A new PB for Stuart on an exceptionally short evening session

[BoldBear]

Because I had been away during August bank holiday I hadn’t managed to get out onto the stream for a couple of weeks and I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms; so last night after work my son Stuart and I decided to have another short evening session on our local stream.

We got there at around 6pm and after walking the stretch looking for signs of Barbel and talking to other anglers we eventually settled on our swims.

Of course I had to give Stuart the better swim as it is his first season in the club and I wanted him to get a few Barbel under his belt and maybe beat his personal best.

Below is the swim I chose. (I didn't get a shot of Stuarts swim)


It doesn't show in the picture but the current and deeper water swept across the stream to just in front of me and along the near bank after having been squeezed through a narrower section just above me.

About half an hour after we had settled into our swims Stuart wandered down to me with a big grin on his face and carryng a Barbel in his landing net.
We put it into the water while we found the scales then weighed it.
It was Stuarts personal best a nice looking Barbel of 6lb 12oz. (see picture below).



I thought to myself that Stuart should beat his PB again fairly soon as we often catch 8 or 9 pounders on this stretch and a low doubles are occasionally caught by a few, especially now that September has arrived.

Stuart said that he had lost another Barbel because of a weak point in his line, he had cast and was just about to place his rod in its rest when the line shot off and after a few seconds his line broke even before it was under real strain.

At around 7:30pm my rod bent suddenly as a Barbel tried to make its way into faster water and work upstream but I managed to stop it and turn its head downstream and after a few heartstopping moments managed to land a nice conditioned Barbel of 7lb. (see picture below).



At 8pm the light had not yet started to fade and we were were looking forward to fishing through to dusk, but as we were now into September I thought I had better look at my permit just to see what time we had to be off of the water thinking that we still had another hour to fish at least, but to my horror on the permit it said we had to be off the water by 8:15pm; so we had to hurriedly pack up and get off the water even though it was not yet dusk and we had only started fishing a little over 1½ hours ago.

Although neither of the Barbel were huge for this stream; at least we had both had a good Barbel each in the 1.5 hours we had fished and Stuart had beaten his PB again.

We will be going back on Sunday afternoon to get a longer session and I suspect that Stuart will beat his personal best yet again; I might even beat mine for this stream if Isaac is looking down kindly on me.

Tight Lines

Keith (BoldBear)

[Fishing Forum Admin]

lovely barbel

[PikeHunter]

Cracking fish Keith! Well done. Looks a lovely spot as well

[Baz T]

Nice pair of barbel, and it looks a really nice river too

[NICK R]

Two tidy fish there and a new pb as well

cracking looking stretch of river

[fishypaul]

well done keith and stuart . good fish there guys

[barbus maximus]

Well done to you both, cracking fish.....and always worth the effort

jk

[scottish_and_mental]

love the look of the place - makes me wish i was 12 again and building dens in the undergrowth or tree huts lol.
Is it a quiet area in general ? looks like a great spot for mr kingfisher ..

[Maddison_Twatter]

well done to you both especially Stuart on the PB

[BoldBear]

Originally Posted by scottish_and_mental

love the look of the place - makes me wish i was 12 again and building dens in the undergrowth or tree huts lol.
Is it a quiet area in general ? looks like a great spot for mr kingfisher ..

Yes there are kingfishers that zoom up and down through the day, Parts of the fishery are very popular but there is a mile of stream that most anglers don't fish simply because they don't like to venture far from the car park and there are some cracking spots along that part.