Sorry about the asterisks in the title but this could be a touchy subject.

Me and Eddie Bibby had another dabble with the margin poles last week, but fished a different water to the ones we usually fish.

This one has a decent (or should that be indecent?) stock of barbel, and it's a stillwater. To compound the sin it's also a dug-out, albeit a long time ago, canal-like fishery built especially for match fishing.

Our mate Eric came along with us and fished...

Enjoyed another late afternoon/evening's fishing with EC on the upper Trent.


10lb 1oz barbel from the upper Trent

We went to a different stretch this time and didn't really expect to catch much being as the water was so low and clear, hence the late arrival at around 5pm so we wouldn't have to wait long until it went dark, giving us our best chance....

Forgot to tell you about this one, it was caught a couple of weeks ago. Luckily I'd stepped up to 10lb line on the pole as I was targeting the bigger fish with bigger baits.

Anyway, I'll keep it brief, but I managed to catch a carp on the margin pole that must have been around 20lb. I didn't have any scales with me as I don't catch anything I'm interested in weighing when I'm pole fishing, but on this occasion I wished I had taken them with me.

It took me about 20 minutes...

Over the past few years FishingMagic has raised several thousand pounds for charity through the Charity Carp Fish-in and James Farrow Memorial and this year was no exception.

Most of the donations come via Cakey's Charity Auction where members donate tackle and other items and several members offer a day out. And so it was with me, I offered a day's fly fishing or barbel fishing and Dave Bassett, who made the highest bid for the second time, chose to go fly fishing.

...

Along with Eddie Cardus I made my third barbel fishing trip of this season and used the rod presented to me by FishingMagic's members when I retired from full time editing this web site.

We went to a stretch I knew on the upper Trent, one that I hadn't fished for several years and one I visited only infrequently as it had very poor access, so poor in fact that if it rained for several days it was...