Back to the barbel - A tale of three rivers

It's fair to say that over the years I have pretty much ignored barbel during the colder months which is to some extent a bit odd as without a doubt the species is at its very best weight wise once summer is past. The thing is that although I do class myself as a specimen angler weight is not, and never will be, the full story when it comes down to my enjoyment of angling. There is nothing I love more than watching fish feeding around my baited rig, it is angling at its most intense. Throw a beautiful stretch of secluded river and a handful of hard fighting barbel into the equation and you have my kind of barbel fishing, pure heaven. However this year I decided that I would change things and when suitable conditions arrived I would have a crack at a whiskers or two during the colder months. Too many times in the past I've stubbornly ignored what I knew well to be perfect barbel weather as I had my heart set on other species, and after all a break from the routine to try something different makes fishing so much more enjoyable.

Underwater barbel and the realities of big bream fishing

X marks the spot

Back in the autumn of 2013 I received an email from a lad called Jack Perks (check out Jacks website here - click me) who wanted to know if it would be possible to use our club water on the River Soar to film zander underwater. My response was that he could try but I didn't fancy his chances one bit. The species are far from thick on the ground in our area and add the generally low visibility and you have a needle in a haystack scenario. Ok, next question, did I know anywhere suitable for filming barbel? Now we were getting somewhere. One swim on the Derwent in particular came to mind immediately and I would be more than happy to help Jack get the footage he needed. Mother nature then did what she does best and threw in a curve ball, the rains came and the limited window of opportunity before winter set in was lost.

A tale of tench, carp, and brick walls - blog update

Remember the Pringles advert, once you pop you can't stop? Well when you stop blogging it's a right job getting started again. Blimey it's well two months since I put finger to keyboard, a poor show indeed. Truth be known work has been busy and I am also in the process of slowly winding down my gardening business and moving into another enterprise, meanwhile it's a case of balancing the two which is far from easy. Add a few Korum Fish Camp attendances into the equation, other coaching commitments and a considerable amount of time spent on club business, bank maintenance and bailiffing, and in hindsight it's not really a surprise that I fell out of step with my writing. But at the end of the day I do this because I enjoy it and I don't want it to fall by the wayside so let's get back on track. Feel free to give me a good kick if I lapse again!

A chub finale - Derwent days and nights

It's fair to say that I've struggled to keep up with my blog over recent months, mostly down to other commitments but I also find that when I get out of the swing of writing it can be hard to break back into. Hence I have a number of part written blogs sitting on my pc as yet unpublished, including one that was 95% written on an Indian beach way back in January! I keep delaying publishing anything with the idea that I'll do one big catch up to date but that isn't happening any time soon so forgive me for a piece on river fishing dished out smack bang in the middle of the close season.

Big river perch, in fact monster perch!

For the majority of the country's river anglers the winter just gone was incredibly frustrating, I kept telling myself that it was selfish to moan about not being able to fish while elsewhere in the country lives were being ruined by the incessant rain but deep down that didn't help, What compounded things was that my chub fishing had been going really well and I knew that I had located a group of fish that stood a good chance of giving me my target, but I just couldn't put a bait anywhere near them for week after week.

River Derwent chub - on a mission for a monster

I always used to class chub as my favourite species. I think that goes back to my youth when a bonus chub would be the highlight of a days fishing and at that time a good Soar chub would be 2lb plus. I remember well when my Dad caught a monster of over 3lb's several years after we started fishing the river and that really was something pretty special to us. I first cracked the 3lb barrier on the River Wreake near Sysonby, I guess in the mid 1990's, and I was chuffed to bits with that. I can still remember the swim and the drop back bite that showed that my piece of flake had been picked up. That was, in fact, the first time I had ever tried upstream legering, a technique that became a firm favourite years later.

My brother with a typical Soar chub from our childhood

My dad with a Soar monster!

Big Derwent barbel - Jungle warfare

A little earlier in the summer I had been messing about in a swim on the Derwent that holds a lot of barbel but which is a devil to fish, the story of one particular session is here, Barbel stalking The long and short of it is that I can almost guarantee a fish per visit but I have never hooked more than one barbel and despite seeing one or two better fish in amongst the hoards have never had a double figure fish from there. It was on that last session that I got to thinking about an alternative line of attack. To say that the area is overgrown is an understatement and combined with high vertical banks which make fishing impossible along the majority of the stretch it was hard to see what else I could do. But after a bit of thrashing and poking about with a long bankstick I did identify a possible swim from which I could just maybe draw some of those resident fish to me, the problem was that it was somewhere in the region of forty yards upstream from the fish holding feature. Maybe next time I would give it a try.

