River Soar barbel, small river big fish

Ok so its taken me the best part of six weeks to set the blog up as I want it for one reason or another, my initial intention was to start my diary at the beginning of a little barbel campaign and luckily I kept some notes so I shall back date a little and catch up as soon as I can

Tuesday the 25th of October
This summer I did a reasonable amount of barbel fishing for the first time in a several years, the low water conditions although worrying in the long term made for some great stalking which is one of my favourite methods, what can be more exciting than watching fish on your bait? My health has been less than good since the start of the season and so sessions were fitted in when I felt well enough with no particular plan followed but I was fortunate enough to take a new personal best of 12lb 2oz back in July which was very welcome. With autumn upon us I decided to have a mini campaign before my thoughts moved on to other species. I decided that a bit of baiting up was the way that I wanted to play this one, this required an area that was fairly easy to access as I intended to bait it daily but also somewhere that was unlikely to attract the attention of other anglers. I settled on a couple of swims on a stretch that I hadn't caught barbel from before but which was next to a known barbel area with the hope of drawing fish in. I started to introduce 50 15mm boilies into each swim each day as close as possible to midday for consistency, a bit of crafty work to dodge past anglers on the popular stretch was required at times but no one was seen in the area I was interested in fortunately.

Tuesday the 1st of November
My first session on the baited swims, I always find this to be a slightly nervous experience, a lot of effort had gone in over the last week but would it pay off or make a fool of me? Even if I blanked I had no intention of abandoning the plan so soon, I had to keep at it for a week or so to prove one way or another if they were there.

I arrived at the first of the two baited swims after work at about 4.30pm and swung out two baited rigs each with a pva stick containing a few crushed boilies, I'm a great fan of pva for barbel and rarely fish without it. Sitting well back from the swim I settled in to sweat it out and twiddle my thumbs, if it wasn't such close range fishing I would have been best employed pacing the bank and wiping my brow which may well have reduced the tension slightly but I was destined to suffer for a while, well about an hour anyway.

5.30 pm and the downstream of my two rods is away and on picking it up it was apparent that it was the species I wanted, phew that was a weight from my shoulders! The swim wasn't very deep at all and prompted quite a spectacular fight, I find that I enjoy barbel fights more than that of most other species which I put down to the fact that the hook hold is almost always rock solid, in fact dare I say that I have yet to have a hook pull from a barbel fishing in this style, famous last words eh! In the net she went and it was a decent fish for the river, although it does hold a good number of doubles nowadays I still say that 10lb plus is my target weight and this one scraped past that mark by 4oz's, it was also crapping out bait as I did the photo's, mission acomplished!

I dropped the rod back out with another little stick attached, turned around and found that I had visitors in a herd of bullocks, not much to worry about there but gradually they worked their way down into the swim until I was surrounded and feared for the safety of my rods, I suppose I should have noticed the amount of muck in the swim over the last week but didn't, it turned out that this was their favourite spot to spend the night! I couldn't fish on in comfort like that and so I upped sticks and moved 50 yards downstream to my other baited area. I fished that swim until 8.30 pm with two chub to show for it, as a rule I tend to move after hooking one chub due to the disturbance caused so after number two I decided to call it a night, dropping a few baits into each swim before heading for home.


Wednesday the 2nd of November
I managed to pull a swift one and get away from work early arriving at the river for midday though I had to be away before dark, I headed straight for the first swim again, this time the bait came almost instantly, again to the downstream rod and blow me if it wasn't another double at 10lb 8oz's which again was crapping bait out, you have to love it when a plan comes together.

I moved straight down to the second swim but again was pestered by chub, it was obvious that they were resident in that swim in numbers and I decided that I would stop baiting it and concentrate on the first spot. I intended to move back upstream but found that another angler was setting up within view of the area and with a good fish already under my belt I saw no reason to risk blowing the swim and so called it a day.

Thursday the 3rd of November
Back to the swim at 5pm and no sign of the bullocks as yet thankfully! At around 6.30 a chub snaffled the bait on the upstream rod, the first action on that rod so far, 5 minutes later and the other rod is off and a barbel of about 5lb was landed followed by another of about 7lb's an hour later after which I packed up still having not seen a bullock, must have been a one off I thought.

