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.

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.

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.

Big River Trent barbel - mission accomplished

Although I had made a conscious decision to do more barbel fishing on the river Trent this season circumstances had until recently limited the time that I had available to devote to that plan. Although on paper the Level Two Angling Coach course takes up six classroom days over four weekends there is also the need to spend some considerable amount of time at home and on the bank carrying out practice sessions and planning. In theory I could have got away with spending less time on this but as the course went on I found myself revising my ideas constantly and in effect I went over the same ground a number of times which in hindsight was the right thing to do and is actually a fundamental part of the principles of coaching. The upshot of this is that I didn't really get stuck into a fishing campaign over the summer months. Short barbel sessions fitted in well but the Trent fish are much more cooperative after dark and short summer nights meant a lack of sleep which was too much for me to handle on a regular basis. A few outings for other species have broken up my time but effectively I've been down to one, or at the most two, sessions of only a few hours per week for a good while and that wasn't helped by me catching shingles, it never rains does it! The start of October saw me complete my course and it was time to snap out of the doldrums and get stuck in to some fishing proper once again, with the nights now drawing in fast it was prime time to get back to the Trent.

River Trent barbel fishing - learning the ropes

The river Trent is about twenty minutes from my front door at its closest point yet over the years I have neglected it greatly in preference for the more intimate rivers that feed into it, namely the Soar and Derwent. I was probably fifteen or so when I caught my first Trent barbel, miniature rockets from Clifton Grove that did nasty things to a nine foot Silstar Matchpicker, almost as brutal as attempting to cast a 2oz feeder on the poor rod but that was the best I had available at the time and so it had to do.

Pocket rockets from down "The Grove"

Since those very distant days I have hardly targeted the rivers whiskered residents at all bar a handful of sessions in the last three years where a few larger residents have graced the net. Wether it be whilst playing fish or just going through the process of actually fishing you can be left with no doubt that what the Trent lacks in intimacy it certainly makes up for in raw power, not to mention it's huge appetite for gobbling up any tackle that you dare to risk by casting into it, she can be one unforgiving lady alright.

Big river perch - the grand finale, kind of

After the cracking brace of stripeys shown in my last blog my end of season plans were set, I was just going to go hell for leather at the perch and see what happened. The nasty easterly wind was seemingly relentless and even when there was some sight of respite it came from the north, hardly worthy of digging the shorts and flip flops out for that's for sure. One saving grace was that the rain did hold off, mostly, and the river was more often than not fishable, which after the last twelve months was something to be grateful for at least.

During the penultimate week of the season I fished four sessions which again included one overnight stay in the van to fit in a dawn assault. Apart from finding what could quite possibly be the best chippy in Notts the week was a complete right off, it's a good job I'm so easily pleased isn't it!

So that left me with four days to play with up to March the 14th and I could fit in another three short sessions. One side effect of the lousy weather is that the gardening year is miles behind, in fact I'm writing this on April the 1st and we've just taken the dog for a walk and seen someone skiing, I kid you not! Fishing wise that meant that I had time to spare, unfortunately though fishing doesn't pay the bills but when opportunity knocks I'll not refuse.

Monday afternoon saw me setting up in a swim that I had fished last autumn but which had only produced one small perch to me in three previous attempts. When I arrived I had stood behind the swim contemplating whether or not I should give it a go and reflecting back on the winter's results. I had certainly had a perch season beyond anything I had imagined but it is easy to gloss over the journey and just pick out the destination. I have had a lot of blanks and done a lot of travelling for those fish not to mention putting up with what can only be described as an awful few months weather. The way I look at this perch fishing is that it is all about being on the fish, you are either on them or you aren't and from my experience it isn't always a case of dropping in a previously productive swim, I now think they move around a bit more than I had previously considered. If the conditions are right, meaning the water level and clarity are good, then I am pretty confident of getting a bite from any perch that lurks in front of me. Water temperature doesn't bother me too much other than sharp decreases and let's face it this year the water has been cold constantly, after all they catch perch through holes in the ice in Scandinavia don't they. As a rule I rate them as easy fish to catch, it's everything else that has to fall into place that causes the difficulties. So the question was were they in this swim today, only one way to find out.