Barbel stalking - when chub attack!

For a while I had been pondering over a question based on a particular barbel swim that is prime for stalking. The spot is around two to three feet deep under normal conditions and more than a little tight. A big snag lies just upstream and a shallow riffle marks the downstream limit, the fishable water is about eight feet in length I would say. Now the swim is very reliable and I would normally expect to catch a barbel quickly, my question was could I catch more than one from this shallow spot where by its very nature a hooked fish would have to be played out hard right over the baited spot. A more sensible approach would be to fish an area twenty or so yards upstream and draw the fish up, that would reduce the chance of spooking them greatly as they carried out their natural cycle of moving on and off of a baited spot. The thing is I just wanted to try. The upstream swim gives no visibility at all whereas from my spot I could monitor the barbel's reactions and learn from it, not just interesting but absolutely captivating.

River Derwent barbel fishing - double trouble

It seemed that all hope of me leaving the barbel alone this summer had gone out of the window. A few nice fish in the net soon shelved that idea and I was once again captivated by the species. A few days after catching the brace in my last blog and after taking an hour to negotiate the horror that is rush hour traffic I was back in the same swim. Once again "le van" was to be home for the night and I would be up to get to work in the morning. I must say I'm finding the bigger van very useful in that respect. Previously my evening sessions tended to get short by me wanting to get home before 'er indoors was asleep so as not to disturb her, now my only concern is that I make myself go to sleep early enough so as not to feel like death warmed up the next day, a great improvement!

River Derwent barbel - double figure diversion

A week or so into the river season I took a few bits of stalking kit down to a local stretch of the river Soar and spent a couple of hours wandering about. Half a dozen or so spots were baited and observed in turn but I didn't see a whisker of barbel and so the rod was never assembled let alone cast. To some that seems like madness when I could have been in with a chance of a bite just sitting somewhere and fishing blind but sometimes it's the method that appeals to me rather than the result and I do love watching fish on the bait.

Another week or so passed with me having no intention of fishing the river, tench were firmly in priority spot number one. Then I succumbed to a quick session on the Derwent due to getting rained off work. I blanked on the stretch that I first visited but the seed was sown and I couldn't resist nipping to another favourite spot where a whisker of 8 1/2lb's saved the day. Better still I watched the fish hoovering up the free offerings before the rod tip heading downstream at a hundred miles an hour caught my attention.

River perch - when your luck's in

I really fancied getting another session in while the snow was still on the ground but it was a bit of a toss up as to what species and where due to the conditions. In the end I decided on perch but my first choice of venue, the Trent, was a no hoper due to the water level and so I decided on the River Derwent. I bought a new ticket this season that gives you the best part of ten miles of the river to go at but to be honest I've hardly fished it bar a few barbel trips last summer and a few perch trips in the autumn though it had given me some quality fish so I decided to give it another go for the perch. The main roads weren't a problem after several days of gritting but when I turned off into the narrow lanes I started to think twice as in places they were just a sheet of ice. I made it through to the fishery in one piece though the car park was like an ice rink too and I did wonder if I would be sleeping in the van for the night, I'd deal with that later though, at least I had got there ok.

I found a swim between a couple of trees that looked the part and cleared enough snow out of the way to allow me to set up comfortably. There was enough room to fish a couple of rods in this spot so along with the usual quiver tip set up I rigged up another running feeder rig to be fished on the alarm and bobbin. Half a dozen droppers of chopped maggot and a couple of chopped worm were positioned in a little line between the two trees and I flicked the worm baited bobbin rod to the upstream end and the quiver tip rig to the downstream. I was late in arriving at the river and within an hour the light was just beginning to start fading as the bobbin started to creep up slowly before I hit into a fish. I had actually thought that my best chance would be at the very last minute due to the snow causing such bright conditions but I was proved wrong. It felt like a good fish from the start and put up a good solid fight right under the rod tip, diving back down to the bottom several times before I could bring it to the net where it certainly did look to be a hefty old perch. As I usually do with fish I want to photograph I unhooked it and weighed it before returning it to the water in the landing net while I set up the tripod and camera. The scales made it 3lb 10oz and I was chuffed to bits with that especially in the snow, this was going to make a cracking picture. Once everything was set up I lifted the fish out onto the mat and flicked the camera on, I pressed the button to activate the intervalometer and then the shutter release to start the timer. No sooner had I started to pick the fish up than the first shot fired, no problem as it's set to repeat continuously, I was just about ready for the next picture when it fired again and I was about to adjust my position a bit to get it spot on for the third shot when the camera turned itself off with a flat battery! I popped the perch back into the water while I tried to sort the camera out, I stuck the battery in my pocket for ten minutes to try and revive it but eventually had to accept that it wasn't happening, the cold had just killed the remaining power, my fault for not having to charged to the maximum in the harsh conditions. I've only ever had that happen once before and that was when perching in the snow too funnily enough, as soon as I got home I was going to buy a spare battery and make it a rule to keep it in my pocket in very cold weather in future. Fortunately the second shot was just about reasonable.

