R.Blackwater Returns.

 

 Hmmmmmmm......the Blackwater is fast becoming a drain on my brain, god it's been a slog and not sure when its going to offer up that big chest of treasure, hours of moving, feeding (little bits here "n" there and putting a decent bit in when I know I'm coming back within a couple of days) and nothing seems to be working. I know the odd Barbel is still coming off the river but its so infrequent.

 Sunday lunchtime I got back down for another go and did my usual of moving around, 45mins in each spot with just a small PVA bag of six boilies each time, any touches I stay put, unfortunately I am not even getting that, six swims later and 35mins in whilst doing an update on my season so far on the challenge my rod FINALLY zipped off, on it in a flash I was bent into what was certainly a Barbel and it felt great, not a monster but great to have a fish on the other end. 

 A few minutes later a lovely dark BW Barbel was in the net. 7lb exactly on the scales it was a sight for sore eyes, unsurprisingly it was the only bite but my first Barbel off this particular stretch, boy its been hard and on Tuesday I went back down again in less than ideal conditions but still opted to try, but nothing.

 I will of course, like night follows day, I'll be back for another twenty four attempts.....

Back to the Blackwater.

  Leading on from that incredible trip up north and following through with my plan to finish at 3pm on the Idle I decided to drive back down to the R.Blackwater for further punishment, that big Blackwater barbel has to come along at some point, just two bites in 6 trips totally 55hrs!. 

 Given the circumstances that preceded this visit I felt confident of finally catching a Barbel, so I set about roving the river with bits of meat and bread in every likely space where a Barbel might be. Having left Nottinghamshire at 5pm ( a couple hours after I originally billed after being drawn in by the lure of another good Barbel to which I did achieve ) I parked up in my usual spot on the BW and got wandering.

Purple Loosestrife, the riverbank is 
not complete without it in summer.

 A couple of hours passed without incident and as dusk came and went I had a gentle pull round on the tip which I hit into and amazingly it was a fish, my suspicion was crayfish but thankfully it fought back but I knew it wasn't a Barbel and soon enough a decent sized Bream surfaced in the torchlight, at least it was a fish. 

 But the crayfish were clearly down there chewing my Source "hard-hooker" boilee, damn things I can't wait until we find a way to eradicate them entirely. But this was another that I crushed under my trainer earlier in the day, think I'm on 6 now that have been squished, another dozen have dropped off.

Horrid things.

 Unfortunately after that Bream I didn't have another bite and around 1am I called time on my epic 514 mile journey, four rivers visited, three rivers fished, three doubles caught across two rivers and no joy on one river. It was a brilliant 44hrs on the road!. That really was an epic.

1 Bite, 1 Fish.

 

 Yesterday night I popped to the upper Thames for a catch-up with my mate Adam and decided to put a couple of rods out each with the hope of a Barbel. We nagged away for a few hours but all that came my way was a Bream and Adam was plagued by Crayfish and small chub, although one of his takes certainly looked Barbel-esque. Alas he didn't make contact.

 My plan was when we finished on the Thames I was going to jump back on the Blackwater and continue my quest for a BW double. I was fishing before 2am and first light was only a couple hours away. I hopped between pegs as I always do when Barbel fishing but the only indications I got were from Crayfish nipping away at my boiliee.

 As first light tinted the sky I was welcomed with a beautiful wash of pinks, reds and orange glows, it really was special. 

 I was really hoping to get a barbel during this time as it would have made a wonderful picture for sure! Sadly it wasn't the case and sunrise had come and gone and I'd made numerous moves and dropped little heaps of boiliee and pellet so I could go back to them on rotation, amazingly I didn't get a bite until 1050, it was a good bite too and fishing right under a raft of fallen willow in 5ft of water and clear gravel, the sort of place I would expect to find a Barbel, this time around though it wasn't but it turned out to be a really big Chub! Bigger than I thought they went in the Blackwater.

 A summer "six" anywhere is big but a 6lb 1oz Chub off the BW is a really big fish and she was in great nick barring a big scrape on the other flank. I couldn't be disappointed with that, two trips I have had a nice river Carp, now a big Chub, the BW really is full of surprises. 

 Next time around will a Barbel finally let its guard down? My fingers are crossed.

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!

And so it begins.

 

 Two weeks of the new season have already drifted by and the south is bathed in glorious sunshine, just how summer should be, issue is the mosquitoes are out in force everywhere! 

 On the 17th of June I decided to venture onto the Kentish Stour once again for my customary blank, the river looked in great condition with vast runs of water crows-foot and ranunculus creating areas so dense I'd dare not fish anyway, but where I could looked great and after a good wander around settled on a nice open field away from the biting most pointless creatures on earth.