Now I've fished in some cold conditions this winter but that afternoon took top spot in the brass monkey awards, the wind was absolutely evil and cut straight through several layers of clothing without trying. It's rare that I resort to a waterproof coat on top of my Snugpak jacket but it was essential in this case though once sat down I found that I did actually have an unexpected bit of shelter caused by a small hump behind me, which was nice. Being positioned between two near bank trees allowed me to fish a rod to each, the upstream one was set up on the bite alarm and bobbin while downstream I would concentrate on the quiver tip. As usual I got the bait dropper into action straight away and deposited a mixture of maggot and chopped lobworm and dendrobaena onto each spot.

With the upstream rod in position and fishing for itself I set about dropping the other rod into the same spot that I had fished previously only to find that the floods had dumped a snag there resulting in a lost rig straight away, not good. I tried casting a hookless rig slightly to one side and the other to check the extent of the problem but could still feel it clipping some structure so ended up fishing directly off the rod tip, not a complete disaster with a good ten feet of water under my feet.

The afternoon drifted by quickly, the sun was beaming down but slipped behind the tree I was fishing to well before dusk and so cast shade upon the area which made it look a whole lot more promising but that didn't do the trick. The light was fading fast when I had a single bleep on the bobbin rod, I took my eyes off the quiver tip but the bobbin hadn't budged at all. I then looked along the rod and noticed the tip was tapping so struck straight away and was into a fish. Why hadn't the bobbin moved? Because the rings had frozen up that's why. Unbelievable, in January ok sometimes I can accept that glycerine may be needed to keep the guide's ice free, this was supposedly spring!

After a brief scrap I bundled a chunky looking stripey into the net, fat as butter with spawn, the scales went to 3lb 6oz. I left it in the net in the margins for a minute or two while I set up the camera and then lifted it back out and into the weigh sling to carry up to the top of the bank for a few pictures. The change in temperature as I poked my head above that hump of bank was unbelievable, I'd go as far as to say physically shocking in fact! I put the tripod down and flicked the camera on, knelt down with the fish and was amazed to find that the weigh sling had actually started to freeze in my hands, I can assure that I wasted no time in getting those pictures done my hands felt like they were going to drop off.

That was my one and only bite of the session, on packing up I found that my landing net handle was frozen solid at ten feet long and it was touch and go as to if I would have to hide it in a bush until a later date. I can honestly say that I have seen enough cold weather now.

The next day saw me in another swim I had tried before, this one with more success. It was certainly a more pleasant day to be next to the water that's for sure. Once again I only had one bite and it was from a fish of 2lb 14oz, not to be sniffed at and this time last year it would have been a fish I was very pleased with but now the bar has been raised. My final attempt was on the Wednesday and was a complete blank, not a sign of a bite and in a way a bit of an anti climax but you can't book the productive days in advance and if you could who would go on the blank days eh?

And so that was my perch season over. I've had a great winter and have really enjoyed my fishing but I'm now ready for a change and that's the beauty of fishing for lots of different species, there's never time to get stuck in a rut and become bored.

Big river perch - a dream come true

River levels were finally starting to get somewhere close to normal and about time too. There was never much doubt as to what I would be angling for when the opportunity arose and in preparation next door's garden had been dug yet again and the bait bucket was topped with a more than respectable helping of lobworms in anticipation. As I wrote in a blog a couple of months ago the perch fishing had become hard work for me to the extent that it had become a grind, now I've put a lot of effort into my fishing over the years and will continue to do so but when it gets to that stage it has to stop. It wasn't the fishing itself that was getting to be hard work. I can, and do, blank with the best of them and that I can handle but the continual driving back and forth through heavy traffic day after day for sessions of only two to four hours was becoming very tiresome. As it turned out my self imposed break turned out to be considerably longer than I had intended due to the persistent rain but absence makes the heart, and determination, grow fonder and I was raring to go again.

My first session back left me a bit disappointing as soon as I arrived, for some reason I didn't expect to see the Trent carrying as much colour as it was and these preconceived ideas can so easily dent your confidence before you start. However I wasn't about to turn around and go home so I just got on with it, baited up via the dropper as usual with maggot and chopped worm and sent a lobworm on a feeder rig out into the depths before allowing my mind to linger on the water conditions. The irony is that it was almost certainly that self induced state of mind that caused me to miss a bite, what an idiot! Even more annoying was the fact that it was the only bite of the session but it was a certain indication that the clarity had not totally scuppered my chances. I would have put money on a perch being the culprit, an initial tap tap followed by a short pull on the quiver tip which held for a split second before pulling right round, how is it that I can relate that bite so precisely and yet still miss it?