3lb 10oz

The result of a dead battery from a year or two back, snow joke!

I decided that I was going to go home after that, I wouldn't have been chuffed if I had caught a monster with no camera to record the event and I was more than happy with what I'd had anyway so no problem there. I managed to drive out of the car park without too much bother and was tootling along down the lane nicely when the back end of the van slid out and I ended up pointing back the way that I had come, that was too close a call I can tell you, especially in a new van.

River Derwent perch fishing - the grindstone

After my last perch success on ther Trent I mentioned that I fancied a change and so started to fish the Derbyshire Derwent. The river has treated me quite well in the past but it seemed that it was payback time.

Week commencing the 29th of October I managed to fit in four sessions, on each occasion the time actually fishing was two or three hours at the most. As darkness proper now falls before rush hour my travelling time was extended to an hour or so in total, much of which was spent crawling along in traffic, the round trip being in the region of thirty or so miles I guess.The sum total for all of that agravation and effort was one perch of about 8oz's, you don't have to be mad to be an angler but it certainly helps.

The next week saw me back again on the Monday and I went straight into what has been a reliable peg for me in the past, three hours of intense concentration later and I had upset that track record, another blank.

I returned once again on Wednesday the 7th and walked further downstream. I knew the swim had pedigree but had never personally fished it, it certainly looked the part and it blatantly obvious as to how it should be approached. With a tree to either side of me and a good nine feet of water off the rod top I was soon lowering the bait dropper straight down into the margin to bait a float spot., A feeder was fished to the downstream tree and the two rod rests were positioned so as to allow me to watch float and tip at the same time. The weather man had predicted a bright clear day but just for a change, cough cough, was wrong, and for once error was in my favour as the light levels were really low long before dusk, I really did fancy my chances.

I was in a world of my own, day dreaming about something or other, when I thought I saw the float move, and then I definately saw it move. The chubber was slowly moving out into the river and then it bobbed twice before sinking into the depths, a very perchy looking bite. A strike was met with solid resistance for for a seconds or two I was very pleased with myself, then whatever was on the other end powered off towards mid river and my heart sank, if this was a perch it was in double figures. No it was another worm snaffling pike, good sport on the float rod but not really conducive to building a perch swim. Eventually I managed to get it into the net, not a bad fish at approaching ten pounds I would think, and relocated it a few swims along the bank. Full darkness was just about upon me, I could just make out the shape of the float sitting in the reflection of a fluffy cloud when it disppeared and I struck into a perch, no grand finale to this story though I'm afraid as once again it was a little fella.

The traffic was particularly bad on the way home and I sat there thinking that I really was ready for a break from all of this. In fact I had been thinking similiar thoughts for a couple of weeks or so and mentioned it in a previous blog entry but as I am prone to do I pushed myself on for a while longer in the hope of a result, sometimes I don't know when to stop.

Back at home I sorted out something to eat and did a bit of tidying up, rammed bits of tackle into any available space as usual and was about ready to put my feet up at half past eight when I remembered that I was out of coffee and decided to nip out and get a jar. There are three supermarkets within less than a mile of my house and for some reason I decided to go to the one furthest away which involves driving past the other two. I passed Tesco and was a second or two from the entrance to Asda when a car pulled out straight in front of me and inevitably my van ploughed straight into it. Why didn't I go to Tesco?

The recovery vehicle finally got me and the van home, all of a few hundred yards away, at eleven pm. The van was looking considerably worse for wear, more than likely a write off, it seemed that like it or lump it I would be getting that break.

Back on the big perch hunt

Tuesday the 23rd of October

I was Trent bound again by mid afternoon after seeing more than enough of work for one day, we are well into the period when the gardens never really become dry and scrambling about on hands and knees in the muck and damp takes some motivation I can tell you, motivation that seems to diminish each year.

Ten minutes of dodging cowpats found me back in the area of my previous success but I had my eye on a new swim this time, once again an near bank tree gave plenty of cover and was hopefully home to some stripey sargeants. The feeder fished on the tip rod was going to be the approach but there was room to sneak out a second rod to be fished on the bobbin and Delkim too.