Friday the 4th of November
Early finish at work and down to the river for midday, amazingly we'd actually had a drop of rain at long last and the river was on its bway up though not by any great amount, neverthe less it was carrying debris which was a bit of a nuisance. My hopes of a bullock free swim lasted for all of half an hour this time and I eventually came to the conclusion that it was time to move. After a bit of a brain storm I decided on an area a few miles downstream that gets little angling pressure but that i've always fancied for a barbel or two. Of course nothing turns out to be that simple and as I headed back to the van I found that the farmer had just released a bull into the field by the road and it wasn't a happy chappy, storming around the field bellowing and stomping the ground. Now I may well have been fine walking through past it but laden down with tackle and trying to escape a couple of tons of bull isn't my idea of fun and so I retreated and made a far too long diversion through a further two fields and over a far too high and vicious barbed wire fence before making my escape! At the new area despite fishing the most perfect looking barbel swim you could wish to find the rod tips didn't move all day and I left for home cursing the cattle and vowing to find a way of deterring them.

Monday the 7th of November
I had kept up the daily baiting routine, by now approaching two weeks of bait every day, the swim must be crawling with barbel! This time I went equipped with an umbrella to block one entry route into the swim and a long length of rope to fix across the other. I arrived an hour or so before dark and put the plan into action while getting rained on quite heavily, a very rare occurence in this years fishing but one I was very pleased to experience, the river was still just as low and clear as it had been all summer with the previous weeks rain showing nothing more than a small rise and fall that was gone in a day.

With the rods out I settled under the brolly expecting the rods to show some signs at any minute, the only sign I got was the rasping of a great big tongue on the back of the brolly! Sticking my head out I was surrounded yet again, the new anti cow measures just provoking more interest in the daft things, the rope was licked until it came away from the fence post it was tied to and they then started trying to push past the brolly, aaaaaaagh! Enough was enough, it was dark, tipping it down and rush hour, I couldn't stop where I was so I either gave up and went home or bit the bullet and moved, so I moved. I was in no mood for pioneering and decided on a stretch that I knew quite well from my summer exploits a few miles upstream.

Not surprisingly there was no one else in the fishery car park so at least I knew I had the choice of swims even if it did mean a mile or so's walk in the rain but you can't can't catch them at home and I sometimes find that at times like this my stubborn side is unleashed and I become more determined to get on with it.
I dropped into my favourite spot which is a raised bank with a good 6ft slope down to the water, in the conditions that had turned into a 6ft mud slide, I set up camp at the top of the bank but to cast and land fish I would need to get down to the bottom, getting down was easy but less than clean, getting back up required a bankstick to be dug in in order to pull against, do you sometimes get the feeling that things are stacked against you?

Anyway the rods were finally placed and I sat back under the brolly shaking my head and mumbling incoherently, luckily no one with any sense whatsoever would be within miles and so the men in white coats left me alone. I really didn't hold a great deal of hope to be honest, I was in a swim I'd not fished for months and the days events had started to take their toll. I was telling my tale of woe to a mate on the phone when I had hell of a bite on my upstream rod, the reel was screaching for all it was worth and after hitting into it it carried on out into the river at a similiar pace before beating me up for several minutes in the main flow which was on my side in this swim, without a doubt the best fight I've ever experience from a small river barbel. After netting it I propped the net up at the front of the swim and stuck the rod behind me into a bed of nettles while I sorted myself out. The torch revealed a good fish, definately a double, I clambered up the slope and got out the required bits of kit so as not to keep the fish out of water for any longer than needed, scales out and tripod set up ready. Getting the fish up the slope wasn't the easiest task and I couldn't risk it hitting the ground under any circumstances, I decided that if I started to slip I'd go over onto my back and let the barbel lie on top of me, that would have been a sight to see! Luckily that wasn't needed and I made it the unhooking mat in one piece, unfolding the net I realised that this fish was bigger than I thought and the scales confirmed that at 12lb 15oz,  a new pb and a big old fish for the river indeed.

As is often my way when i've caught something that is very special to me I packed up after taking the photographs, I sometimes feel that I don't want or need to catch anything else I just want to leave it at that and take it all in.

I couldn't really ask for any more than that fish and under the circumstances too, all of the effort of baiting the other area and I catch that one on a one off visit to another area, sometimes payback arrives in the most unexpected way.