Trent barbel and the future of angling

Biggest of the summer

I kind of slipped sideways into some Trent barbel fishing this summer. It wasn't planned but the nature of the beast, in that it is generally an after dark affair, fitted in with the busy days that had become too common for my liking. The fact that I had made available to me a piece of water with easy access helped greatly in that I could arrive late and not have to worry about either long walks or remaining organised, everything just got thrown into the van which would be parked within spitting distance of wherever I decided to pitch up.

My first trip was shortly after returning from a break in Ibiza. Feeling refreshed and "up for it" I found myself surveying an area of river that I had never set eyes upon before but which right away struck me as being lovely. A mixture of sweeping bends and straighter sections with flow, and therefore depth, varying from rapid to a steady walking pace opened up lots of possibilities and it took me an hour just to decide on a swim. The spot I settled on was just below a protruding tree that forced a little crease into the current and would also have the bonus of acting as a filter for the bits of weed that I could see drifting in the flow elsewhere. My plan was to simply swing out the feeder rigs by a couple of rod lengths and see how things went, after all it was as much an exploratory trip as anything.

Angling coach - nurturing the future

If you've been reading my jottings for a year or so you may remember me taking my two nephews fishing, if not here's the post, Angling from the start - take kids fishing. At ten and twelve years old they've fished a few times with their dad, usually in the sea when on holiday, but on each occasion, and that includes when they came with me, they were just given the tackle ready set up. As part of my level two angling coach course I had to teach a series of four one hour sessions that were linked in topic and it seemed the perfect opportunity to try and get the lads really involved with doing things for themselves. I was under no illusion that it would be an easy task particularly as Uncle Rob tends to be one of the kids when they are around, usually resulting in me being jumped on, beaten, and generally run ragged! Trying to deliver an organised session when the participants are so familiar with you is not easy but in for a penny and all that and so we set a date.