I whiled away a couple of biteless hours by recasting the feeders on a regular basis and swearing at the cormorants that seemed to be almost constantly in transit up and down the Trent valley, sticking two wings up at us anglers down below. I was just contemplating how many fish the birds had bagged from the river during the day compared to the anglers present when I was shaken from my depression by a bite on the alarm rod. It was only a little fish of not much more than a pound but it was one that the black plague had missed, as I felt compelled to inform the next passing pterodactyl.

I had not long slipped the fish back and settled down when the tip gave a couple of taps, almost always the preliminary to a good positive pull but it didn't happen. I left the bait static for another five minutes before recasting, no signs of damage were visible on the lobworm hookbait so it could have been a small fish. A couple of minutes later another couple of taps on the tip and then whack, round it went and up went the rod in my right hand. Have you ever noticed that when you are really in tune with a method that you act on auto pilot when a bite comes and quite often can't remember what happened before you struck? I've taken friends new to quiver tipping fishing before and tried to explain to them when to strike and when not to and I find it incredibly difficult it just becomes an in built instinct. That instinct had obviously worked its magic anyway as I was attached to something doing it's best to get stuck in a dead reedbed in front of me. A bit of pressure from directly above did the trick and up popped a lovely big perch that I soon scooped up. It turned out in fact to be the biggest perch that I had caught for some years at 3lb 8oz's and was in great condition.

That was my last bite of the session but who cares eh!



Thursday the 25th of October

I felt like a change of scenery after spending so much time on the Trent recently and so headed to the river Derwent after work, the river has good perch form and has previously produced a number of fish over 3lb's for me. Having joined a new club this season I now have access to maybe eight or ten miles of this lovely river, any section of which could throw up the stamp of fish that I am after.

I picked a swim that allowed me to lay on with a float close in which was a nice change after the methods I had been using on the big river but within minutes I found a problem, leaves. Leaves drifting, leaves on the bottom, newly fallen leaves, partly rotten leaves, but leaves everywhere, loads and loads of the flaming things that made fishing the spot a nightmare. I persevered for half an hour, kept reducing depth until I was just tripping the bottom and recast every few minutes but the underwater scene must have resembled a kaleidoscope of russet and gold, it was impossible.

I moved upstream by a couple of swims and started again, this area wasn't suitable for float fishing so I concentrated on the tip rod after depositing a good helping of maggot and worm into position via the dropper first. Two hours later one half hearted pull was all the sign of fish that I had seen and my times was up.

This perching lark is getting quite wearing now, I do find it quite full on constantly rushing to get to the river just to snatch a couple of hours bankside when the round trip takes the best part of an hour. When I'm there I am always very aware that the clock is ticking and that I have to keep on the ball to maximise my chances, relaxing it isn't but the rewards are there. I need to step back a little and take a deep breath, tell myself to slow down a bit and to remember that this should be fun.

River Soar barbel wanted - apply within

Just a quick catch up post to fill in after the double I caught in the last entry.

With the weather miraculously becoming stable for the longest period in months I had to make the most of it and get some work done hence my fishing sessions were short and not as often as I would have liked.

I persevered with the area that gave me the double for several more sessions but couldn't buy a bite for love nor money bar a rogue chub which I find a bit strange after the quick result on my first visit, buit that's fishing for you.I did have a return trip to the stretch of Soar that produced the nine pounder but on a bailiffing visit I found that it was seeing quite a bit of attention and so that idea was put on the back burner.

Last Tuesday I decided that I felt like getting a bite or two and so headed up to the Derwent, despite fishing a very reliable swim the going was tough and it was down to one feisty seven pounder to save the blank, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Wednesday evening saw me back on the Soar for one last go at the barbel as I had made the decision to have a change of species. I made a very long walk to a swim that I hadn't fished for several years, it was always a cracking looking spot but it now looks even better with a long line of tangled woodwork providing a five star barbel hotel.

If I was a barbel I'd live there

No sooner had I settled down to watch the rod tips when I had a nasty thought, I'd left my headtorch on the kitchen worktop ready to pack, it was still there, that cut my session down to about two hours. A bream of probably five pounds showed up just before dusk set in and that was my lot, I made the long walk back to the van feeling a bit dejected that I'd cocked up the last session of my mini campaign.

