River Loddon Double, That's A Wrap!!

 

 What can I say! This was one hard earned fish and over the frigging moon to have finally achieved my Loddon double, in fact I just wanted a Barbel, just to prove to myself that a can still catch them. Even when you are getting bites at least you have a sense of confidence that it just might happen, but I didn't have a single bite across "Eight" entire trips and had to wait 13 hours for my bite yesterday.

 Rewind a little back to Wednesday evening, I finished work and had dinner with the mrs and kids, then loaded up before making the 62 mile journey to the banks of what was a real thorn in my side. The Loddon has a reputation for being a very difficult river anyway, but the last 3-4 years catches have tailed off enormously and anglers are blanking for Barbel for entire seasons, I know how that feels!

Ready and waiting.

 With a closed season behind me and enough time elapsed since my last visit here I went with a new sense of hope and oddly I felt that it was going to happen, don't ask me why, sometimes you get that gut feeling and have to act on it. I arrived at the river around dusk and got a march on to the river which is quite a wander, once finally into my first cutout I got the rods out and the plan was to sit and wait with my traps out for a Loddon ghost.

 Not long after the rods went out the rain began to fall and very quickly found myself hunkered down under my brolly ( Drennan Specialist Brolly 50" version ), all I needed was a fish but the hours ticked by and soon enough I had moved, dawn had come and gone with nothing more than the odd Crayfish nibble. 

The first Buff Tip moth I've seen, joining me under the brolly,
along with a bit of subtle advertisement.

 With thick cloud still lingering I crept into swim number five. I got both rods out and sat back, breaking little twigs and flicking them in the river, then out of nowhere I noticed a couple of bangs on the rod tip! It had only took me 9 visits for that, which I thought was a very Barbel looking bite, experience told me to keep myself ready.

 A few minutes later my phone pinged with an email from a client and I was half way through responding when my rod savagely ripped around, there it was! Straightaway I could feel the weight on the end, but she wasn't doing much, slowly heading upstream hugging the bottom, all the hallmarks of a big fish. My impatience was getting the better of me having not seen a fish on this river for over a season! So I wound down hard to get the fish up and a few seconds later the frame of a good fish came up and rolled on the surface before powering off up river then straight down to where I hooked it, it was a bloody Barbel!!!

 Seeing it did my heart rate no favours, now I knew what I could lose! 

 Thankfully there was to be no bitter ending, on the second attempt I slipped the net under the frame of a good Barbel and was not sure if it was a double, upon lifting it out the river it was a lot heavier than it looked and that was the key factor in my 19th river of my challenge being completed! 

I punched the air in celebration and utter relief it has to be said, I got on the phone to Brian whilst she was still in the net recovering from her exertions, GET IN!!!

My River Loddon double - 10lbs 7oz.

  

 A magnificent fish that took a lot of effort to catch, above is a shot of her going back into her world obscurity. I was also smiling, the nettles up my arse were bloody uncomfortable! I am elated more than you could imagine!

 Now that's all done, here are some numbers behind my quest for a Loddon double.

 I embarked on 9 trips (mainly nights between work, across different conditions), spent 102hrs fishing, drove 1116 miles in search for 1 double figure fish, in the end I got ONE bite, ONE fish and it was my target! I had a sneaky feeling if I hooked and landed a Barbel it would be a double, it was just a case of finding a fish. 

That. Will. Do. River number 20, I'm coming for you :)

Chub Video - YouTube.

 I shall start by wishing all my readers a very merry Christmas and a prosperous 2023 which hopefully will be filled with fun, good memories and more importantly plenty of rod bending experiences!

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 I haven't been on here much of late, to tell the truth I have barely been out fishing as life has dominated proceedings. Money making and family (rightly so) taking up most of my time, but once Christmas is done I will be looking to head out for Roach in the cooler conditions and when it warms up the Barbel will be back on the radar.

 Around 2 months ago I was approached by Drennan International who asked me whether I would like to do some filming and I jumped at the chance, working with Drennan? Yes please. So I organised a date and a time to meet and early December it was shoot day. Chub were the target, on the centrepin and float.

 The video can be found here ------)

 Now this was the first time I had ever been in front of a camera and found it a rather odd experience but felt that it came out well, Laurence, who is fishing fanatic himself was behind the camera capturing some pukka moments and felt coupled with some obliging Chub made for content to do a video. This is always a fear if the fish aren't playing the script, luckily I knew the pegs I choose would provide some decent sport. 

 The bigger fish did elude us but you can't have it all. Seeing some Barbel was also great as there aren't many in this particular tributary so I will be back for them come January. 

 Hopefully in the new year there will be some good news and kick off 2023 in a positive manner.

 Even though fishing trips have been lean since October the odd venture to the Loddon has been undertaken with nothing more than a nibble from the pre-hibernating Crayfish. I will get my Loddon one day....6 sessions down, 57 hrs and not one single bite. Tough old cookie.

Making Me Work.

 

 As expected when fishing down on the lower stock southern rivers I am suffering from a dose of the blanks, left the banks of the R.Taff with a double under my belt and full of confidence, to only blank on the Itchen for 48hrs! then blanked on the Loddon a week or so back too.

