Well…
I eventually managed to fulfil my intention for a first day on the river yesterday but it was by no means a cert.
Having just finished twelve straight days at work which saw starts as early as 3.30am and up to eleven hour shifts, whilst hosting the largest golfing event the country has seen since the easing of lockdown with two hundred going out, followed by a regional alliance day immediately after, I elected not to call by the tackle shop for bait on the way home from work on Friday, such was my tiredness.
Saturday morning and yep, up at 4am with the bloody body clock!
Not to worry, I spent the morning mooching around and doing the odd job before wandering into the garage without any real intent, more a case of boredom if anything. A quick glance at the time revealed it was midday and I causally began to pace around, picking up a reel here, looking at a box of floats there and taking out a rod just to give it a waggle.
I was kind of gradually talking myself into it and an inquisitive glance into the bait drawer revealed, amongst other things, a tin of meat and some 14mm halibut pellets.
Before long the reel had been attached to the Avon rod and I was threading line, a heavy Avon float was rigged up to carry hair rigged baits and I was back in the kitchen pronto to make some sarnies, before I knew it I was enjoying a pleasant conversation with Kev during the drive over there and I was on the riverbank by early afternoon.
The Barbel are typically late starters in these parts but a couple of feet of extra water gave me hope and I set about trundling a slider Avon through tight to the nearside bank in around eight feet of water (I needed the slider as a fixed float caused issues under a low canopy of trees) and before long I was into my first Barbel of the season.
Safely netted and kindly photographed for me by a passer-by and it wasn’t long before I was in again.
Without going into the details I continued on until dusk, taking seven Barbel and two Chub but I will say that overshotting the float in order that I had to 'hold it up' and therefore slow it down as it went through seemed to be the way they wanted it.
.
The Chub were around three and three and a half pounds apiece, the Barbel ranged from a small fish around three pounds to two upper singles and four doubles, the best of which went 11-14 (would have made 12 if an otter hadn't had part of his tail for breakfast!) and 11-8 with the last of them coming not long before 9pm to complete my own version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Quite fitting on the longest day of the year and certainly the best opening session I’ve had…
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