 Unfortunately I just didn't see much around apart from a very relaxed Beaver that ambled upstream past me, when it see me it powered underwater and shot up out of sight, I am starting to get used to seeing these awesome creatures, so much bigger than I initially thought, what was even madder was I was having a chat with local angler Ben and whilst we were chatting we could hear rustling in the undergrowth just 10 yards from us, then the chewing started, followed very quickly by a loud crack as what turned out to be a Beaver had removed a young tree and proceeded to drag an 8ft tree through the undergrowth to the bank before crashing into the river with it. 

 After leaving Ben I went down to the fields where its deeper and slower, I was hoping to find a Barbel down there and have seen them a couple summers back but nothing in my net apart from chub and bream and this trip reverted to type as two dark KS bream were landed. Not my target but at least I had bites.

 For that trip I was done. Last week I ventured out onto the Blackwater once again but this time around I was beginning my quest on a new section of the river and it looks so much better than where I was previously fishing, lovely deep bends, onion reed and rushes lining the banks, coupled with pacy shallow areas so it really has everything, I think catching a Barbel here will be tough but really relishing the challenge and thats the great thing about the 40 Rivers Challenge because every river within that challenge represents it's own challenges, on the Blackwater the Crayfish are the problem that need to be worked out.

 The first three spots I worked myself into I was plagued by Crayfish very quickly, two of which I nearly swung in! Knowing that Crayfish were present and very active I felt that there wasn't any Chub or Barbel present so I opted to move every 20-30mins. From experience if there is big fish activity then the Crayfish don't tend to be as bold therefore the crayfish activity isn't there and those are the spots I tend to spend more time in as I think there is a chance of a Barbel or Chub.

 As the hours ticked by I moved around to some very nice looking areas but the same outcome was faced, however as the daylight waned I had high hopes of a bite come dusk but even then my rod was motionless and around 10pm I packed up and headed home as I had work the following morning. Another blank.

 Oh, and I nearly got stampeded by these bloody retards, quicker they end up as burgers and steaks the better. Only just made it through that gate and coupled the heavy duty caribeana to link the gates, nearly shat myself and I really backed myself to get to the gate before them, threw my gear into the field as I scrambled the gate shut. F*CK.

Yuk, bloody hate cows!

Blackwater Returns.

 

 Throughout my teenage years I spent many thousands of hours targeting Barbel in low gin clear rivers and really hammered home my love for fishing stealthily, so when I do make those journeys back to the Blackwater in search of a double figure Barbel its like going back 20+ years to those days of my well-spent youth.

 Last week I restarted my 40 Rivers Challenge on the diminutive Blackwater in search of a fish a pound bigger than what I have previously managed (9lb 1oz), now I haven't seen anything bigger than that, in fact I have seen very little for that matter, part of that maybe due to the fact in the summer it is heavily choked with ribbon weed and ranunculus so there is plenty of room to hide, but also I am not entirely sure the stocks are vast, in fact I do feel I am searching for isolated pockets of fish across a few miles of river.

 It really is a difficult conundrum to solve as I can't tell most of the time whether I'm in the right place or not! Last Wednesday I spent 12hrs down there, roving around and then static fishing toward the evening in a spot that looked like it should be holding Barbel but I left at nearly 11pm without a touch.

 Fast forward to yesterday. I had a few jobs booked in in the morning and had the roving gear in the motor, so when I finished in West London I shot out to Berkshire to try my hand once again at a Blackwater Barbel, or maybe just a fish! to get the confidence up a little bit. After a nights rain I thought the river would be a poor state but it wasn't too bad and I could still sight fish, but only just as the humidity was soooooooo bad that I couldn't regulate my body temp at times and sweated from pores I didn't even I know I had! So there were times I couldn't see into the water given the glare.

 Now, sometimes the Barbel can give you a little hint as to where they are and when one randomly flashes on a set of narrow gravels the radar kicks into gear very quickly and once I saw one I saw five! Over the next couple of hours I managed to catch two of them both of which were around the 5lb mark and those that I saw remaining on the gravels were of similar size, that double still elusive, I spent a couple more hours wandering around trying to find something a bit bigger but found nothing other than a few Pike, one of which was certainly a double, just hanging off the back of small Chub and Roach.

1st Barbel

2nd Barbel marginally bigger.

 It was great to finally catch another Barbel off the Blackwater but really need to find more prolific grounds, not sure I'm where I need to, or am I in the right place and the bigger fish just aren't showing themselves.. only time will tell.

Jungle warfare Barbel ready to go back.