Short session barbel stalking on the Derwent

Wednesday the 8th of August

With my angling mojo now well and truly restored I was always going to be back at the river as soon as possible, with maybe ten miles of bank to explore I felt the need to wander pastures new to me and Leo kindly pointed me in the direction of an area that sounded just the ticket.

With the days work done I shot off up the motorway a couple of junctions and then battled the rush hour traffic on the narrow lanes heading towards the area, after a brief diversion thanks to Leo confusing his left with his right leading me to turn into a field of horses I found the car park and headed for the river. It didn't take me long to realise that I hadn't learnt much from the previous trip and for some reason was still carrying far too much kit, the problem was compounded by the fact that this area obviously doesn't see much traffic and was very overgrown, what an idiot. I battled on through nettles, thistles and swathes of himalayan balsam with its strange and almost intoxicating perfume until I reached what was obviously the swim Leo had described to me, a big snag just above a shallow run with good visibility right under the bank, perfect.

There's nothing I love more than watching fish on the bait, I find it totally mesmerizing to the extent that I often don't actually feel too disapointed if I don't catch one, just watching them is a pleasure. Before I'd even put any bait in on the shallow marginal area I saw a couple of barbel and that made setting up just that bit more frantic. With a huge snag a matter of feet away it was to be proper take no prisoners style fishing and so the assembled rig was hooked into my rucksack zip puller while I walked back ten yards and gave the rod full compression, setting the clutch to only just start to slip with extreme pressure on. The bank was way above the water with only a narrow ledge on which to perch in order to net fish, this could be interesting.

A small pva mesh bag of pellet was hooked onto the rig and out it went in a gentle arc to swing back onto the clay river bed, shortly followed by a dozen larger pellets thrown in upstream to drift down into the area, all set. I sat on the edge of the bank with the rod right next to me and my hand on the reel seet, baitrunner off and ready to hit and hold in an instant. Ten minutes or so was spent watching the fish come and go and then the rod tip plunged towards the river only to be stopped mid flight by me trying to point it at the sky, we compromised half way and battle commenced. Now this is my kind of fishing, pure adrenaline, as I slipped down the near vertical bank towards that ledge the barbel tried to speed me up and it was all I could do to lean back and remain dry while the rod held its full curve and the fish plunged away into the depths, absolutely brilliant. With little line between rod and fish the fight was carried out right in front of me and I could see every twist and turn as she made for freedom and failed, then holding her ground in the flow just off the marginal ledge until I judged that enough energy had been used as to make it safe for me to draw her upstream slightly, towards the snag, in order to get the net into some slightly slower water where I scooped her up.

A brief breather for both fish and angler was in order before I hauled us both up the cliff to the grassy bank. The scales gave her 8lb 4oz's, almost irrelevant really as the fun factor was way above that.

 With so much disturbance in the swim I decided to leave it at that point and head off downstream for a look, a sensible idea would have been to hide the tackle away somewhere and travel light but of course I didn't do that and after probably the best part of an hour spent negotiating dense scrub of all varieties in sweltering heat I was back at the car park having learnt little except that I was a few cards short of a deck and quite possible a few pounds lighter.

Thursday the 9th of August

Well like I said I do love my sight fishing and I just couldn't resist a bit more of that hit and hold stuff so I was back in the same swim once I had cleared the days work out of the way. This time I had made the sensible choice of travelling light and what a breath of fresh air that was.

I can't cut a long story short as it was a short story to begin with, rig out and within two minutes at the most I was once again locked in a proper arm wrenching battle. This one was a tad bigger at 9lb 4oz's.

I guess in total I spent fifteen minutes in the swim at the most, it took me longer to walk there and back. I drove upstream a few miles to have a look at another stretch new to me and spent two or three hours fishing resulting in one fish lost to an unseen snag, not a good result but at least I know where that danger lies for future trips.