I have been fishing this particular stretch of the dove for the past three seasons with lots of fish up to 8lb 8oz. At the start of this season I made a decision to concentrate my efforts elsewhere for the summer and autumn and fish this stretch during the winter months only. The reason is that this stretch receives a lot of angling pressure during the summer months and I didn't fancy competing with half a dozen other anglers every time I fished.
Joe and his first Dove PB of a memorable session - 11lb 5oz (click for bigger picture)
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A friend of mine, Paul France, had been fishing and baiting up with a secret recipe bait that we both use but to no avail. I managed to book four days off work just after Christmas during the beginning of an extremely mild spell for this time of year.
On the Friday morning I set off early to beat the rush hour traffic and baited a few swims as soon as I got to the water, using only four or five boilies in each swim.
The water temperature was 46 degrees F and rising - perfect! The first swim I dropped in had an overhanging bush and I figured this would be a good first choice as the river was running fairly clear as it seems to have been for most of the season.
Five minutes after the first cast, wham, the rod hooped over and after a short but powerful fight a barbel of about 7½ lb was safely netted and returned. Five minutes later and the same again, only this time the hook pulled. After this the swim went quiet so a move was required.
Next swim was a deep hole with an eddy directly in front of me, I cast out into the mid river deep water and in the next two casts I had two chub, both around 4 pound. I cast in again and after around 10 mins I started to get line bites, so sitting on my hands I waited patiently. Twenty minutes later the rod slammed over and an obviously big fish had picked up my hookbait.
Joe and his second Dove PB - 11lb 14oz (click for bigger picture)
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Result! At 11lb 5oz it was a new personal best Dove barbel.
I had two more barbel from that swim weighing 8lb 12oz and 9lb 6oz. So it was on to the last and my banker swim, where I just knew a fish was going to come from. It was just a question of how big.
With the light totally gone I sat there alone on one of the most windy yet warm nights of the year so far. When the bite came I suspected a chub until I felt the weight of it. The fish came in after a fairly hectic fight and at first I thought it was going to go over 12lb but the scales settled at 11lb 14oz. It was another Dove PB in the same session.
I returned to the river on the Monday, after knowing that nobody had caught a barbel all weekend, to catch three more weighing 11lb 2oz, 8lb 4oz and 9lb 12 oz.
