Spring Carping: Part Five, Not All Monsters.

 Having been amongst the twenty pound plus carp early doors its encouraging that the fishing is going in the right direction. Close to home I have a small lake that I drop into now and again on my way back from work, nothing big in there but it's a bit of fun and thats what fishing is really about. Targets/challenges are great to give you focus but this is where the kid in me shows through.

 A little light sport and not too long after arriving in the late afternoon I had this pukka little common, possibly 7/8lb and on the 15ft float rod with centrepin I enjoyed every second of the fight.

 Roughly half an hour later this punk of a ghost common carp offered itself up for a fight so I obliged and glad I did! Roughly 14lb and fat as butter I posed happily.

 Carp fishing and indeed all fishing doesn't have to be chasing monsters (all the time). Yes I know I do most of the time so I won't be a hypocrite, but to purposefully target smaller fish is good for the mind and offers itself as a reset if you like. Time to get back out for the bigger ones again :),

Pretty Little Mirror's

 Recently my fishing hasn't gone down the route of specimen hunting as I have a few trips planned for my summer targets of Rudd and Bream, so I spent some time doing some more trotting and catching good quantities of Roach and Chub with a couple of Barbel spoiling the party on 3lb line which was very enjoyable, plus a couple of evening trips to North London in search of Bream and Carp with varied success on the Carp front and the Bream not showing full stop.

 A crazy moment also on the river as I managed a Koi on 3lb line of roughly 4-5lbs in great condition, certainly not a native but good to see all the same managing so well in what can be a tough environment, especially come the winter.

Spring Rolling and Roving.

 After the recent sessions on the Great Ouse and on some of my more local rivers in the south of England and not really catching many of my targets I decided to do go fishing for a different species that I haven't targeted very much over the last couple of months, this year so far I've had a Barbel from the two tributary's of the Thames and also the Thames itself with the biggest at 11lbs 9ozs, so with a good start to the year and with the season coming to an abrupt close I needed to get out for a session of light roving.

 Normally Sunday's is the one day that is strictly used to spend time with my girlfriend but today I decided to head out early so I could get over to central London at a decent time, my plan was simple, start at the top of the beat and walk down to the bottom, today's bait was a few cubes of meat and half a loaf of bread.

 The session started off well on my first cast and rolling I managed to snag up on some submerged debris and lost my hook and my last 2ssg shot, great start!, so I tackled up again and carried on rolling but no joy, the next swim down I found a couple of fish one being a big Chub which was sat side by side with a Barbel of about 9lb, needless to say I cast out and the Chub ignored it and the Barbel nailed it, I managed to bump it, where it must have just hit the bait rather than swallowing it.

 One failed attempt, I moved down further where I was scanning the river bed in the bright sunlight which was illuminating the bottom showing almost everything and that also included a Carp that was laying up behind a fallen tree, where the river was so clear I had to stalk the Carp for a little while and remain very low it surely would have spooked, I flicked a few bits of bread out in the water held up behind the tree and watched them swirl around the eddy, where the Carp started looking at one and then hoovered one up and quickly chased the rest down and ate them too, all the while I was getting more confident that I'd catch it, so I cast out about 4 foot in front of it and it gained that distance in a matter of seconds and sucked up my bait, the fight that ensued was typical of a river Carp with a crazed scrap and charging around aimlessly for about 3 minutes, after tiring it out I slipped a lovely Koi Mirror Carp into the net.

6lb 3oz of solid river Carp albeit not native.

 A lovely Carp but not a Barbel, so I decided to head down river and keep trying, with the knowledge that I have of my local rivers I did get the opportunity to catch a Barbel when I found a shoal of them laying up on a gravel run, on my second roll through I got a pluck on my finger and I struck, Barbel on but I had to try and draw it away from the shoal so it didn't spook the remainder of the fish, for once a Barbel did exactly what I wanted and it charged up river and frolicked around until it came in.

5lb 5ozs, not a beast but a good fight all the same.

 After releasing the fish which spent 5 minutes recouping, I sat back and watched the Barbel feeding on the gravels for about 20 minutes whilst I waited for them to regain a bit of confidence, when I felt the time was right I cast back out and within 30 seconds my rod slammed over and I was in again, the waiting paid it's dividends, this Barbel felt a lot bigger and when it came up river closer to me I saw it was a bigger but not a large one, ie: a double. A couple of minutes later I banked a pristine 8lb 10oz Barbel, a couple of photo's aswell for a good fish, my first over 5lb for a few weeks.

A real winter powerhouse.

 My targets for the remainder of the season will be hopefully some Roach and maybe even find some Thames Bream and try to bag up on them as March is always a good month for them to feed in mass.

Off on the trots.

 With the impending freezing cold weather on course to hit us on Sunday onwards I had to get a session in, so Friday night I packed my gear ready for an early start on the river this morning, with the constant light rain the river was up slightly and a bit coloured.

 My tactic today was to trot maggot and bread for anything that fancied feeding, early part of the session I drew a blank and I didn't get my first enquiry until 2 hours into the day when I landed a small Chub around a pound which was quickly followed by a nice Dace of about 6ozs, then all went quiet again.

 After the two fish the swim died a death so I had to move on down river looking for more fish, but I didn't have a dead Barbel in mind which was unfortunately what I saw on the river bed in a back stream around a pound n alf, never good to see dead fish but I guess it was of natural causes rather than angler error, it wasn't too long until I found some more fish, 3 Carp and a couple of Barbel were cruising around and I put a bait out right in front of them and the float slid away with what I thought was one of the Carp ended up being a Barbel of around 4lb if not a little larger but unfortunately wangled free of my hook thus spooking everything else off.

