristol Avon, Off the Mark.

 

 As usual fishing has been hard going and I thought about going somewhere else as I needed to break up the blanks on the Blackwater that are starting to get on my wick, I am fishing well I just don't think there are many Barbel in there (to some that may come across as making excuses but I would have expected something by now).

 Anyway, I headed off to the Bristol Avon in search of a double figure Barbel. I had a two-day project in central London penned in for Wednesday & Thursday and managed to get done inside one day which opened up a nice day to go fishing on the Thursday, 4am I was up and loading the car with a 144 mile journey ahead. The excitement was growing with every mile chalked off.

 Once I arrived I had a good look around and it was clear where people were fishing as empty tins, line and litter was dotted around in bushes and long grass which is never a good thing to see ( binned as much as I could when I finished up ), I began rolling meat for the first hours so I can try and get accustomed with what was out in front of me and hope that a barbel could be picked up as I rolled under and past a fair few rafts of debris but those efforts weren't rewarded at all.

 After lunch I opted to move between a couple of spots on the static meat approach, so little activity had me wondering whether that was actually going to be a better option, a few more hours passed with nothing more than a plucky Dace or two, as the sun began to drop I got a decent wrap around on the tip and sure enough my first Bristol Avon Barbel was cutting through the flow of the weir and straight to me, not a big fish from what I could see at distance but they can be deceptive at times, this time around it turned out that my first BA Barbel wasn't going to be a double as it shrank as it got closer but one all the same!  

A little over 5lb, it's a start.

 Soon after the release and the rod went back out it was pounding away again, this time with a Chub in tow and this continued for another half an hour as successive Chub came to the net, none of any real size, one of them maybe reaching 4lb but given the flurry of activity I was keen to make the most of it and as if a light was flicked off it went dead before pitch black and up to midnight it was dead. That spelt the end for me, I packed down and had a good kip in the car for a freshen up for a morning assault at 7am.

 4c overnight was a shock to the system and it was no warmer when I got fishing with a distinct chill of winter in the air, we are only in September! I began rolling meat again and covered similar areas from the day before and although once again I was fishing well but with no returns.

 As midday came along I had a decision to make and with the area I was fishing was getting busier I couldn't move around like I did on Thursday so I opted to jump in the car and head to the Blackwater which is about half way between Bath and home, 4 hrs were spent flitting between swims with nothing once again to show for my efforts, but one day my speculating will be rewarded, I went home for a nice hot shower, visit the throne and warm bed with the Mrs.

Struggling....

 

 Since my visit to the Yorkshire Rother and Idle my 40 Rivers Challenge fishing time has been met with hours of motionless tips and the blanks are beginning to rack up again. For a moment back in late August I thought I had turned a corner and things were going to get better, however the Blackwater chiefly has been a major thorn in my side and I've really struggled to engineer bites, the Barbel seem to be on holibobs somewhere because they aren't where I'm fishing.

 That said my visit to the R.Teme the day after my R.Wye jolly up ended up a Chub fest with 13 coming to the net, all on the 8mm robin reds with nothing over the 4lbs, plenty of action and walking done but not one Barbel seen and the same can be said about the Blackwater until last night when I decided to go lamping and somehow managed to briefly spot a Barbel about 6/7lbs on a gravel shallow, but my god there seems to be so few fish around! 

 So when I've got a bit of time I'm going to go back for that and yes, I know it's not the target fish but a Barbel off there this season would be a sight for sore eyes, they've been extremely elusive and theres nothing I have been able to do about it. 

 9 trips to the BW equating to 76hrs of angling in sunshine and rain!

 I have just got to keep trying and moving around stretches to inevitably I WILL catch my target fish!  

This is full winter flood is one hell of a beast,
fishing here you feel so small!

Comfortable!

Nom Nom 

R.Wye Revisited.

 

 On Thursday I had a day booked on the Wye with a couple of friends who wanted to catch a Barbel, both chaps are very good anglers on the fly front but do love to dabble in coarse fishing too when the opportunity presents itself. I left home a lot earlier on as I wanted to get some fishing of my own done but I had no real plans, just fish and catch what came along, for once I visited a river with no pressure to deliver a double figure Barbel for my 40 rivers challenge.