Nearly home time

River Soar barbel - in search of something special

After having a couple of good weeks barbel fishing on the River Derwent I felt ready for a change, the fact is I'm not used to such productive angling as the Derwent can provide. Don't get me wrong I'm certainly not complaining but the average size on the Derwent is I guess 7lb's or so and while you are catching smaller fish you aint catching the big ones. My conclusion was that I was probably more likely to catch a better average size on the River Soar plus I would dearly love a real big girl from my own river and so the Derwent was put on the back burner for a while.

So the old Soar, my stomping ground for the best part of thirty years and I love it. I've seen the river change dramatically over the years, as kids the hoards of gudgeon for which the river was famed were our staple, the occasional chub was our top prize, these topped out at not a lot more than two pounds in weight, and now and then a few perch would brighten the day. My favourite memory of the river long gone was my first attempt at fishing hemp seed for roach. Sitting on the concrete wall of a weirpool and running a stick float through the foam crusted run off I soon realised that to hit the lightning fast bites I had to keep the line between rod and float under close control and once I'd sorted that out I got into roach like I had never seen. In fact up to maybe two or three years ago a fish I caught that day at a pound and six ounces still stood as my biggest ever, an ancient looking creature, scales tinged with amber telling the story of a long life.

Now just memories

But as for barbel they were an unknown, the river authority made a number of stockings from Calverton fish farm in I would guess the late 1980's, in fact we recently found out that a further stocking was made within the last year or two, strange that the controlling club wasn't consulted, not that we would complain of course. My first experience of these fish was one opening day when along with my Dad I waded out to fish from a mid river island, amongst the bag of chub and bits we caught three barbel of maybe a couple of pounds or so, we'd never even seen the species before but certainly knew when we hooked them as we had to wade down the rapids to net then after their initial blistering run.

Soar babies, unfortunately we knew nothing of the risks of barbel in keepnets back then

Not long after that episode my fishing turned almost exclusively to carp and River Soar barbel were forgotten until around 2005 when I started to take an interest in other species again and started to dabble for the species. I started to catch the odd barbel here and there mostly on conventional quiver tipping gear with corn or worm until I started to consider the constant disturbance from hooking other fish to be detrimental and turned to boilie and pellet on long hair rigs which were considerably more selective. My catch rate increased and I started to venture into areas of the river new to me, I had taken a number of fish around 8lb's in weight and was happy with that, I had no expectation, or even hope of a double figure fish to be honest. And then on one dark September night I netted a fish that left me totally shocked, at 11lb 11oz it was a fish that I didn't even begin to imagine lived in the river and it really fired my interest up.

11lb 11oz, the one we came to know as the scar fish

Since that time a fair few more Soar doubles have come to my net with the biggest an ounce short of thirteen pounds, the river is really starting to come into it's own now and I personally know of quite a few different fish in excess of that weight spread far and wide along the rivers length and no doubt there are more that remain uncaught or unreported, and they are the ones that really interest me. I don't plan on spending too much time in their pursuit, after all if I followed my plan I would be carp and bream fishing now, but it is a very interesting sideline and one that I enjoy so we shall see.

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.

Barbel bashing - the boy's back in town

My plans for the summer didn't involve barbel other than perhaps the odd quick session but I had made the decision that they were probably the most likely species to fit into my current lifestyle, the reservoir is very weedy at the moment which makes the breaming a problem and I don't have time to travel south to my other bream/carp water, everything I said in my post about the summer's plans had gone to pot and it was time for a rescue mission.

Monday the 6th of August

While bailiffing on the Saturday I had a look at a couple of potential stalking swims and it fired me up to have a go, unfortunatly on arriving at the Soar after work on the Monday the river had coloured up significantly and scuppered that idea. Of course I could fish on blind in the knowledge that fish were in the vicinity but that wasn't what I wanted, I've fished the area plenty of times and only the sight of fish feeding on my baits would give me the excitement I wanted, time for a rethink. This year I have joined a new club to me that covers a good stretch of the river Derwent and I decided to head off up there after work.

My lack of recent angling soon became apparent as I found myself a big sweaty mess after walking a few hundred yards upstream, what the hell was I doing carrying a chair, big rucksack and two rods on a reccy session, a sure sign of being out of the swing. In fact to be honest I almost felt a little out of place being there, it's strange how a break can leave you feeling so distant from something so familiar. I didn't find much to interest me within the limit of my self inflicted distance restriction so I headed back towards the van where I had dropped some pellet onto some likely looking runs with good visibility. I spent a good hour alternating between the spots just looking but didn't spot so much as a chub, it was decision time and the one I made was to head for an area I know well on another ticket, I just wasn't equipped to search out new areas.