 10 minutes later I had this lovely Chub on the bank. 4lbs 2oz.

 But the most interesting part of the session was coming up, with what seemed to be an attempt to catch a white Koi Carp of maybe 3lb, so I had got into position creeping very slowly and close to the ground to keeping a low profile not to alert the fish but I only saw one Carp laying up close to some debris, so I prepared everything and cast about 15 foot above it's position and let it trot in front of it, but the bait passed the target and no touch and could visibliy see the fish and then my float buried itself and I struck, then all hell broke loose, a large Mirror Carp had slipped the radar and nailed my tasty morsel with my very light tackle I quickly found myself in a spot of bother, lucky I was on a stretch that was fairly clear so I could grab the gear and follow it down river as I couldn't battle it back up river as it was far too powerful on 4.7lb line and a size 14 barbless hook not to mention a very light match rod designed for Roach and Dace.

 Surprise..... this definitely was after a hard fought fight and after 5 minutes I slipped my net under what has to be one of the biggest surprises of the season. An extremely fat almost leather Mirror Carp that weighed..

...13lbs 12ozs of pure power and obesity.

 Well I certainly didn't wake up this morning thinking that could be on the cards so, very chuffed to say the least and she went back as if nothing happened soaking my jeans in the process, later on in the session I did also manage two Brown Trout both about 8ozs, both of which decided to leap back for the river without a piccy, plus I got my obligatory Barbel that weighed 3lbs on the nose.

Just have to have one a session almost my birthright.

Jungle Warfare Part One

Yesterday I set out in the vein hope that I would'nt get too wet and was on the hunt of a Barbel or two, the last outing that I had in search of Barbel did'nt exactly go to plan due to the fact that shoals of them still had'nt finished spawning, so they had other things on their mind rather than putting a bend in my rod and playing the game.

 I decided to try a few spots that have'nt been fished for in a while maybe even this season due to the amount of hymalian balsam that's towering over the banks and I started with my usual tactic to persuade a fish and ended up spending another hour doing the same thing with no enquiries. I was starting to think that the Barbel were still not on the feed and was becoming quite fustrating that I could see them but they were'nt picking up.

 After moving down stream a little bit I bumped into a couple of Carp both Koi's, one pearly white Common and one multi coloured Common, first cast and I hooked into the white one which gave me a proper scrap taking me through the ribbon weed and burying itself amongst it, but it was no match for me and it was in the net. Last season I tryed a few times to catch this one.

4lbs 10oz

 So not what I was after but the Barbel fishing was proving to be difficult, this was a welcome net wetter and apparanlty enjoyed its photo shoot aswell, behaving really well for a Common Carp. With the water still with a bit of colour I moved down stream to the lower reaches that don't get fished as much and was alot more overgrown aswell so I bullied my way through the dense vegetation and set myself up at about midday in a very swift part of the river and out went a bottom bait just holding bottom with the flow just occasionally kicking it up in the water to hopefully be seen by a Barbel as this spot seemed to have all the perfect Barbel swim attributes, overhanging trees, swift deepish water and tons of gravel and weed to hide in and not before too long I got my first take in the swim and it was no doubt a Barbel immediately, with a powerful take downstream I had my work cut out and the gear was put to the maximum in the fast water, my gear being a grey's prodigy TX float specialist 11ft and a shimano exage 4000 loaded with 6lb diawa sensor, this sort of gear on this river is great fun and within 6 or 7 minutes my first decent Barbel of the season was on the bank.

A pristine 8lbs 1oz Barbel (spawned out)

With that swim now well and truly battered I moved up river a few meters and crept through the 8ft high stinging nettles to get to the river (reminded me of a scene from predator 1) and again the new swim also had the same sort of features but the only difference was it was deeper and the flow was more powerful in the inside edge so I put my bait out on the edge of the fast water and as my bait touched the bottom my rod ripped around and I was in straight away to a Barbel not a big one but big enough to tear through the water with consummate ease but without the engine to match and within a couple of minutes I landed another Barbel at 4lbs 4oz, with that gone back in downstream to try and preserve the swim, I cast back out in the same spot and I did'nt get a touch for another 15 minutes but then out of the blue like a lightning strike my rod slammed around and I thought I hooked the bottom, this definately was a good fish and all I could do was hold on as I could'nt gain any line on it, this was fighting very hard and staying low to the bottom, it was using every bit of depth available to it, about half way through the fight I had to wedge the rod between my hip and elbow against my side so I could give my wrist a brief respite, 2 minutes later she came up off the bottom and I was surprised not to see a double because it faught like one, but was still a cracking fish which weighed 8lbs 3oz, another 8lb+ Barbel very nice.



So happy to be catching them!

Another brilliant Barbel and another move after releasing her fighting fit, by which time Brian had appeared whilst I was fishing upstream and decided to hang around with me for a while, whilst we talked I had a bait out in one of the more popular swims on the river and after about 3 last casts I did finally get a take of a Barbel and with a spirited fight put up I managed to land Barbel number 4 of the day at 5lbs 11oz another welcome fish, a far cry from last weekends effort!

ps. cheers Brian for taking the piccy! (thumbs up)

What's more the rain did'nt materise either, just imagine if I had taken notice of the weather forecast and decided not to go out. All that fun would have been missed out on.