River Dove - Part 2.

 

 After visiting the Dove a couple weeks back I was pretty keen to get back on the river and try to track down a double figure Barbel, that task ten years ago may have been deemed a simple task but the Dove has had it tough in those intervening years and now a double off here will require some more time, how much time god only knows.

 On Sunday morning I woke up at 4am and out the door by 0420 after loading the car the evening before, I set about breezing through the 180 miles of tarmac that lay ahead and by 0730 I was parked up and got myself ready for what was two days and the night of angling, could I keep my run of midland successes going?

 The first hour was lovely but the following 4-5 hours were a bit squalid as the rain swept across the rolling hills and made the first half the day very wet, through that rain I was rolling meat around the top half of the fishery which equates to around a mile in length, I walked this up and down twice over, just hoping that I could a Barbel. 

 As the day wore on biteless I chopped and changed between methods (rolling meat, static meat fished on a light lead and then setting traps using Dynamite' Hot Crab n Krill boilies). Whatever I did it seemed to not peak the interest of a single fish. Around lunchtime Ade Busby popped up for a reccy, a fishery that he had visited a few years back when the stocks were almost certainly more plentiful, that said we both believe there is the odd big fish floating around, otherwise I would not be there!!

Typical looking areas on the Dove.

 Ade and I had a good walk around the bottom mile of the river that appears to be getting little or no attention and thats the sort of angling I like, not pressured and feel like when you are fishing that the Barbel wherever they are aren't scared to feed / approach baits. Whilst we talked we compared ideas and thoughts of where we could potentially find them and how to approach them, between Ade and I we probably have 60-70 years of experience so I'd feel confident we could work it out, being 3hrs away its a river I want to work out quickly. 

No swims so it was time get amongst it!

 Dusk came and went, as did Ade and my hopes of a dusk bite evaporated, the hours ticked by under the starry sky and as the clock past 2am I called it a night and retreated back to the car for a power nap so I could recharge for day two. 0630 the alarm sounded, breakfast made and two cups of Ceylon tea was my fuel for another marathon day. By 0715 I was on the river and dropping bait in swims I fished on day one and then set about rolling meat once again across the whole 2 mile stretch of river I have access to on the club book.

Mmmmmmmmm......

 The fishery is set in the beautiful rolling hills on the Staffordshire and Derbyshire border and the wildlife is pretty impressive with just about everything buzzing around including my first ever sighting of a Merlin! I was passed a few times by this small bird and immediately recognised it and by the third passing google had confirmed my thoughts, such a pukka little thing and really quick too. 

 Like day one it was very hard to even find fish, around 10am of the first day I did see two nice Chub around the five pound mark but spooked very quickly off my rolled meat, day two I didn't see a single fish and I roved around with polaroids as I usually do but nothing, so by 2pm I gave up on the mobile approach and opted to pick just one peg that I really liked the look of that had the hallmarks of a good Barbel swim and worked it, first of all by offering a dozen loose 15mm boilies and then letting the swim settle for about thirty mins before casting in and within an hour I had a bite that I should never have missed, almost certainly a Chub bite, but failed to connect, more importantly though, not a single crayfish tap which told me all I needed to know, there was feeding fish present.

 My plan to stick it out was not playing out though how I wished, I had a time of 7pm to be off the river in mind as I had to get back to the car, load up and drive 180 miles back home and didn't want to get back too late ( 11pm ). But, just an hour before I was going to jack it in the tip pulled around and the line ticked off the pin at a good rate, I did not hesitate to strike and by the time I did the fish had already gained 10ft on me and had piled through a load of branches in typical Chub style, it had to be, but it felt heavy so if indeed it was a Chub it was a good one and after a minute or so of negotiating the snag the Chub came free and shot off across the flow into the deep water under the willows and did it's best to evade capture, but no no no, that was not going to happen and I got a 2-day blank saver in the net and what a fish it was too.

 As it cruised into the net it dawned on me this fish was big, a good mid-6+ and actually got a bit excited even though it wasn't my intended target.

First Dove fish, 6lb 6oz Chub! Nice.

 Once I let that pristine Dove Chub go I fished the final hour full of hope of another fish but it didn't come and I even stayed an extra half hour to make sure.

Truly special.