What a trip like that tends to do to me is make me itch to get straight back to try and put things right and that's exactly what I did and so the next afternoon saw me going through exactly the same process but with a totally different outlook. Isn't it strange how something as brief as that one bite can change things completely, my confidence was so much higher than twenty four hours previously and as I've always said in this game confidence can be everything. You approach a session with no confidence and you are off on the wrong foot straight away, quite often I find that one thing leads to another and I've packed up and gone home more than once because of just that. So with me being raring to go I knocked the perch for six and bagged up, right? No, I didn't have a bite. It's enough to drive you insane this fishing lark.

A couple of days later and I was heading north once again, arriving at the river for 1.30pm. I had decided on a change of swim before I left home but not on a specific one just in case it was occupied, to be honest there are plenty of likely looking spots anyway so no matter what I would certainly find somewhere that looked good. As it happened I ended up in a peg that I had caught perch from before that gave a reasonable 6ft or so of water close in next to an overhanging tree quickly dropping down to 8ft plus within a few feet. The water clarity had improved somewhat and something told me that I had a better chance today. The dropper was hooked on to the rig and out went half a dozen drops of maggot followed by two of chopped worm smack up tight against the outer branches. I then unhook the dropper and clip a feeder on to the paternoster link. Leaving the feeder on while using the dropper can cause the whole lot to tumble and lose you accuracy let alone what effect it may have on the door opening.

An hour later and doubts were starting to creep in, the light levels looked ideal due to the low cloud base making for a murky day but the tip wasn't moving. I was just starting to wonder if I should have gone in another swim when I noticed a small tap that got my attention and I was looking at the rod end intently when it wrapped round and a fish was hooked. Within a second my thoughts were that this wasn't a perch, it ploughed up and down in the deep margin like a thing possessed and I was pretty sure that a chub was responsible. At one stage I even had to lock up and apply side strain as the fish heading back into its snaggy home so when it finally tired and a stripey flank popped up I was more than surprised. It wasn't a monster perch by any means at two ounces short of 3lb's but blimey it had certainly had three Weetabix for breakfast I've never had a perch fight like it.

Well as we all know once one fish has seen the inside of your net it becomes all systems go. I had returned the perch a couple of swims downstream and as soon as I got back to my kit I put six more droppers of bait in, possibly a brave move but if one fish was willing to have a go then the chance were that it wasn't alone. Half an hour later and I was proved right as the tip danced again and I was attached to another striped warrior. This fish was much chunkier and was obviously 3lb's plus, in fact the scales made it 3lb 7oz's and it was a cracking looking fella. It's strange how the colours vary on these fish even though they are living under the same conditions. Perch in constantly coloured water tend to be pale in general but I wouldn't have thought that so much difference would be seen as is apparent in these ones, with a bit of practice you can also pick up different patterns in their stripes too although individual fish are more easily recognised due to blemishes and damage to fins I find.

3lb 7oz

Again the fish was returned downstream though this time I held back on the dropper and relied on the small blockend feeder to top up the swim, time was getting on and I didn't want to push my luck too much. I settled back down in my seat and adjusted the tip by backwinding slightly while noticing that the isotopes were starting to become more apparent as the first signs of dusk crept in on me. Time to dig out the headtorch I thought and then in the next click of my brain I knew exactly where that headtorch was, sitting on the side in the kitchen while it's batteries were on charge. Of course that didn't stop me rustling through the rucksack with my left hand while the right hovered over the rod but no matter how I tried to wish it to appear it wasn't going to happen. Ah well not to worry these things happen I thought and at the instant round the tip jagged again in three steps, bang bang bang, if I hadn't of struck I think it would have just kept going to be honest it was that violent an attack. I played the fish out while enjoying the half light, what it is that makes those twenty or so minutes at either end of the day so much more special is hard to say but it always adds something to the atmosphere doesn't it. Again this fish was definitely in the very respectable weight range and it registered 3lb 6oz's on the balance, great stuff that was a trio that no one would be disappointed with. There was enough light to manage the pictures without having to resort to propping my phone torch up against the tripod but only just and after slipping the fish back I decided that it would be sensible to call it a day.

3lb 6oz

 That evening I had perch on the brain, the wife suspiciously said that I was being nice after I had made her the second cup of tea so I made sure to leave it for at least another hour before mentioning that I would be getting up early the next morning, I don't miss at trick me! Suspicious or not I got away with it lightly and my kit was left just inside the door ready for a quick getaway.