A few miles downstream I had the choice of many likely looking swims, I have fished the area quite extensively though have only had a very brief dabble for the barbel, my time being spent after chub and perch which nevertheless gave me a good knowledge of where the barbel could be, my choice was a large far bank tree which overhung the water by a considerable distance and looked perfect. With time now getting on each rod was fished with a small pva mesh bag of pellet attached and no other free bait introduced, one hookbait being an apple cored boilie and the other a small pellet, both attached to a Suffix Heavy Skin hooklink and my trusty size 6 Drennan boilie hooks. I've been using those hooks since I guess the early 90's for carp fishing and when I started barbelling they were the natural choice, I fully understand that I'm tempting fate here but I have yet to pull one of those out of a barbel, the hook holds are superb. I'm currently using the standard black version as I bought a load cheap, the continentals hold their points much more and so don't need changing so often but otherwise both are just as good.

Within half an hour the upstream rod went over at lightning speed and my first fish for weeks was hooked, unfortunately within seconds it was also lost when the hooklink parted on something, not a good start.I re-rigged that rod and flicked it back out under the branches a little further downstream of it's original position. Another hour passed and this time the other rod was away, the first part of the fight was just hit and hold, cupping the spool and walking backwards when possible to draw the fish from its sanctuary without giving an inch, then once the pressure had taken its toll I could relax a little and enjoy the fight mid river. The result wasn't a massive fish but it was a lovely welcome back which did me the world of good and I was right back into my fishing in an instant, great stuff.

My angling plans for the year ahead

I think quite a few people spoke about plans for their fishing at the start of the year at the same time as reviewing the previous twelve months and most years I guess I think along similiar lines but this time around my mind was fully focussed on my roach fishing down at Linch Hill and I was just getting on with the moment so to speak. My time spent bankside in the last six weeks has been very limited compared to normal, as near to a mini close season as I'm likely to get even though I've wet a line at least once most weeks, nothing has really fired me up to get out there and I have been quite happy just having a little dabble here and there but I'm now feeling the urge to pull my finger out get stuck in once again.

It's good to have some idea of what you want to do with your time when you are an all round angler else I find that you can try to do everything and in effect do nothing, spreading yourself thin doesn't work, trying to fish too many waters doesn't work. concentrate on one species and water at a time with the odd interlude elsewhere and things tend to fall into place so much more easily, you get in tune with whats happening, when the fish are feeding, where they are feeding and what methods are working for you, once you are at that stage quite often the hardest part of a session is putting yourself where you want to be on a water before someone else beats you to it, the rest of the work is vitually done. That's the theory and it is true, but that doesn't mean that my sometimes fickle nature doesn't take over and make me drift away, but hey ho, this isn't work and I don't profess to me some super hero, the main thing is to enjoy my fishing and so long as that happens then I'm not doing much wrong. So here's a rough idea of what I fancy doing in the next nine months or so, it will be interesting to see what actually happens in retrospect.

My thoughts at the moment revolve around tench, I have just managed to secure a ticket for a water I fished last year which can produce some cracking sport along with some good sized fish, there is a very slim chance of a double figure fish but there really isn't anywhere that I know within a reasonable distance that gives a better chance, my target in all honesty is to beat my pb of 9lb 4oz's, that fish came from the same water last year and is certainly amongst the biggest hand full of fish in there so we will have to see. Timing will be everything, I stopped fishing the water at the end of May last year, many of the tench had spawned but it was not until later in the year that it became apparent that not all had as some big fish came out after I had left, I will stick it out this time around and combined with this cold spring it might just be that the big girls will still be holding their weight later on, so conceivably we might be looking at tenching until the end of June.

More of the same please

I really want to do a bit more carp fishing this year, each year I renew my syndicate place and each year I spend little time there, mostly due to it being an hour from home and traditionally my carp sessions have tended to be short, maybe twelve hours or so on average and consisting on mid week night sessions between work. With an hours drive at each end of the trip and the ever increasing cost of fuel that just isn't practical and a session really needs to be two nights and a day at least to be viable unless I can manage a full day to spend stalking. However the lakes hold a lot of stunning fish and I have been fortunate enough to meet a few close up and would like to meet a few more.

One off the surface

The stalking thing is something I have in mind for this year, I love it, particularly surface fishing, and it is a very effective way to spend your time if the conditions are right and that could be the deciding factor. If the summer progresses anything like the spring so far then surface fishing is going to be hard going if not a waste of time and I will just have to try and string together what time I can to session fish, though I do find it quite boring at times compared to the more exciting methods. So a bit of carp fishing will be on the agenda as and when throughout the year, I shan't pigeon hole a particular period of time I'll just do it when I can and it seems right, there you go, I'm drifting already!

