Moonlighting for Barbel

Wol and his 15lb 14oz Gt Ouse barbel taken on a moonlit night (click for bigger picture)

I started with two rods, one mid river and one fished almost under my feet. I seemed to concentrate more on the close in rod. Why this was I don’t know but I eventually reeled in the other rod to concentrate on this one.

A one ounce backlead and a 3 ounce clock lead set four feet from the back lead would hold nicely in the slacker water under my feet.

‘Boilie Spaghetti’

I trickled in what I would describe as boilie spaghetti. Its the boilie mix when its initially extruded. DT Bait Developments do my bait for me and rather than have it all rolled and made into boilies I have some of it boiled straight from the extruder. These I will trickle in every ten minutes or so up steam and hopefully judging it so they scatter around my bait and just downsteam from it. Hopefully enticing any fish that might be that bit farther down up and into the vicinity of my bait.

“I was taking shots of the full moon on the digital camera……..” (click for bigger picture)

A PVA bag is filled with spaghetti, crumbled boilies and whole boilies. This is hooked on a size 4 hook to some peeled back Kryston Snakeskin. Bait is a hair-rigged DT Oily Chicken boilie.

What a beautiful warm night it was. I was sat in my chair in just a long sleeved sweater taking some night shots of the full moon on the digital camera. Basically just playing around with the settings to see what the results were like.

“I had literally just taken a shot of the rod tip isotope and it lunged round” (click for bigger picture)

I had literally just taken a shot of the rod tip isotope and it lunged round, no real need to ‘strike’ as the fish was hooked.

Not a great scrap but for 15 minutes the fish sat mid river and I stood with the Harrison completely hooped over and let the clutch do the work as and when it wanted to.

I knew it was without doubt a big fish and just kept enough pressure on for it to tire without letting it go all over the place. Inch by inch the fish came up from the depths and with rod arched to the maximum I managed to net it first go at full stretch (I must get a longer handle).

Oh yes, what a cracking fish!

With nobody else around I removed the hook in the net and set the camera up ready for some self takes and got the weighing kit out.

She goes 15.14 and after a few clicks with the remote she’s returned to the murky depths of the river.

Another satisfying result on the Chicken.