The alarm had been set for 6.15am but that was a wasted effort as by 4am I was wide awake and in fishing mode, brain constantly turning over different scenario's and not a hope in hell of getting back to sleep. I gave up trying at 5am and got up, by 6.30 I was opening the gate to the fishery and making my way up the track. There was no chance of fishing straight away as I couldn't make out the edge of the branches but I was in no hurry in fact I felt strangely calm which was a contrast to my normal rushed start to a fishing trip, somehow something just felt right. I took my time setting everything up and then had a wander along the bank listening to the birds wake up until I saw the sky start to lighten in the east signalling that it was time to get back.

There was just enough light to make out my target area and the half dozen bait droppers full of maggot followed again by two of chopped worm were soon laid out perfectly. The tail end of a fat lobby was nipped off with the scissors and the hook slipped into the cut end before being pulled back out through the side giving a perfect presentation with hardly any chance of the point being obscured and then the loaded feeder was swung out into place.

I had only just got myself comfortable and started to settle in when the tip jabbed and then whipped right round. I wasn't going to miss that bite even though I must admit that it did come as a bit of a surprise straight after disturbing the swim with the bait dropper. The fight was pretty pathetic though before I saw what was on the end of the line I had a gut feeling that it was a big fish, often their bulk makes them poor fighters and blimey I wasn't wrong. I looked down into the net in the margin and knew that I had a personal best. I lifted it out onto the mat and turned the torch on, now I knew that this one was going to be close to the magic 4lb. I started to get a bit jittery them so I unhooked the perch before lowering the net back in to the water and securing it with the rod rest while I got myself together. I was rooting around in my rucksack when I panicked and dropped everything just to make double sure that the net was safe and the fish couldn't escape, dear me what a mess! With the sling wetted out and the scales zeroed the fish was hoisted back out and I parted the mesh to have another look, I wasn't so sure now, maybe it was a big 3lber. I popped it into the sling and lifted it up to hook on to the scales, I don't know I thought, it does feel heavy. I paused for a second just to contemplate what was happening and to consider that this could be the fish that I had been chasing for a long time and then bit the bullet and slipped the hook through the loops. I swung the scales round to face me and peered at the dial, just to prolong the agony the lens was all smeared up but when I wiped away the muck a great big fat smile spread across my face and I shouted something out, I haven't got a clue what! 4lb 3oz's of lovely fat stripey perch, a long standing ambition achieved and I was flying. I popped it back into the water for a while I let daylight develop for the photographs and just sat there grinning away like a lunatic. Then I decided that I may as well cast back out, two minutes later I decided that I didn't need to cast back out so wound in. Five minutes later I thought don't be daft cast out again, another couple of minutes of fidgeting and I wound in and gave up, I just didn't need to fish.

Once the light was sufficient to make a decent job of the pictures I quickly got those done, just me and my perch sitting in the wet grass without a care in the world. I walked it back down to the margin and held it flat in one hand just above the surface before letting it slowly slip back in to the water and watching it waddle off into the depths.

Simply stunning

In all honesty I should have gone home there and then but I stayed and I enjoyed being next to the water even if my heart wasn't really in the fishing. I did have another fish mid morning, a chub of three and a half pounds odd, but I spent more time wandering and nattering to other anglers than I did fishing. Late afternoon I saw something that did make me glad that I had stayed though. An angler along the bank asked if I would photograph a chub for him, not any old chub but one that weighed 6lb 12oz's. Blimey it must have been the day of the big fish, what a cracker that was and maybe that will be what fires me up next.

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 Trent perch fishing - Finding my feet?

Thursday the 11th of October

After the previous days result I was keen to get back to the river for another crack at the perch and arranged work so that I could be bankside for 4pm. I had been thinking about my tactics overnight and had decided to fish both rods on the bobbins this time the thinking being that when using a quiver tip rod a bleep on the other rod always draws the eye to that set up and opens up the possibility of missing a bite on the tip, I thought that two rods fished side by side would be more efficient.