Stalking opportunity

And then bream. Now bream have never been high on my list of favourite fish, in fact I will be completely honest and say that I have only rarely specifically fished for them, my best are one from Yateley Sandhurst of 11lb 4oz's, and last May at the carp syndicate I mention above I had a brace of 10lb 4oz's and 13lb 8oz's. Double figure bream I can cope with, their age and size makes them a viable target and they don't arrive my the dozen, smaller bream I really can't get excited about I'm afraid, they just don't do anything for me. Even after catching the 13lber last year I still can't say I was really fired up but since then I've gradually come around to the idea and the fact that the lake contains specimens considerably larger than that fish and that they are not targetted due to it being a carp fishery adds to the interest. I also have another bream water to throw into the pot, Swithland reservoir, I've got a ticket anyway with perch in mind but as its local to me and produces bream to around the 16lb mark I might just be tempted to have a go. And so it may be that when I move away from the tench that I switch to bream.

 

A couple from last year

 So that covers from now until autumn really, I shall fit in a bit of barbel stalking now and then, I find watching them in clear summer conditions fascinating and also extremely convenient in that I need carry only a minimum of kit and can often winkle a fish out in short order so when there isn't time for anything else its perfect.

Come autumn and winter I really have two species in mind, perch and chub. A 4lb perch has been number one on my wish list for quite some time now, the closest to my knowledge that I've been so far is about thirty yards away from my mate Steve when he bagged one last November. I have Swithland reservoir and the River Derwent both within twenty minutes of home and both have the potential to fulfil my dreams, Swithland is, or can be, incredibly tricky, the river is more forthcoming with some stunning fish of a good size to keep the interest up, I shall fish both to my best ability and hope that lady luck smiles on me. The later in the season the greater the chance of achieving what I want as the perch grow fat with spawn and so it may well be that I spend a bit more time after chub earlier on. I would really like to crack a local 6lber this year, the Trent might be my best bet but I do love the Derwent and that river also does give up a fair few good chub. My other option is a trip or two down south to the Stour and without the time and expense that I devoted to roach this winter then that will more than likely be the case, a trip away to pastures new is always special and is especially nice in the dark winter months when a break is appreciated more I think.

So that is my rough plan, all of the waters I am fishing have the potential to beat my personal best for the given species and while that is the ultimate goal it certainly isn't the full story, each venue is also a nice place to spend time and I am already looking forward in anticipation of long summer days following misty dawns right through to icy days on the river with only the robin's for company.

The early perch catches the worm

Thursday the 1st of March

The increase in work was really starting to take a toll on me by Wednesday, it's the same every year, work slackens off before xmas and picks up at the end of February, in those two months I stuff my face full of festive goodies and become generally unfit, when I start working again for a few weeks I feel like I've been run over by a bus! I must admit that fishing at every opportunity wasn't helping, rushed or missed meals aren't a good idea especially when you need to keep your energy up but thats what tends to happen I'm afraid. Nevertheless I found myself once again in the position of having to give the wife some bad news, I was going to get up at 5.30 the next day to go perching before work.

Things were going smoothly until I was about to get onto the motorway and realised that my phone was on the kitchen worktop, going back to fetch it wasted ten minutes and the journey was further slowed by thick fog hanging over the Trent and Derwent valleys and so I found myself walking along the bankside track in the half light of dawn rather than in darkness as planned.

The best part of the day

 I decided to try a different swim from last week but other than that the procedure was just the same, four droppers of maggot and two of worm followed shortly afterwards by a succulent helping of finest Leicestershire ground snake attached to a hook big enough to make a matchman faint. With the mist swirling around I had high hopes that the morning feeding spell might be extended somewhat but it took a while for the first bite to develop, the worm had been twitched through the swim a good half dozen times before there was a knock, then another, then a knock follow by the tip slowly bending round, unmissable. The perch came to the top straight away and turned under the surface giving me a good idea that it was a nice one before descending back down into the depths and plodding around for a minute or two whilst giving that characteristic head bang which always makes me think that the hook is about to pop out. The hook thankfully stayed just where I intended it to and in the net she went, another cracking looking stripey that pulled the spring round to 3lb 3oz's.

In went another couple of droppers of grubs and I started working the worm again, bar a couple of very small taps that almost certainly were small fish all was quiet and as the morning rush hour started to recede I was expecting to call it a day with just the one fish. The magic "one last cast" did its stuff for me though and gave me another perch of 2lb 11oz's long after the sun had burnt off the mist, sending me off back to the van almost content to be going to work. Now I know things were starting to get to me!

