I had been hoping to break my personal best barbel of 14lb during the course of this season but for one reason or another, the fish on my chosen venue were just not playing ball. They seemed to have vanished and, with miles of inaccessible river for them to hide in, it could have taken me multiple seasons to find them, let alone to catch one so a change of plan was necessary.
I have known for several years about small pockets of fish on several different rivers that would beat my target hands down but I’ve never been one for chasing individual fish as a rule but, with the likelihood of achieving my target on my chosen venue slim, it was time to do some homework and to look further afield.
My new club ticket arrived just in time for a huge low pressure front that was shifting across the country from the south west, bringing with it lots of warm wind and rain, so I just had to get out for a session. As I drove along the motorway I found myself questioning my sanity; I was being buffeted by strong winds and the sheet rain meant I could barely see 20 yards in front of me! Coupled with the fact I was heading to a venue I’d never fished before that was sure to be rising I was set for one hell of a challenge. This could be fun.
Arriving at my chosen venue I was soon loaded up with gear and following the course of the river downstream, I’d spoken to a few friends so knew the general area I wanted to be in but would the swims be fishable?
The first one I came to had an angler already in situ and it didn’t look particularly safe anyway should the river rise more than two feet. After a quick hello I carried on and soon came to a swim with a slightly higher bank that had a nice steady flow a rod length out and a slack right off the rod top which gave me plenty of water to explore with two rods. I’d already formulated a plan of attack and as the swim had evidence of having being fished recently my plan seemed the ideal approach. With this being a heavily pressured venue the fish were used to seeing bait and having lines in the water so a little lateral thinking was required.
After a quick lead around I found there to be 4-5 feet of water right off the rod top, less than a foot from the bank. I could present two baits, ten yards apart on this clean marginal bottom with ease, and out of the main flow that was bringing plenty of debris downstream. I put out a single bait dropper of hemp at the head and tail of the swim then got tackled up; I felt it important not to give the barbel much to eat as I was unaware how much the previous angler had introduced but I felt it was important to just give them something to get them rooting around, but with minimal feed content.
Before long I was set up and ready and lowered in a single boilie hookbait with a tiny PVA mesh bag of just two crushed boilies onto the spots I was fishing. The plan was simple: every half an hour I’d break two boilies in half and flick them down the margin, then every hour I’d replace the hookbaits with fresh ones and fresh bags of boilie crumb.
This enabled me to clean off any debris that had collected on the line and ensure I had fresh, highly attractive bait on the hook at regular intervals. Fishing in this manner I find it important to keep disturbance to an absolute minimum, especially when fishing the margins so I employed 2oz leads and, rather than casting, I lowered my baits extremely gently onto the spots then walked my rods back up the bank as gently as possible and carefully put them on the rests. This might seem a bit OCD but when fishing for big fish on a new venue I wanted to stack the odds in my favour.
Several hours went by before the left hand rod let out a flurry of beeps on the alarm and the rod bent double in the rest, just nodding before a little more line was taken and the rod bent more. I suppose I could have been forgiven for thinking this was debris but it seemed too purposeful. Lifting the rod and disengaging the Baitrunner I felt a hefty thump transmit through the rod and it was ‘fish on’.
The barbel didn’t do too much at first, just plodding around under the rod tip but then all of a sudden it was off and to save being flat-rodded I quickly loosened the clutch and gave her some line. All of a sudden I was in a whole world of trouble as the fish was just under the surface in mid river with all manner of debris coming downstream and my line clogged with streamer weed…
I held on and gently coaxed her back into the margin and this was when I saw the sheer size of her and it’s safe to say panic started to set in, this was a fish of a lifetime and I couldn’t allow her to get back into the main flow – I was attached to one of the biggest barbel in the UK and to lose her would have been heart-breaking. It was just a case of being firm and confident that my knots and gear were up to the job and, thankfully, they were.
After a tense few minutes of to-ing and fro-ing under the rod top the fish rolled on the surface and was in the mesh of my landing net. I checked she was ok and promptly turned into a gibbering wreck, sitting in the mud just completely awestruck.
I made sure she was safe and comfortable then sorted myself out and got the mat, camera and weighing equipment ready and upon lifting her from the water I realised she was not just big, but VERY big; when the scales spun round to the unknown territory of over 17lb I had to compose myself in order to get an accurate reading which came out at the mind blowing weight of 17lb 10oz.
I was, and still am, blown away, my first trip and first bite on a new venue resulted in something I never thought would happen. I gave a shout to the angler in the next swim down and to his credit he did an awesome job with the pictures so if by any chance you are reading this, thank you very much mate! After the pics were done I rested her in the net for a while and then dropped the rim of the net and with a flick of the tail she was off.
I was in two minds whether to pack up or not so firing up the kettle I sat back and let what I’d just achieved sink in. I gave it a few more hours but with the river threatening to break the banks I packed up and headed off home a very, very happy angler.