With a bed of bait applied by dropper both feeder clad rods were swung out three rod lengths or so to the near side of the crease and recast every twenty minutes with a top up of maggots. With the light levels already ebbing it wasn't long before a bobbin twitched indicating some interest before steadily climbing towards the rod. The strike was clean and so was the hook, I missed it which seemed a little strange considering that the bobbin was definately still climbing as I lifted the rod. Not to worry I thought and sent another little package of goodness out into the depths. Ten minutes later and the same thing happened again, a very confident bite was missed leaving me scratching my head and wondering what on earth was occuring. I lifted the rod rests up slightly to allow a longer drop on the bobbin in case I wasn't hitting the bites before resistance was felt and hoped that may help, the rod tips were pointing virtually straight at the rigs so I didn't think that rod pressure was the issue. Very soon another bite was indicated and this time I was into a fish, not huge at maybe a pound and three quarters but satisfying after the two missed affairs and it left me thinking that I may have solved the problem. I wasn't thinking that for long though as up until I packed up I missed two more cracking bites which left me more than a bit frustrated and cursing myself for not fishing the tip as I am certain that I would have converted most of those bites into fish, you live and learn. Nevertheless it intrigues me to know what was going on, without a doubt the bites were struck as the bobbin was moving which naturally makes you think that the bait was still in the fishes mouth, interesting but as I have the upmost confidence in converting bites on the quiver tip then I decided that would be my approach from now on.

Week commencing the 15th of October

I'm going to condense four short trips into one write up here, the river was up and down constantly and despite my best efforts, bordering on madness to be honest, it was never going to be a greatly successful week's perch fishing to be honest.

Monday was my most successful day, once again I only fished the last two or three hours into dark and using the tip rod this time I turned three bites into three fish. Although the largest was only maybe a pound and a quarter it was good to be landing fish rather than missing bites.

Tuesday evening was a right off, the river was on the up and the autumn leaves knocked from their perches by a feisty wind were coming down the river in hoardes making fishing a nightmare, if it wasn't a leaf catching the line I would wind in to find one impaled on the hook.

Wednesday saw me making the morning rush hour trip to the river only to take one look and turn around, are you starting to see some signs of obsession creeping in yet? A check of the EA river level website late in the evening seemed to indicate an improvement so another trip was on the cards for Thursday.

Thursday morning saw me on the bank before first light, in the gloom of dawn I thought things looked quite promising but stark reality hit home as time went on and more and more rubbish was seen making its way downstream. I poked a stick into the bank at water level for some reason even though it would only tell me the obvious and it did just than, an hor later and the water had crept up its length. The river was getting more coloured at quite a rate and I reluctantly decided to call it a day after three hours, not before a jack pike had given me the run around though.

Sometimes you really ought to just leave well alone and wait, unfortunately this addiction that I suffer makes that hard to bear though after a week like that I do look back and wonder about my sanity.

River Trent Perch - Back at the big girls

Wednesday the 10th of October

I had a hankering to get back at the river perching and after my zander session the Trent was the venue I had in mind, some friends have had some excellent results recently proving that the river holds a good head of perch and plenty of good sized fish over the 3lb mark and beyond. Three pounds plus is my benchmark for stripeys with a 4lber my ultimate target but I'll never complain at a "3", when perch get to that size they really do start to look big and though it's a tough decision I think they have to rate as my favourite species and rivers are by far my favourite place to catch them. My biggest perch came from a commercial stillwater and those venues are now well established as producing specimens. The downside is that the water in these venues is invariably constantly coloured due to the high stock levels of carp and as such the perch that live in them lose a lot of their vivid colouration, river fish rarely show this. River perching also usually means close in fishing which brings some intimacy, you can't beat watching the tip go round or float sink and then bending into a good fish right under your feet.

I didn't get to the river until about 4pm and with dusk falling at around 6.30 was anxious to get into a swim as soon as possible though I bumped into the bailiff just as I was about to leave the car park and ended up nattering for twenty minutes or so, another ten minutes walk to my chosen area followed and by the time I was set up and swinging the bait dropper out to the edge of a near bank tree time was getting on. On the smaller rivers I usually fish a light link ledger rig but with this swim being deeper and the current a little stronger I plumped for a blockend feeder which I filled with red maggots on each cast, chopped worm having already been introduced with the dropper and a lobworm impaled on the size four hook being the main course. I had my other rods that I use on Swithland with me and so decided to flick out a second rig which would be fished on an alarm and bobbin, that was positioned slightly further out on the edge of the flow.

I was feeling a little bit wound up after rushing to get to the river and then getting delayed but on the first cast the quiver tip knocked and then pulled round steadily and the stress soon forgotten as I hooked into a fish. A lively little tussle under the rod tip for a minute or two told me that it was a half decent fish but I wasn't certain that it was a perch until it surfaced right under my feet and allowed me to slip the net straight under it, at 2lb 9oz it was a good start in a new swim and a lovely looking fish too. I fired off a quick photo and slipped it back then got a bait back into position.