An interesting thing about these perch, take a look at the one I caught last week here 3lb 5oz and compare it to this one Phil caught in Leo's blog here 3lb 4oz without a shadow of a doubt the same fish, Phil caught it on the Monday and I caught it 3 days later, nothing particularly unusual there until I say that the two captures were a measured 300 yards apart!

River perch fishing

Thursday the 23rd of February

Wednesday afternoon had seen me blank in style in a swim riddled with chub, I fished the maggot feeder and didn't do anything wrong as far as I could tell but it just didn't happen. A couple of feeder knocks were the highlight of the session despite scaling down to a size twenty hook and 3.3lb low diameter hooklink, with conditions looking good I can only guess that the swim may well have had too much pressure recently, it has certainly been fished quite a bit.

On Thursday I had another late afternoon river session in mind but this time for perch, I called in to see Leo on Wednesday evening and he mentioned that he had been out for a dawn perch session earlier in the week and that inspired me to do the same, a couple of hours fishing from dawn and then off to work. A 5.30 alarm call didn't go down very well with the wife but that's one of the dangers of this game I find, threats of me being relegated to the settee were made but my charm and guile won the day.

I was walking along the bank just as light began to fill the sky and what a lovely morning it was, unseasonably warm to the extent of leaving me sweating by the time I reached the swim even though I wasn't wearing a coat, to think that the last time I had fished the stretch only a couple or so weeks earlier it was minus six! My usual tactics were put into play straight away with the intention of making the most of the half light that the perch love so much, straight into the river went four droppers of red and white maggot followed by two of chopped worm followed by a big fat lobworm on a size four hook. The rig settled and was left static for a minute or two before being twitched back a few inches, left again, twitched again, left again but this time there was no following twitch because the tip started to pluck and knock as is typical of the start of a perch attack before pulling round confidently and I hit into a good fish. I was using my new Drennan rod and it behaved perfectly with enough give to avoid the hook pulling from that tough mouth but with an obvious amount of power in reserve. I could see the perch turning a foot or two below the surface several times before diving back into the depths and it didn't look a bad fish at all, enough to give my half awake mind a bit of a shake as I slipped the mesh beneath its deep flanks. It was a cracking looking perch as is usual for the river, a bit of fin damage but otherwise a stunner and a respectable 3lb 5oz in weight, lovely.

 
I popped her into my sling retainer and got the rig back out, this time the worm was hit as soon as it reached the river bed and I was in again, a perch of maybe 1 1/2lbs was landed. Another four fish between a pound and a pound and three quarters came to the bank in a short period of time before I bumped one off and the bites dried up at which point I took some pictures of the three pounder before slipping it back. Times was getting on and I could hear the rush hour traffic as I packed up and headed back to the van with my plan a success.

The day quickly became unbelievably warm for February with temperatures up to 16 degrees and bright sunshine, I was down to a t-shirt as I pruned roses and tidied borders with my mind on other matters, by mid afternoon the job was done and I was heading back to the river! This time I went for a different swim and carried out the usual baiting up routine with the expectation of having to wait for bites until the sun dropped from the sky. I had a couple of knocks on the first cast that didn't develop, the same happened on the next cast, on the third the tip kept knocking and then gave a more positive indication that I hit and the rod was pulled sharply down. If this was a perch it was huge, after a few seconds I realised that it couldn't be a perch and suspected a pike particularly when it shot at some speed out into the main ,river hanging there like a dead weight. Gaining some line I got the fish to within five yards of the bank before it once again rocketed off, this time under a nearside tree forcing me to submerge the rod tip and just hang on until it turned and came back towards me kicking up large tail patterns on the surface. Another minute or two and I was making some ground, I had seen the fish sub-surface but couldn't work out what it was, something didn't seem right, and then I got it up on the surface, a tench hooked in the tail, no wonder it ran me ragged! I could certainly say that the new rods was just what I needed, if it could cope with that then chub would be no problem. With that little episode sorted out and the fish returned a further downstream I got the dropper out again and fed the swim, a half hour of inactivity made me think and hope that the tench was a loner but I then hooked another, a bit bigger this time possibly pushing 5lb's. I like catching tench but I can't say that I'm keen on them when perching they must clean the baited area out in no time, nothing you can do about that of course except get on with it so once again I baited the swim. I had to wait until the light was fading before my next and final bite of the session which was the species I was after and a nice perch of just under 2lbs.

All in all an enjoyable days fishing but I was just about worn out, an early start, two round trips to the Derwent with work in between and I was about bushed by the time I finally parked my backside on the sofa with a hard earned beer.