 I left home at 0430 as its a straight 3hr drive to the location and as I was crossing the Prince of Wales bridge I started to get all excited as to what the day would throw up, even at 37 I still get that warm feeling of excitement when on my way for a session regardless of the target. Thirty minutes later I arrived at the river and even after all the rain that has fallen across the country the river was as low as I've seen and I know this was only my 11th trip to the river but that was backed up by anglers who have far more knowledge of the river than myself.

 That said I didn't hesitate to get setup and opted to begin at the very end of the beat and slowly work my way upstream. With the very low water my suspicion was that if I found deep water I would find fish. 

 First of all I began with 10 medium sized bait droppers of 4mm and 8mm pellets, fed on a single line just off the main flow which dropped into around 8ft of water from 4ft just above, the thought process was the Barbel and Chub were further downstream and wanted to draw them up to where I was presenting my hookbait which was my usual Wye approach after having limited success on large baits found after around 4 trips that small baits ruled and they were picked up readily by Barbel, so 2x 8mm robin red pellets were put on a 12'' hoolink with small hair and a light lead, just enough to hold bottom.

 To be fair once I had begun feeding I opted to not fish for a while to allow any fish following the scent to get acquainted and feed confidently, after half an hour of sitting on my hands I got my first cast in. I did think I would get fish straight away but oddly I didn't, a good half an hour passed before I got a proper indication and this was a gentle pull round on my tip, it was so gentle the centre-pin let off just a couple slow ticks before I lifted up the rod. Once I was playing the fish I could tell straight away it was a Barbel and a good one too, having caught many good Barbel over the years you can tell when you have a decent one on the end and this fish just held low, powered its way upstream twice some 40 yards each time before turning it a final time to guide it slowly into the net, that was a great fight! 

 To achieve what I wanted to on the Wye I embarked on 10 trips and 168hrs of angling, over 3000 miles of driving, out in all sorts of shite weather only fit for ducks and eskimos, roll on 11 months I come over for a jolly up as it were and land a pearler that on the scales settled on 10lb 4ozs! Angling is a funny game isn't it. 

 A Wye double figure Barbel and yes, I have had one but this one three ounces larger will be inducted into the 40rivers challenge hall of fame! and with a backdrop like that its one of my best ever self takes, shame the flash had to be used but the hill blocked out the sun near me and actually kept forcing the flash to engage and without it the images were really poor, so be it!

 Once I had released that stunner I carried on fishing and kept little droppers on pellet going out but amazingly the following two hours were totally quiet, barely a tap and when I did it was silk weed building up on the line and dragging my lite link ledger out of position. 

 By 1130 my friends turned up after being caught in poor motorway traffic and when they arrived we got to tackling up and then search around for some areas to get them fishing, their desire was to catch a Barbel but given what I had experienced the previous 4hrs besides that corker which would make any session a blazing success I thought it was going to be hard going. 

 And so it proved....the first 4 hrs we spent roving around before I offered them the option of fishing one of the beaches which ordinarily would be underwater by around a foot but we could get right down and showed them both where they needed to be fishing and I got a good bed of bait out at the top of the run that Mike and John were both going to fish, around 10 yards apart.

 Once they got comfortable and fishing I went looking elsewhere for a plan B, C and D if that run didn't produce like the previous 3 swims. 4pm passed without a touch and 5pm slowly approached when out of nowhere I had another bite! 8hrs of a bit of fishing and guiding I was in to my second fish of the day once again a Barbel, this one behaved fairly similarly to the first and yet another good solid battle was enjoyed, yes this one would turn out to be just shy of 9lbs but the colours are something I've not seen on a Wye Barbel so it was a pleasure to see!

8lb 13oz Wye beauty.

 Shortly after I had this fish Brian turned up so I went to go let him in and on the way down dropped in on Mike and John to learn Mike had had a 3lb and 10lb Barbel! that made my day massively, unfortunately John hadn't managed a Barbel and for all our endeavour that was how it all ended but it was a brilliant day, the weather wasn't great after 11am with persistent rain and the odd snippet of sunshine felt right as thats all I ever endured on the Wye anyway.