I was expecting more action from the tree but time passed by without so much of a twitch, then the Delkim on my other rod gave a few bleeps and I looked down to see the bobbin steadily rising, a small perch of about a pound was the culprit. To be honest that took me by surprise a bit, the quiver tip rod was in what I took to be by far the most likely spot to produce perch and the other bait was more of an afterthought. I kept both spots topped up on a regular basis but dusk passed without any other positive signs and it was fully dark just after 7pm when I checked my phone and started to think about getting packed up as I was sure that my chance had gone. The brolly was down and I was just putting the lids on the bait tubs when the bobbin rod signalled another bite and I struck into something much more energetic than the last fish. Another couple of minutes and I would have been on my way home but the flash of a substantial stripey flank in the torch light made me very thankful that I wasn't, the scales were pulled around to 3lb 1oz and again it was a cracking looking perch that put a smile on my face as I made my way back over the fields to the van.

Trent zander fishing

Tuesday the 2nd of October

With my limited attempts at banking a trent zander so far yielding a big fat zero myself and Steve decided to have a session on the river in an area that Steve knew had reasonable form for the species.

The River Trent is a bit of a strange one for me, I've lived within easy reach of the river for all of my life yet I pay it little attention even though as a kid I fished it with my Dad and Grandad long before I set foot on the banks of the River Soar. Once I got into angling in a big way then the Soar was the nearest easily accessible venue to me, it was even reachable by pushbike and so naturally that is where I gravitated to and spent a lot of time over the next few years. We still made the occaisional visit to the Trent and had some good days sports even though in retrospect we were woefully undertackled, I had no hesitation in lobbing a 2oz blockend feeder out on a nine foot Silstar picker rod, god only knows how it survived the experience! Since my interest in river fishing was re-kindled in the mid 2000's I have been well aware that the Trent offered some very good fishing and large fish to boot but somehow the intimacy of the smaller rivers holds me firmly in its grasp and the big brother remains very much on the back burner which is a shame really but as always there's so much I would like to do and so little time.

As is often the way I manged to get my timing bang on as it started spitting with rain as I loaded the van at 3pm and by the time I hit the motorway it was peeing down. Steve had arrived just before me and after a quick chat I plumped for a swim downstream of him that looked very much the part consisting of a large willow protruding from the near bank which created a substantial slack and of course a corresponding crease.

The first job was to snatch a few bleak for bait which wasn't too much trouble, in fact the hardest thing is usually making myself stop as I do enjoy watching the float dip no matter how small the culprit however the rain soon told me that I really should retreat to the umbrella and get the zander rods sorted out. In preparation for the session I had spoken to someone very knowledgeable on big river zeds and was very grateful for his advice, in simple terms hit anything that might possibly be a bite as they don't hang around and don't neccesarily give much indication. This all seems quite alien to me to be honest and I can't claim to have been very confident but confidence comes with experience and you don't get that if you don't try so it was in for a penny and all that. Half a bleak was hooked onto a single treble on each rod, a 3oz running lead sat above the trace and that was the extent of the rig, one bait was positioned on the crease and one slightly further out into the flow. The rods were set up with the tips high, Delkims on high sensitivity and isotopes fixed to the rod tips ready to show the slightest tap.

I sat back listening to the rain pattering down on my nylon mushroom and gazed at the swim, it really did look spot on for most species, a good depth close in next to that tree screamed perch, chub on that crease, pike in the slack, zander anywhere?   Steve popped down to see what was happening and reported no signs of toothy critters in his swim yet but as dusk was approaching there was plenty of hope left yet and we both setlled down to concentrate on our fishing. I had a few false alarms cause by bits of weed and debris coming down in the flow though they were just slow steady pulls that were pretty easy to interpret however an hour or so into dark the left hand rod tip started to tremble slightly, maybe only by an inch or so but it looked suspicious and I struck, though into thin air. The bait was missing and I was almost certain that it had been a genuine bite, Steve agreed that it was typical of zander and that was a start, on my other attempts after the species I haven't had a whisper, that though was that, not another sniff was had before we called it a night at around 9pm, failed again!

If you are still reading my ramblings you are probably starting to get a bit bored by now as I haven't caught anything of note for quite a while, I could of just brushed over these sessions of course but that wouldn't tell the full story, you have to take the rough with the smooth in this game but every tough session is one nearer to a result and I might just have something in store for my next blog, you never know!

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.