I left you last month just as I was embarking on what eventually became a short but very fruitful campaign in pursuit of the barbel population of a small midlands river; a very pretty and currently barbel-filled river that really captured my heart in the short time that I fished it. This was in no small part due to a run of good fish, which eventually culminated in the fish I really wanted, not once, but twice in the space of just a few days!
I recall thinking after my first non-fishing recce visit to the river how much it reminded me of the Great Ouse during its heyday during the nineties. A relatively small river, with abundant weed growth, clear water and deeper pools interspersed by long reaches of shallow riffle. The odd more ‘managed’ stretch where the dredgers had worked were there as well, but these areas were fortunately few and far between. Memories came flooding back of the many nights I had spent in my early twenties fishing for barbel on the Ouse, not realising back then of course just what the river would go on to produce. I wondered if many of the tactics that I had adopted 20 years ago would work as well on this river. A plan was starting to formulate in my head, I would fish here just as I had done all those years before.
What had I learnt during my time on the Ouse? Well many things, but several that I think are relevant to any angler fishing smallish rivers where the barbel see a lot of anglers. Now, I am in no way suggesting that barbel are particularly clever fish, far from it in fact, but they do learn how to avoid capture, there are ways around this that rely on approaching the fishing a little differently and here, in no particular order, are the components of the plan that I put together:
• Fish right through the night – of course barbel can be caught at any time of the day, but they are most catchable at night. Normally this is the first hour or two into darkness, with another opportunity at dawn, but angler pressure can alter this. If a lot of anglers are fishing the evenings, then the barbel will start to feed later in the night. Often from midnight onwards, when the banks are quieter.
• Actually fish at night – what I mean by this is keep bait going into the swim right through the night and keep as attentive and alert as possible. There is a sub-culture in barbel fishing that is about casting the rods out and leaving them on alarms all night. This will catch some fish, and I have absolutely no problem with people doing it (I use alarms myself), but you will catch a lot more fish if you are actually working through the night and not just setting traps (this goes for carp fishing too!).
• Feed little and often – this really follows on from the point above. Putting out a bed of hemp and boilies for the night gives barbel an opportunity to feed leisurely and become choosy. Introducing a couple of pouchfuls of hemp into the head of the swim every ten minutes or so keeps bait trundling around, interesting the barbel, but without feeding them.
• Use effective rigs – Small hooks, long hooklengths, and semi-fixed leads give you maximum potential to get a pick-up from a barbel and a good hook-hold. Simple, uncomplicated and they work! I have tried fishing ‘my’ rigs against those complicated rigs from other anglers, and if I thought I would catch more using them then I would be on it like a shot, but to put it bluntly, they are rubbish!
• Use a good bait and use enough of it – I wanted to use a boilie hook bait and after a lot of thought and messing about in the garage settled on a simple homemade bait that would be very attractive, but the barbel would not have seen before. This was basically NashBait Monster Pursuit base mix with 200 grams of liquidised frozen Marine Nutrition krill added to three eggs and then mixed into a paste. The big ball of paste was then flattened to about half an inch think and boiled to make flat lumps of bait that could be broken up into bits. Using this untried bait was a gamble, but fortunately the krill proved as effective for barbel as it had for other species.
• Fish when the conditions are right. During my time on the river there really wasn’t a time when the conditions were wrong! A little bit of extra water and low angler numbers meant I just went whenever I had time.
• Fish with confidence – Apart from the untested bait, I had absolute confidence in what I was doing. I knew that if I could find the fish then I would catch them, simple as that. There would be no chopping and changing, no worrying about the tactics; I would just get on a fish as hard and as often as possible.
I fished a total of seven nights over a period of three weeks and had action from barbel every night. I actually find staying up all night very easy, loving the peace and quiet, and the feeling of being the only soul out in the night for miles around, but the days after are a nightmare! In my Ouse days I would pack up in the morning and go straight to work, often fishing three or four nights a week. Now that would just not be physically possible – one night and I’m knackered for two days!
The fish started off big, and kept getting bigger, eventually topped by the queen of the river, and a new personal best into the bargain. The weight was immaterial really; I had caught the fish that had made me want to fish the river in the first place, even if it was at a typical summer weight.
It was good fishing whilst it lasted, and there were more big fish to be caught, but on my eighth visit the river told me my time was up. After a very early start and three hour drive on a Friday morning to reach Nash HQ for a meeting, I then faced a gruelling six hour drive back up the motorway to finally reach the river during the evening.
I had resolved to fish an area someway upstream, and as I toiled with my gear up the bank I noticed a chap a few paces ahead of me on the opposite bank. I quickened my pace, but of course he stopped exactly opposite where I wanted to fish (and the only barbelly spot for some distance). After nine hours of driving, and now being soaking wet with sweat, I decided enough was enough and headed for home.
There were still two weeks before my next planned campaign would commence, so what to do?
I wanted to relax a little after the long nights, so decided to spend some time prospecting on a couple of new venues that could not be more different. The first was the tidal reaches of the mighty River Severn. Here I plan to fish through the winter and early spring for zander, and a few days spent out in the boat now would give me plenty of useful information. The second venue was the upper reaches of a river across the border in Wales. Potentially home to some very big grayling, this would be another venue that would benefit from time spent now in reconnaissance before the winter set in.
Results so far have been good, with some nice fish caught, but more importantly so much information picked up for future use. It has certainly been a useful couple of weeks that will stand me in good stead for the winter.
As I finish up this month there is a lot to look forward as the reservoirs of East Anglia are open for predator fishing, and I’ve got the chance to get back out boat fishing on big waters. The hot summer may make it tricky to start with though as the water temperature will have remained sky-high and fishing will be difficult for a few weeks, so I have tempered my plans, at least early on and a few more sessions on the river will keep me busy, along with lots of underwater filming now that the water clarity is improving and the light still good.
