After spending 2 weeks fishing for mahseer in India I got back home just in time for 4 days at work before I got a chance to fish the last 2 days of the river season. Leaving off work at around 6am I took a leisurely drive to Worcestershire full of hope and anticipation of a few barbel before the enforced lay-off. By the time I finally got on the bank it was around 2 in the afternoon my chosen swim was empty, surprisingly for such a pleasant spring afternoon there wasn't a soul about I could have had any peg on the river. Deciding on a pellet hook-bait fished along side a feeder full of the best barbel ground-bait bar none Hemp and Hali crush, I cast into a mid river crease created by a sunken tree and awaited some action.
Radio five live playing quietly in the background to keep abreast of the football news and listening and watching the birds as they went about their spring routines it only needed a barbel to make a perfect afternoon, when the rod first nodded then hooped over I was not surprised to feel the power and surging run of a well hooked barbel. Being very superstitious I am always a little worried when I use a rod for the first time is it going to be a lucky rod, this one looked like it could well be. Having been involved with the development of a new rod its always rewarding to see and used the finished product and I was well impressed how the Precision Specialist was handling a good sized barbel.
Fish returned and a cup of tea poured it was nice to be out on the bank all be it quite a chilly afternoon and far from the 30 degree heat of india that I had left only a few days before. The rest of the afternoon passed by with little activity, by all accounts the Severn had been a tough nut to crack all winter and the last few days had not produced many barbel either, so with a decent fish returned the thought of a couple of beers and chicken and chips were high on my list when the rod tip banged hard and the free-spool on my KXi yielded line to a hooked fish. I struck and set the hook and it soon became obvious I was into a sizeable fish, the silky smooth clutch on the KXi reels are some of the best I have used, being front drag they really are so much smother than rear drag reels and when playing big fish like barbel its important to have that smoothness of action or fish will be lost. First sight of the fish had me thinking it was one of those elusive doubles from the middle severn, the scales told me different thou, but at 9lb11oz still a good fish, had it been a milder winter it would have been well into doubles but 3 months of little feeding activity meant the fish lacked a good meal or two.
The next day saw me back in the same swim, this time with a different approach, I thought I would give maggot a go for a couple of hours then switch to pellet if it failed. Fishing a block end feeder I fed a steady flow of maggot with a couple of juicy fat ones on a 16 hook, attached to about a metre of .19mm Preston Powerline. The steady flow of maggots soon got the chublets and dace going before all went quiet for ten minutes or so before a decent wrap on the tip and the result a hooked barbel, not a big fish but at about 5lb I was more than happy. Maggot didn't produce any more fish so I changed to the pellet with a single Sonubait 8mm “O” on the hook and plenty of Hemp and Hali in the feeder. I managed one barbel on the pellet before packing in, to be honest I had planned to stay out until midnight but with the net frozen to the ground before dark I couldn't see the point. I closed the curtain on another successful barbel campaign, landing just short of 300 in the season from 9 different rivers and 3 different countries with plenty of good fish in the book, including a new Dutch record.
Reports from a local lake that plenty of bream were being caught with some near doubles among them had me joining good mate Andy Flint on a trip to see if we could bag a few. Settling for a relaxed approach I set up a pair of rods rigged up with inline method feeders used in conjunction with the quick release method mould from Preston.
On arrival at the water on Andy's advice I set up in an area of open water where the bream had been shoaling up over the previous few weeks. Using a large open ended feeder I fed a dozen or so casts of a mixture of Supercrush F1 and Supercarp method mix, laced with plenty of sweetcorn and casters. Whilst the free offering were doing their bit I set up the method rods with a short hook link of around 4 inches.
Andy was into fish from the off whilst it took me a bit longer to get them going, but once they started they got their heads down and a steady stream of bream up to 6lb kept us busy. Andy fished match style using a single rod and watching a quiver for bites, I preferred the two rod approach fished in conjunction with a couple of bite alarms. Packing in around 4pm Andy had had the better day and put back close to 100lb of cracking bream, I wasn't too disappointed at my 14 fish thou and with 3 or 4 of them pushing 7lb I wasn't complaining.
With the next few weeks looking pretty hectic with plenty to do I need to get organised or I will not be ready for a planned trip to Holland and Germany in early May to fish with Dutch specialist Frans Vogels. The target again this year will be to catch plenty of those big Dutch barbel as well as the big ide that give such good sport. Watch this space for details of how the preparation for the trip progresses and what else I have been up to.