 Sunday evening I had planned to head back to the Loddon to try and get myself river number 18 chalked off. I know the Loddon is a tough nut to crack and seem to have a few of these "tough ones" on retainer, what with the Itchen, Sussex Rother, Kentish Stour, ColnBrook and Loddon all taking up a decent amount of time with very very little to show for it.

 When I arrived at the top of the river it became very clear very quickly that it was high, the fields were reminiscent of an inland sea! Somehow I picked my way to the river on the tufts of grass that were slightly elevated than the rest, the question was, was it a good idea? I couldn't tell if it was rising still, however the conditions were far too good to pass up on and carried on with my plan, just needed to make sure I could still get back to car which was a good ¾ of a mile, my boots were really getting put to the test. As a side note I could still exit the field at the bottom of the section (another ¼ further down so a mile back to the car! so I wasn't any danger, just wet and cold feet! 

 When I arrived I took the water temp which registered at 14c which I was amazed at. With the added flow it did limit where the Barbel may be, you'd have thought the conditions were perfect, I fished one rod upstream on meat and the downstream rod with boilee wrapped in paste, the plan was to wait it out in each swim, typically about two hours to allow fish in the general area to locate the smell/scent and get acquainted with me. The first 6hrs! yes six hours passed by without incident and was just about to move for the third time (I spent longer in both swims just in case) when a huge Otter passed me going upstream when a huge bow wave came from under my bank, which I can only assume was a Pike ( which was big ) bolted from under my feet going downstream as the Otter continued on, the fish that spooked was very big and made almighty noise and disturbance, oddly old Tarka just going, hopefully loaded up on crayfish!

 For me the next two moves yielded nothing either and of course, by the end of the trip (around 7am) I had blanked. I can't say I'm surprised and since then I paid another 10hr visit to the river on Friday (11th Nov) overnight where river levels had come down around 4ft but still good colour with a temp of 13.1c so it had dropped around a degree in a week. Thats my fourth trip this season to Loddon now and I haven't had a bite, even a small Chub wouldn't go amiss now and again! 

Another night under the stars...
I did think it was in focus!

All About Balance.

 

 Something in modern day angling that isn't mentioned much is the trails and tribulations that are involved in a quest like what I am embarking on. The 1000's of miles travelled, zig zagging across the country in search of Barbel and of course other species, this blog is keeping with Barbel in mind.

 I haven't been out many times this season but when I have been out they have been in blocks of two to four days, with the odd night thrown in for good measure. Conditions this season have been patchy at best, rivers running on bare bones with sluggish flows and dense weed growth owing to the superb summer we had. When I have been out successes have been had as I am sure you aware if you read my blog on a regular basis, but its the blank sessions that people rarely speak of, for what reasons I don't know but that sense of balance has to be struck and gives a true reflection on numbers behind the successes.

 A few of the rivers I have targeted this season have been nothing short of incredible. However, the likes of the R.Rother, Itchen, Loddon and Kentish Stour (Great Stour) have been a real challenge. Fish spotting on the Rother isn't really possible owing to its colour throughout the year, finding the fish is hard owing to the masses of features.

 The Itchen so far has consumed a fair wedge of time, over 7 trips and 91 hours spent without a bite, but the other day that very very nearly changed as I had a large Barbel which had to be 14lb+ mopping up 6mm pellet that I was feeding but owing to the snags I could not get the Barbel to come further out the cover, the sight of the gills puffing out sediment whilst it was clearly seen crunching food was exhilarating, but after 10 minutes she slowly dropped down the run and out of sight, I was gutted to say the least when it dawned on me she weren't coming back up. 

Sunrise over the Itchen on Saturday morning.

 That is definitely the closest I've come to tempting one on the Itchen, the same certainly can not be said for the Kentish Stour as I recently racked up my tenth blank on the spin as I seek one of the unicorns that I know exist, 65hrs spent searching and hoping over that 10 trips something would come my way. The only thing is the Chub on the KS seem to be a little more obliging than on some of the other rivers so when things aren't quite going my way I have been catching fish and not to the detriment of the Barbel fishing, I don't think I'm close to getting one soon either but I'll keep going and hope one day that final piece of the jigsaw will snap into position.

The Great Stour at sunrise.

 The Loddon and S.Rother to be fair haven't had a proper crack of the whip and as conditions start to improve these rivers will come into their own and catching Barbel becomes more likely but trips out in summer months to take in all the sites and learn the sections will no doubt serve me well on what are notoriously difficult rivers with small stocks of big fish. So far on the Loddon two trips have taken up 25hrs of fishing and the S.Rother three trips totalling 35hrs, its clear plenty more blanks will be needed before successes will be tasted but I knew this would be the case when I started this quest back in October 2020.

A very low S.Rother in the summer.

 Now to just drive home the numbers for my efforts since October 2020 I have blanked 70 times in 93 trips in this 2 year period, so when I do catch it very slightly shines a better light on the overall figure that will one day read, 40 doubles out of 40 rivers! But the figure that does look pretty good is that over that 93 trips my sessions to doubles ratio is currently at 5.47, that does certainly make for better reading.

 I love the sense of adventure and know it won't be easy but I am enjoying it enormously, here's to river number 18! Hopefully it falls sooner rather than later.